A bitten minister fights shy of media (Capital Buzz)
By IANSSunday, March 28, 2010
NEW DELHI - Once bitten, twice shy. With an aggressive media seizing on every word he says and scanning his tweets for a juicy story, the minister, who created headlines for his “cattle class” remarks in the middle of recession last year, is now more circumspect.
Shashi Tharoor is specially wary of television journalists, specially from a news channel that has earned a reputation for compulsive Pakistan-bashing. A man who at one time courted the media has made it his policy now to dodge the media that religiously trails him wherever he goes. If it’s a press conference on India-Africa relations, he refuses to take any questions other than on the subject.
Recently, the media waited for him outside a seminar at Sapru House, but he was in no mood to oblige them. “Did I ask you to wait,” he said when a journo complained he has been waiting for over an hour for him.
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Exit strategy for Ramesh
It’s been an open secret that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and former prime minister’s special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran don’t see an eye to eye on issues relating to climate change. But the intensity of their mutual dislike was never apparent.
Therefore, when Ramesh and Saran came to speak at the Asian Corporate Conference here, organizers had to work out a clever ‘exit strategy’ to accommodate the duo. Saran’s speech was scheduled just after Ramesh’s half-hour keynote address. But an extended Q and A session delayed the minister’s stay and once he was done, he promptly walked towards the designated VIP exit that opened into a tea room.
Acting fast, organisers ushered him out of another exit meant for participants. Ramesh waited patiently in the lobby for a good five to ten minutes at the other entry of the tea room. When he peeked in and saw Saran still inside, he decided to leave.
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Three years, yet nothing moves in Indo-Pak ties
Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner Riffat Masood is now readying to say goodbye to friends in Delhi. The affable diplomat is relieved to be going to Los Angeles after three and a half years in New Delhi.
“Nothing moves in India-Pakistan relations. It was exciting as well as frustrating to be here,” says Masood, feeling slightly disillusioned at moving from India when the composite dialogue between the two countries continues to remain frozen for more than a year after 26/11 attacks.
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Pakistan honours Gandhian activist
With India not relenting on resuming composite dialogue with Pakistan anytime soon, Islamabad was looking for a gesture and a message that can’t be construed but positively. Defying hawks and sceptics, Pakistan conferred Sitara-e-Imtiaz, one of the highest civilian honours, to veteran Gandhian and peace activist, the late Nirmala Deshpande, this week.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik presented the award to Deshpande’s younger sister Kalpana Pranjpe at the Pakistan Day function March 23 in front of the capital’s elite. In a citation read on the occasion, Deshpande was declared as a great peace activist who tirelessly worked for promoting peace between both the neighbours. The message was “aman ki asha” (longing for peace), a Pakistani diplomat said.
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Big moment for US embassy staffer
With India becoming more important in the US strategic calculus, it’s not a surprise that some of the best and brightest are being sent to helm the American embassy in New Delhi. One such is Elizabeth Fitzsimmons.
The spokesperson of the US embassy, who is a familiar figure at the capital’s social circuit, is headed for bigger things. She has been chosen as a fellow of the International Women’s Forum’s (IWF) Leadership Foundation, a global organisation of pre-eminent women of diverse achievement for 2009-2010. The IWF boasts of an illustrious alumni list that includes Queen Rania of Jordan, Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state, and Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland.
The only Indian in the list of 25 women chosen for this honour this year is Archana Handa, director, corporate communications, at CISCO systems. Fitzsimmons, who carries off a sari with aplomb, is upbeat. “I am really excited about it,” she says.
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‘Electronic media dont give straight reports’
Men not allowed. The capital’s press got a taste of the Bachchan ire this week. Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, a former actress and wife of megastar Amitabh Bachchan, came across as blunt, and even rude, to male journalists at a press conference organised by the Indian Women’s Press Corps.
There were mostly female journalists except for cameramen who happened to be male. Jaya started off by saying testily that only female journalists could interact with her. A visibly defiant Bachchan even lost her cool when a cameraman’s mobile phone started ringing. She asked him to leave the conference immediately. “Media, particularly electronic media, don’t give straight reports. They cut and paste (edit) the views of celebrities.”
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Hunting headlines, a la Jairam Ramesh
The media-savvy Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh loves controversies. Or at least, he does not mind them as they get him reams of media coverage. Ramesh, who has been at loggerheads with his own colleagues over delaying environment clearance to some infrastructure projects, has shrewdly realised that only criticism gets media attention and make it to front page.
“At least that gives a chance for people to know what my ministry is doing,” he quipped.
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Nuked: Nuclear deal for Pakistan?
No two countries could be more obsessed about each other than India and Pakistan. The most buzzed about event last week among the capital’s diplomatic and strategic circles was the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue and speculation about the US offering a nuclear deal for Pakistan, known here as an arch proliferator.
The joint press conference of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was telecast live from Washington on many TV channels here. How can they even think of a nuclear deal for Pakistan?, asked an outraged Indian diplomat. It looks like the Obama administration has lost his moral compass, said a former foreign secretary who knows Washington D.C. power games too well. When Clinton politely fobbed off Pakistan’s request for a nuclear deal, saying it was a complicated issue, there was a sense of relief and glee here. Sibling rivarly, did you say?
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Bachchan hunt turns into destruction
Amitabh Bachchan was in town recently to promote the cause of tiger conservation at a luxury hotel. After Bachchan spoke, the organisers made sure that the media had no access to the iconic film star. They just bolted the door of the ball room after he left.
But the Indian variation of the paparazzi - the unruly TV crews - are not the kind to give up easily. They kept chasing Bachchan, and in the process, broke an expensive glass bowl. Afraid to pay up, the chase for Bachchan soon gave way to the hunt for the bowl-breaker.
