20 May 2011
It is not often one finds a letter to editor, taking on the editorial. Today, The Tribune has published one such sharp letter on its editorial on recent petrol price hike.
Take a clue- “The editorial is most disappointing. It seems the Government of India has written the editorial and The Tribune has published it. Playing with the statistics by the governments to mislead the people is understandable but to play in the hands of government agencies..The editorial should have highlighted the example of the US where the retail price of gasoline (petrol) is $4 per gallon which works out to be only Rs 40 per litre. The how a price of Rs. 70 per litre can be justified in India? The planted stories of losses and under-recoveries are just a gimmick”.
This is not the first time The Tribune has come under fire.
Take a clue from a letter published in Panjabee (Lahore) 1906.
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE TRIBUNE
An Urgent Appeal for a National Daily from Lahore
SIR, For a time it was my will and determination not to write on the subject what forms the head –note of this letter; but seeing that human patience must have an end, and that public feeling cannot be outraged with impurity beyond a certain limit, I take up my pen to place my views on the subject before the public with the hope that the newspaper reading people of the province will give their thought consideration to this important matter.
Everyone of the educated Panjabees owes a great deal to The Tribune and I being one of the number, it pains me very much, indeed, to find that I have to write in this strain about that paper, which till the other day, was the object of my admiration and love. I have all my life been a constant reader and ardent admirer of The Tribune..for a long time it fought alone & single handed, the battles of the popular cause.
Instead of being a fearless ”exponent of the educated public opinion of the Punjab,”...it now fritter away it energies in decrying the action and blackening the characters of those who do not happen to agree with its new- fangled fancies. It is no longer a Tribune of the People at all, we, the Panjabees, cannot conceive of greater slur on the fair name of Sardar Dyal Singh than conducting the paper, founded by him, on the lines on which is being conducted at present, And to the people of Punjab...The Tribune is no longer satisfies the requirement of the public , and the Punjab is again without a national daily. The need of the p[province is to have a well conducted daily paper, which should read correctly the signs of the time and should voice fully and interpret rightly the sentiments and aspirations of the people.
Panjabee (Lahore) 9 June 1906