The talk will draw from Sevanti Ninan's forthcoming book that is based on her fieldwork in eight Hindi-speaking states in central and northern India. In the 1990s, a newspaper revolution began blowing across India. When literacy levels rose, communications expanded, and purchasing power climbed in these Hindi-speaking states, newspapers followed, picking up readers in small towns and villages. Even while these new media surged to the top of national readership charts, they localized furiously in the race for readers. But in this universe of local news, questions arose about what localization was doing to regional identity and consciousness. Her work is set against the socio-economic and political changes in the countryside, telling a story of how journalism flowered in unexpected and unorthodox ways, and colorful media marketing unfurled in the Hindi heartland.
Sevanti Ninan is currently a columnist based in New Delhi writing on media for The Hindu and the Hindustan and founder-editor of The Hoot.org, a South Asian media watch website. She began her career at the Hindustan Times and has been development correspondent, special correspondent, and magazine editor at the Indian Express. Her books include Through the Magic Window: Television and Change in India (Penguin India, 1995); Plain Speaking with Chandrababu Naidu (Viking, 2000); and Rajasthan (Roli Books 1980). Her forthcoming book on the Hindi press, Headlines from the Heartland: Reinventing the Hindi Public Sphere will be published by Sage Publications in April-May 2007. She was educated at the University of Madras and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Sevanti will be in residence at Center for the Advanced Study of India until February 12th.