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Journalism of Courage
A day after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee asked two ministers Foreign Minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor to shift out of the five-star hotels,Congress chief Sonia Gandhis call for austerity measures in view of the drought situation in many parts of the country has resulted in the cancellation of the forthcoming foreign tour of a delegation of members of Parliament.
Sources said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of the two-nation goodwill tour by 12 MPs belonging to different parties.
The MPs were scheduled to visit Greece and Egypt from September 28 to October 7 as a goodwill visit.
Bansal was himself going to lead the delegation. Apart from interacting with parliamentarians of the two countries,local sight-seeing was also planned for the MPs.
Bansal confirmed that the visit had been cancelled. The Congress president and the Prime Minister have given a call to observe austerity. We felt foreign tours,unless extremely important,too should to be avoided. That is why the visit has been cancelled, he added.
On Tuesday,following a report by The Indian Express about the two ministers staying in luxurious five-star hotels for over three months,both were forced to shift out.
Following the report,Sonia Gandhi was learnt to e extremely upset with the extravagant lifestyle of the ministers as it flew in the face of the partys emphasis on austerity in public life.
On Monday,Finance Ministry had appealed to all ministries to observe austerity in view of the pressure on its finances. The Ministry had also ordered a 10-per cent cut in non-plan expenditure by way of slashing foreign and domestic travel,publicity expenses and ban on conferences in five-star hotels.
