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Journalism of Courage
The austerity drive launched by the now-famous letter written by the Prime Minister to his Cabinet colleagues was the talk of the town last week. Even as ministers competed with one another in cancelling their foreign trips to show their seriousness about reducing government spending, they also played one-upmanship games—pointing fingers at each other for planning frivolous trips. Tourism Minister Ambika Soni—who put off her plan to attend the World Kuchipudi Dance Festival in the US later this month—was a common target with at least two senior ministers pointing out that this was exactly the kind of wasteful foreign jaunts that had prompted the PM’s letter. But amid the gloom over cancelled trips, there were some smiles too. At a Power Ministry function last week, there was some delay in bringing in the tea, leading Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to wonder aloud whether the austerity measures meant doing without tea altogether.
