Post-Modi diplomacy

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not meet Rahul or Sonia Gandhi during his recent trip to India although it is customary in diplomacy for visiting heads of states to also speak to the leader of Opposition. This was the accepted practice until Narendra Modi came to power. As PM, Modi decreed that a meeting with the Opposition leader should not be included in the official protocol by the ministry of external affairs. When the Congress protested that this was against accepted democratic tradition, the government took shelter under the fig leaf that the Congress did not have 10% of the strength of the Lok Sabha to be officially recognised as the main opposition party. In the past, many important foreign dignitaries, including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, have requested, through their diplomatic channels, for an interaction with the Gandhis, despite such meetings being unofficial.

Press body eviction

The Press Association, the representative body for all accredited print newspersons in Delhi, was formed back in the 1960s and some of the greatest names in the profession have been members at some point. For decades, the association was allotted a small room in Shastri Bhavan, the headquarters of the information and broadcasting ministry. With the construction of the spacious Media Centre building on Raisina Road two years ago, the Association office shifted to the new Press Information Bureau headquarters. A week ago, the Association was served a curt notice by the ministry, asking it to move out in five days. The Association was puzzled by the sudden notice since it had not been asked to vacate even during the Emergency. It moved the Delhi High Court. Last Monday, the judge granted a stay till May 9 and asked the government’s standing counsel as to what would have been his reaction if the Bar Council was asked to vacate its office premises in the court building. The judge also expressed scepticism over the argument that the small 10×10-ft room was required urgently for other purposes. In fact, the rather opulent Media Centre still looks half unoccupied.

Staying home

Many BJP leaders, both in the government and the party, are often overseas on work. For instance, apart from Narendra Modi, a large number of his ministers flew to Davos recently. However, one man who has never left the country since Modi became Prime Minister is Amit Shah. His point is that there are no voters outside the country whom he has to meet. Shah, incidentally, has his own characteristic style to refute rumours about himself without opening his mouth. There was a report that he had not gone to Madhya Pradesh because he slipped in the bathroom and hurt his leg. While speaking informally to journalists in Delhi, Shah pointedly stretched his legs in all directions to make it clear that his limbs were healthy and unhurt.

Weekly attendance

New Congress president Rahul Gandhi has announced that he will visit the party office at 24, Akbar Road, twice a week, preferably on Tuesdays and Fridays. Which means that all other office-bearers will also have to show up on those days. As vice-president, Rahul rarely visited the party headquarters, and Sonia, who was Congress president for 19 years, seldom went to her office even though it was next door to her residence. In fact, every time Sonia showed up at her office, the SPG would put a seal, with the date on it, on the door after she left. This was embarrassing as the media got an instant reminder of just how rarely Sonia visited the place. Eventually, the SPG decided it was more discreet to put a seal without any date. Congresspersons are not convinced that the president’s visits to the party office will make a difference. Those who come to 24, Akbar Road, and squat on the lawn are usually non-serious workers who loiter around with time on their hands. Confidential matters are always discussed at the homes of leaders.

Lost in translation

It is a common mistake to confuse the Gujarati word for the numeral ‘70’ with the Hindi one for ‘17’. This is because 70 in Gujarati is pronounced as “sittar” while 17 in Hindi has a similar pronunciation, satraha. When Modi was delivering a speech in Hindi at Davos to Indian businessmen, he read from the teleprompter the line that it was 70 years since independence. He promptly used the Gujarati word sittar, that seemed like 17 years to those who don’t know Gujarati. An inadvertent slip at Davos by the PM was to add a zero to the figure of 600 million and mistakenly say that the country had 6 billion voters.