Literacy in the country is reported to be increasing year after year. In one of the States, it is claimed to be 100 per cent, where virtually no one can be found without reading one daily or the other, including all types of periodicals in English language too, not to forget that there is no rural-urban divide in the matter of people of the State getting their daily dose of whatever appears in print, both words and graphics of all that is happening across the country. People seem to be lapping up with unbridled excitement and curiosity the (mis)demeanour of politicos, ever active in squabbling, toppling Governments, party-hopping, fraudulent deals, criminal acts, verbal spats, mostly, using words of mutual accusation as well as charges of amassing wealth by plundering public funds in the name of development projects, taking care to exaggerate the cost estimate providing ample scope for siphoning cash to personal pockets in crores, with the land’s masses unconcerned even as they read about the goings in the dailies, thanks to ever alert journos.
The land’s whatever sections get to read one or the other daily in any of the nation’s languages may have their share of grist for gossiping, but the illiterate millions are not laggards for gossiping thanks to near-100-percent penetration of the television, a number of them telecasting 24 x 7 so that nobody misses the daily dose.
