This weekend, two flexo flag-wavers dropped in: Mahesh Kode of Dupont and Shrihari Rao of EskoArtwork. After trading market information, the conversation veered to the recent scams.
From Adarsh Society to CWG to the 2G spectrum scam.
We ran through the scams that have disgraced this country. Bofors, Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh scam, JMM bribery, fodder scam, the arms bribery scandal, Satyam scam, cash in Parliament during vote of confidence. Scams in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab, UP.
The list is endless. And that got me thinking about scams in the print industry. The biggest is the Telgi scam. The size of the scam is estimated to be more than Rs 43,000 crore.
Telgi, whose life unfolds like a John Grisham novel, was a travel agent, who provided labour.
Telgi was arrested in 1991 by the Mumbai police for fraud. During his prison sentence, he learned the art of forgery from an expert. He was released. In 1994, he acquired a stamp paper licence from the Government of India.
Telgi began printing fake stamp paper. He appointed 300 people as agents who sold the fakes to bulk purchasers, including banks, FIs, insurance companies, and share-broking firms. His monthly profits were Rs 202 crore.
There are smaller scams in our industry:
- Printing duplicates of top brands
- Delivery vans which vanish in transit
- Under-invoicing and over-quoting
- Setting up sister companies to evade taxes
- Smuggle spare parts through green channel
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Zeta is exclusively distributed by Java I received the packaging issue of PrintWeek India (5 November). And it was a very very interesting read. I don’t think I have spent as much time with a magazine as I have spent with your latest issue! Thank you.
Just like to point out one small error. In the buyer’s guide multipupose paper section the Zeta brand contact has been incorrectly attributed to PaperCo. It is exclusively distributed by us in India.
Sagar Java, Java Paper Group
Deepika Arwind in Manipur
Last month, PrintWeek India’s Bengaluru correspondent, Deepika Arwind was in Imphal in Manipur.
She sent us pictures of Babita (in picture) reading a newspaper. Deepika sent us an eMail: "Babita, one of the thousands of women vendors at the Ima Kethiel (Mother’s Market) in Imphal is reading Poknapham, a widely circulated daily in Manipur."
Arwind adds: There are a dozen newspapers in Manipur, of which two are English-language dailies: Imphal Free Press and The Sangai Express. The newspapers in Manipur, perhaps more than any other state in India, are instruments of democracy, consistently critiquing both the state and non-state political players. Their existence is threatened by militant outfits. On November 22, the papers were not allowed to hit the news stands because of threats.
Hence Babita’s act of reading the newspaper in the market is an important one. It underscores the importance of democracy - and the power of print. – Editor
Printer’s Devil at the PWI Office
We get visitors to our office. One of them got a travel magazine. The person, a print technocrat, jabbed at a dot shape. It had a curious shape. It was an ellipse – with a hole in the centre. What is it?
The magazine, eye glass, and the miscreant dot was passed around. What could it be? HD printing? AM? FM? Offset? Flexo? Gravure? Our production head, said: "It can’t be gravure. It is unviable to use light coated paper printing with gravure".
His anti-gravure comment was countered by our all-knowing news editor, who showed him an Ikea catalogue produced on 38 gsm paper.
Our assistant editor said: "It does not look like flexo. If it is flexo, the pressure is light. Normally one would see a light line near the edge of a flexo dot where the edge of the dot on the flexo plate contacts the paper. Just outside that circular line is a ring of heavy ink, which is from the ink extruded out from under the dot. I don’t see it."
"The magenta is distorted. The magenta is out," said our online editor mouthing his standard dialogue.
All of us sat around like philosophers around a camp fire.
Our ad sales business manager, Priya Iyer wondered what the fuss was. She picked up the magazine: "Guys, I know what this dot is. It’s a badly printed out of registration job." Priya Iyer was right. We stared at her. And returned to our desks.
If you’ve a print story to share, an incident that made you smile or an occurence on the shopfloor, email to somya@haymarket.co.in
CELEBSPEAK: Rajdeep Sardesai loves The Express and Economist
Rajdeep Sardesai, editor in chief of IBN 18 – which is owned by Television Eighteen India – has two favourite print jobs: The Indian Express and The Economist.
Interestingly, Sardesai, born in 1965, had a five year stint with The Times of India as its City Editor in Mumbai. Plus he has a column in the Hindustan Times.
Sardesai admires The Indian Express for its investigative reports. Its coverage of the murder of an engineer working on the national highway project got the Supreme Court to commit to a whistleblower law. Its campaign also helped to enact the Right to Information Act in 2005.
Sardesai is credited with making a start up channel like CNN IBN a success. Plus mentoring the Hindi and Marathi channels. The channels are part of the Network 18 group, the largest news television group in India.
(Data compiled by PrintWeek India from its sister publication – Campaign India’s A List)
