Various large-size posters were distributed free of cost with the Tehelka newspaper. These simple, starkly designed posters had messages like ‘Banned Medicines Availabe’ ‘Bribes Gladly Accepted’ ‘Black Tickets Sold Here’ (in India various cinema theatres are involved in creating artificial shortages and selling tickets of popular movies at prohibitive prices). Readers were urged to paste these posters at places where they experienced such corrupt activities, thus bringing them out in the open in very embarrassing fashion.

The investment on this effort has not been large since it involves just black and white printing on newsprint and is undertaken in the newspaper’s press itself. The distribution is free, since the posters go with the paper. The response however has been electrifying. Reader’s look forward to the next poster and pour in suggestions on what the next topic should be. The value to the Tehelka brand is immeasurably large, since it is rapidly adding to the newspaper’s desired perception of being India’s only newspaper devoted to public-interest journalism.