Raju Narisetti stepped down as Mint editor effective 1 January 2009. His Mint blog, A Romantic Realist, will be archived after this last post.

Thank you for reading and reacting to it and we look forward to your continued involvement with Mint’s blogs.

Livemint

((And once you have read the Mint article(s) below, feel free to read a different view from a signed Raisina Hill column by Business Standard newspaper’s No. 2 editor AK Bhattacharya on 23 December in defense of P Chidambaram, saying the IAS officer in question was not only “disloyal” and “a coward” but also “tactless” here. Mr. Bhattacharya discusses the rules that govern IAS officers and concludes that “as long as the rules remain in force, not following them would encourage anarchy.” He does make a distinction between media “talking” to anonymous officers and an IAS officer “writing”. But if Business Standard’s top editors believe, as seems to be the case in this column, that a rule that bars all officers from “writing any article or expressing any view that is critical of the government or policies” should be adhered to because it exists, and because not doing so can cause “anarchy,” the Romantic Realist is typically more curious as to what internal code of conduct then governs the daily use of anonymous often “critical of government” quotes from cabinet ministers, IAS officers or senior-most Planning Commission officials in the paper. Most of them presumably have similar restrictions but are cited regularly in Business Standard (and all other papers in India including Mint) as well. Unless, that is, this introspection applies only to conduct of rival papers though, in the typically amusing way of most Indian newspapers, the column can’t seem bring itself to acknowledge another paper by name. The column only refers to the whole saga in Mint as stemming from an article published in an unnamed: “a newspaper”!)

An open clarification about an ‘Open Letter’

In a Lok Sabha discussion on India’s economic slowdown on 18 December, Ananth Kumar, a four-term member of Lok Sabha representing India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), from the Bangalore South constituency, quoted a Mint Views page article, titled An open letter to the PM, which ran on our editorial pages on 10 December.

The article, which ran under the “Their Views” folio, a page where outside, non-Mint contributors write, ran under the byline of Athreya, who was then identified at the end of the article as: “The author is an IAS officer. The views expressed here are personal.”

In his parliamentary response to Kumar’s statements, P. Chidambaram, the former Indian finance minister and now minister of home affairs, had this to say about the article published in Mint:

“He (Kumar) cited an article allegedly written by an IAS officer. I have read the article. I do not know whether the name of that author given in that article is a true name or a pseudo name. I do not know whether he is an IAS officer. All I know is either he is a disloyal officer or a coward or both. If he had the courage, he should write the letter, sign in his own name and send it to the Prime Minister. But I hope they (BJP) do not encourage such officers; they did not encourage them when they were in power. So what is the point of citing a pseudonymous or anonymous author’s article taking shelter under it and running away when the reply is to be delivered?”

(Source: Parliament’s official reporters’ draft transcript. Read the full Kumar speech and Chidambaram reply here)

Since, on the floor of India’s Parliament, Chidambaram has raised questions about an article published in Mint and since his comments will remain a matter of public record forever, we would like to clarify some facts for our readers as well as the minister.

Mint does not lie to its readers or knowingly mislead them. Period.

Athreya is the pen name, or a literary pseudonym, that the author of that article requested. And, as unambiguously stated at the end of the article by Mint’s editors, he is indeed an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and the views expressed in that article were the officer’s personal views.

Mint’s journalism is governed by a clearly spelt out Code of Journalistic Conduct that all news employees are required to adhere to. While most of it applies to our “news” coverage and not the paper’s opinion pages, we would still like to reiterate a key tenet from its preamble on What We Stand For:

“In our society, the press enjoys a remarkable degree of freedom. With that freedom comes the responsibility to practise our craft in accordance with the highest standards, to be accountable for what we publish, and to avoid conflicts of interest. We will strive to fulfil these responsibilities… It means we will always strive to identify all the sources of our information, shielding them with anonymity only when they insist upon it and when they provide vital information-not opinion or speculation; when there is no other way to obtain that information; and when we know the source is knowledgeable and reliable.”

Indeed, in our news coverage, Mint’s code doesn’t even allow the use of “pseudonyms, composite characters or fictional names…”

While these guidelines apply to our news coverage, the specific opinion page article in question was internally discussed between Mint’s editorial pages editor and the editor of Mint. Because the author’s proposed article raised significant and valid questions to spur a national debate, and precisely because the author is from the IAS, a group of Indians charged with managing the affairs of our country, a decision was made by the editor to run the article but let our readers know that it was by an IAS officer so they can appreciate the context.

