I chose Business Line

Most of us find it difficult to find the right source of information. I'm no exception. I was looking for a good source of business news that comes in print media. I chose to test Business Line and Business Standard. I didn't choose Economic Times because manier times, they exaggerate news or they publish speculated news (rumours). Moreover, I didn't like Times of India publication that is from the same group. I didn't choose Financial Express because it didn't contain enough information on stock markets or commodities. But the columns and editorials appearing in Financial Express are worth reading. You can very well find those columns and editorials in Financial Express' website.

Following are my observations on Business Line and Business Standard while testing them for the past 2 weeks:

Business Line(BL)

1. Good analysis of day-to-day price movement in stocks, IPOs and derivatives
   
2. Q&A Section on stock specific queries. It also had a mock of 2-3 persons speaking about the speculated news on stocks (I don't go by this mock or Q&A section but then I enjoy them.)
3. Enough information on commodities and corporate news
   
4. Good presentation
   

Business Standard (BS)

1. No good analysis on day-to-day price movments in stocks and derivatives. But it had a good analysis of IPOs
2. Too much information on commodities
3. Free copy of BS Motoring that I don't need
4. Monthly publication of Smart Investor. But the information I get in this publication can be easily got elsewhere and I don't need this every month.
5. Their presentation style doesn't match with Business Line
6. Most importantly, I was irked by the following errors
• News on IISCO merging with SAIL - It was mentioned that SAIL had workforce of 1,26,827 and IISCO had workforce of 16,218. Then they said the total workforce adds upto gargantuan 2,89,037. => I don't know which number to believe! :( I don't want to see the same set of errors for
• News on Hutch IPO and its shareholding - BS said Hutch is valued at 9000 crore. And it also mentioned that Hucth had added 1200 crore from the acquisition of Aircel. This is ridiculous. Hutch-Aircel was called of long-time back. Are these guys not aware of this information? What carelessness!
• News titled "State owned Telecom firms lag in quality". But the news below this had description of the organisational changes in the top level in SAIL and IISCO. No professionalism.

Sometimes I find spelling mistakes in both BL and BS. But I can live with them. In the end, I found BL to be more reliable and more readable. And, BL doesn't give too much information. Now, I buy only Business Line.