Khatola Tribune

When he complained about the lack of substance in newspapers, writer Vikram Seth was asked to be the Editor of ToI for a day.

Given that ToI isn’t quite a paragon of journalistic virtue, it comes as no surprise that Seth was able to come up with a strong critique:

Seth meticulously critiqued all the other editions as well, and tarried a little longer on the Mumbai front page. “I notice they’ve carried my picture with Aamir Khan bigger than Delhi has. Maybe because Aamir is a Mumbai boy. But frankly, I wouldn’t have taken this photo at all. I would much rather have carried the big picture of Saddam sitting in court inside a cage. While I recognise that you need to generate a certain amount of hype. I’d have been more comfortable if my photo hadn’t been taken on the front page at all.” Then came the self-deprecatory quip that he invariably uses to take the sting off every critical remark: “Besides, it wasn’t even my best picture. I look like I have three chins, and quite bald.

But clearly the three chins camouflage an enormous intellect. Or would that be the bald cranium?

The Times of India: Editor Vikram Seth- The Times of India

When you see this:

HUNDREDS of people flocked to a village in central India overnight to see if an astrologer who forecast his own death would indeed die as predicted.

You know this is coming:

But the 75-year-old man survived.

…followed by this:

Kunjilal Malviya, who lives south of the Madhya Pradesh state capital Bhopal, had been meditating in his house after announcing he would die between 7.30pm and 9.30pm (AEST) Thursday.p> A police official confirmed the astrologer was fine and quoted his family members as saying the prediction failed because many of those gathered had prayed for him to live.

The Daily Telegraph | Astrologer survives ‘death’