We encourage our readers-and Chidambaram-to review our code, which is available on Mint’s Internet home page under “Mint code” at www.livemint.com.

We understand it is the prerogative of those who follow media ethics and standards to potentially debate our editorial decision-making. And Mint is happy to measure itself against any prevailing practices or standards that exist in India’s print media today, and our journalistic track record so far, especially our policy of promptly correcting any errors we make. We would encourage such a healthy debate because our decision is based on bedrock principles that Mint strives to “serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream”.

We hope this explanation helps our readers get complete clarity on this issue. And, since this debate, spurred by the publication of the open letter, is an opinion on matters of national importance, we would now like to join the debate.

It is Chidambaram’s prerogative to not address the issues raised in the open letter or the reasons why the BJP’s Kumar cited it in the first place, and focus on whether the author should have been more loyal in not writing it at all or had more courage in signing it and sending it directly to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Here, Mint would like to remind Chidambaram of the long tradition of anonymous articles, starting with this particular example.

In November 1937, the Modern Review, then India’s most well-regarded journal of opinion, published an article on Jawaharlal Nehru written by Chanakya, an obvious pseudonym. The author hit out at Nehru’s latent dictatorial tendencies and his “intolerance for others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient”. Its author warned: “Jawaharlal might fancy himself as a Caesar.” There were howls of protest from loyalists until it was revealed much later that Nehru himself was the author of this piece.

Today, many members of Parliament, including cabinet colleagues of Chidambaram, as well as IAS officers in both the finance ministry as well as the home ministry, often insist on speaking to the news media only anonymously on many issues, including key issues that the author of the open letter raised. Whether all of those conversations are disloyal or cowardly is up to the minister to judge.

But if Chidambaram wants to help change the pervasive culture of anonymous comment that is so prevalent among politicians and bureaucrats alike, he might be better off publicly encouraging opinions and debate, rather than label those who try to speak up, even if anonymously, as “disloyal” or “cowards” and thus add to the culture of a fear of reprisals and, thus, more anonymity.

Mint, for one, believes being critical about India isn’t the same as being negative, as the government would like us to believe, and the only way our nation would progress is if there is honest debate about issues confronting all of us.

So what we would have hoped for is that, if the Indian government wanted to engage the nation on the basis of issues, including those raised in the open letter, it would have responded to the issues and not diverted attention to the act of writing the article. But that too is the prerogative of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Meanwhile, because of the now extensive debate this opinion article has raised -visit www.livemint.com/lettertopm.htm for reader comments on the article-we are also republishing the entire piece below (blog readers can read the original open letter here) and welcome comments from our readers at feedback@livemint.com. Raju Narisetti, Editor

Anil Ambani has formally sued his brother Mukesh Ambani along with Arthur Sulzberger Jr, chairman of The New York Times Co; Clark Hoyt, public editor of The New York Times; Anand Giridharadas, an India-based reporter for NYT; Mint’s publisher and owner HT Media Ltd; the Mumbai newspaper DNA and its publisher and owner Diligent Media Corp; DNA editor R. Jagannathan, and yours truly, Raju Narisetti, in the Bombay High Court over a New York Times profile of Mukesh Ambani headlined “Indian to the core, and an oligarch” published on 15 June 2008.

Mint was the first newspaper to report, on 20 June, about the initial legal notice from Anil Ambani’s lawyers alleging “defamation” by Mukesh Ambani. DNA then reported on 24 September about Anil Ambani suing Mukesh Ambani for Rs10,000 crore but didn’t name any other defendants, including itself.

Since additional details are now publicly available as part of details listed in the civil suit No. 2728 filed by Anil Ambani in the Bombay High Court and involve three large media houses in India and the US, its owners, publishers and editors, as well as the CEO of India’s most valuable company by market capitalization, here is a summary of the news from the filing:

Anil Ambani’s suit claims that the article was “grossly defamatory” and constitutes “a serious libel” and seeks Rs10,000 crore (about $2.1 billion at current Rs47/dollar) from the defendants, in addition to asking the court to direct everyone to “prominently publish a retraction” as well as asking the court to direct everyone to “prominently publish an apology” and also pay costs of the suit brought by Anil Ambani.

