Murdoch wraps up India visit with calls on city bigwigs

NEW DELHI, MARCH 15: When Rupert Murdoch comes calling, photographers from the worldover are in attendance. Though the NewsCorp chairman did not meet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as expected, he did get an appointment with his Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra. Accompanied by Star TV CEO Peter Mukerjea, he also met Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley at his office, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha at Parliament House and Sonia Gandhi at her 10 Janpath home.

He also met the friend of his partner in eVentures, Pramod Mittal, and the man incharge of the IT industry, Pramod Mahajan.

Murdoch also sought to know about the opening up of Direct-to-Home (DTH) television in India.

The media mogul, who is staying at the Oberoi, arrived in his private jet in the morning from Mumbai and was expected to leave for London in the night, straight from the party where Star TV celebrated seven years of Rajat Sharma’s Adalat, where no less than the Prime Minister was going to be in the running for a viewers’ choice award for best performance on Adalat. Murdoch had little to say about India except that he was upbeat on it.