India Really Has A Magazine Called 'Bureaucracy Today' - And It's Perfect

India's bureaucracy has repeatedly been named the worst in Asia. In fact the term bureaucracy is often used synonymously with corruption in India, while it other parts of the world it refers more to red tape.

So it's fascinating and wonderful to see a magazine focused entirely on bureaucracy with the fantastically blunt title "bureaucracy today."

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Bureaucracy Today was launched in March 2009 by Suhaib A Ilyasi, who famously launched a television show called India's Most Wanted in 1999. The magazine claims to have a readership of over 600,000. Its website also declares that its readers are responsible for over 70% of India's GDP. The magazine costs Rs. 50 (about $0.93).

So, we decided to get a copy of the publication and look through it to see what's inside. The magazine was nearly impossible to find in Mumbai, the nation's financial capital. Every news vendor and book store I visited stared back at me quizzically. A friend tracked down a copy in Delhi, home to India's political capital, New Delhi, and brought it with her to Mumbai.

I expected the magazine to have at least one investigative piece, considering its subhead reads "fearless journalism, our habit, our history!" That isn't however what I found inside. Instead it's a very straightforward take on the latest things happening in Bureaucracy.

An Indian Express article published almost a year after Bureaucracy Today's launch dubbed it and other magazines centered on bureaucracy "feelgood journalism for the babu." When used in the pejorative 'babu' refers to a corrupt bureaucrat.