Date:26/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/26/stories/2007072660061000.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Undavalli to launch a weekly

Staff Reporter

‘Ee Vaaram’ to project ‘right news’

TIRUPATI: Member of Parliament, Rajahmundry, Undavalli Arunkumar is back in the news. After hogging the limelight for beating a couple of regional dailies, he is now back with an announcement to float a weekly magazine himself.

Titled ‘Ee Vaaram’ (This week), the magazine would project the ‘right news’, he said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

Indicating that he was seriously seized of the issue, the MP recalled that he had been the publisher of a single-sheet fortnightly in Rajahmundry, but subsequently dropped it after finding it economically unsustainable.

FDI questioned

Launching a broadside at the journalist-turned-publisher of a Telugu daily, he asked “While the going was indeed tough for me, how could the media organisation mobilise funds to run the daily and who is pumping in the funds from behind?” Similarly, he said that Eenadu editor Ramoji Rao had opposed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in media as the chairman of Editors’ Guild during the NDA regime, but was now going ahead to sell 26 per cent stake to Blackstone. Making it clear that he had nothing to do with the firm’s business policy, Mr.Arunkumar sought to know the reason behind the sudden shift in Mr.Rao’s stand.