India Uncut

This blog has moved to its own domain. Please visit IndiaUncut.com for the all-new India Uncut and bookmark it. The new site has much more content and some new sections, and you can read about them here and here. You can subscribe to full RSS feeds of all the sections from here. This blogspot site will no longer be updated, except in case of emergencies, if the main site suffers a prolonged outage. Thanks - Amit.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

On straps, and enterprising NRIs

A strap, in journalistic parlance, is the line that comes below a headline and above a story, that sets out in brief what the story is about, and expands on the headline. The headline attracts the reader's attention; the strap then closes the sale and leads him to the piece. It is also sometimes called a one-liner.

For an example of a good, functional strap/one-liner, click here. The headline says, "Stop here for books". Enough to draw a curious glance from the reader. The strap says: "An NRI librarian abandons hope of Punjab ever setting up public libraries. He starts a lending library in a bus that makes weekly trips to villages."

Good strap. And a terrific story about a gentleman named Dr Jaswant Singh, who is starting a chain of mobile libraries in the villages of Punjab so that kids have a place where they can read some books. This is the kind of private initiative that can have greater effect than many government plans to start libraries – if any exist. Now if only they made it as easy to start schools.
amit varma, 11:13 AM| write to me | permalink | homepage

I recommend: