Gujarat Confidential: Neta Natter

Wooed, Then Dismissed

While journalists in Gujarat are getting used to union ministers’ unannounced visits or barring media from some public and party meetings, it came as a rude shock on Wednesday when Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad ‘curtly’ asked mediapersons to leave the venue of an interaction between the state’s industry leaders in manufacturing and information technology, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. The minister had inaugurated a centre of excellence managed by NASSCOM there. What left mediapersons miffed was that they were treated this way after media houses had been bombarded with invites and reminders via text messages and phone calls from public relations agencies and the Press Information Bureau, asking them to attend the event just a few hours before it was to begin. The journalists had also been assured of a media interaction with the minister. So the organisers were left dumbstruck at the turn of events and had no option but to apologise.