The suit’s central claim(s) revolve around two paragraphs in the lengthy NYT article, both cited in the court filings, and involving a direct quote from Mukesh Ambani responding to what the article said were his “friends and associates” saying was as an “intelligence agency” or a network for data collection that allegedly existed at Reliance prior to both brothers going their separate ways, and describing what happened to that effort. The two paragraphs include this sentence: “A spokesman for Anil Ambani declined to comment.”

Anil Ambani (the Plaintiff) claims in the suit that “the intent and/or obvious effect of the said two paragraphs is unmistakably and inevitably to damage the Plaintiff’s character and reputation and expose him to public hatred and ridicule.”

The suit also alleges that the article’s assertion that “A spokesman for Anil Ambani declined to comment” is “an incorrect assertion”. The suit claims “the Plaintiff does not have a spokesman” and attachments to the suit go on to explain why the “spokesman” in question, Gaurav Wahi, wasn’t and couldn’t have been Anil Ambani’s spokesman.

Mint and yours truly, as editor of Mint, get into the picture because, as part of its syndication agreement with The New York Times, Mint reproduced the article “verbatim” as the suit notes, including using the same headline as the original NYT story, crediting both the reporter with a byline as well as the source and NYT’s copyright.

DNA ran what it labeled, from the story, as excerpts of an “interview” with Mukesh Ambani under a headline “We’ve never paid a bribe, or broken a rule.” In supporting attachments, the Anil Ambani suit also submits the front page clarification that DNA later published on 16 July 2008 that had said: “DNA regrets the publication (on June 17 2008) of an article syndicated by the (NYT) which seemed to suggest that activities like bribery, snooping on rivals, etc, were done by a unit headed by Anil Ambani before the Reliance demerger. DNA does not normally cross-check syndicated items for veracity, and will additionally publish any clarification or retraction authorised by NYT.”

In supporting attachments, the Anil Ambani suit says that DNA “apology and clarification apart from being insufficient cannot absolve your clients from the grave offence which they have committed.” The suit also singles out DNA’s reproduction of the NYT article noting that the DNA version of the article “was accompanied by a sensational, prominent and catchy sub-caption which stated ‘Demerging Dirty Work.”

Given the wide net cast by the suit, this Romantic Realist is a bit surprised that the suit has decided to ignore The International Herald Tribune, which is owned by The New York Times and whose India edition, printed and published from Hyderabad with veteran journalist M.J. Akbar as its “editor”, which actually ran the same article on its front page in India, under the headline “A tycoon for the new India, loyal to the old.”

Anyway, the next step in the legal process is scheduled to come in February.

The IT department has decided that sending me an excerpt from a speech, supposedly given by former Indian president and now major gadfly, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, titled “Be the change you want to see!” (which in my book is now clearly up there in recently overdone cliches) is the perfect way to try and make me conserve energy and money.

The excerpt is all about the savings that can be generated–in only the complicated PowerPoint way that Mr. Kalam is prone to–from everyone shutting down their PC. “So, before leaving office, take some time to shut down the PC and do some favour to the country and the organisation,” ends the speech.

If IT dept at my company is serious about helping with cost cutting, they are perhaps better off asking one of the office assistants or the numerous office watchmen or elevator operators to switch the errant computers off, assuming switching off power to the floor is not an option. But, I digress.

This may be heresy but having read and heard Mr. Kalam for two years now, the Romantic Realist now finds much of what the former President says rather simplistic and often totally out of touch with any reality or execution/operational issues. Stuff like his speech that the Press Trust of India carried earlier today and I quote:

Kalam favours national campaign, UN task force to tackle terror

New Delhi: As the country debates how to tackle the increased spate of terror attacks, former President APJ Abdul Kalam today suggested the launch of a national campaign to eradicate terrorism. Kalam also favoured constitution of a special task force under the United Nations to tackle terrorism at the global level.

Participating in an idea exchange programme here, the former president said the national campaign should focus on eradicating poverty, education as well as making people aware of the perils of terrorism.Efforts should be made to guide people, specially the youth properly. Questioned as to what action should be taken by India to stop Pak-sponsored terrorism, he said, “The simple principle is that strength respects strength. “India becoming a nuclear power state was the right thing to do,” he said.”Terrorism is a nuisance, bad for humanity. When evil minds have come together then good minds cannot be watching.”

The United Nations cannot be sitting and watching when such things are happening. “My suggestion is that let there be a United Nations force for counter-terrorism,” he said. PTI

So, let me see. Terrorism is “a nuisance, bad for humanity”? And the out-of-box solutions being proposed by Mr Kalam: “A national campaign to eradicate terrorism” and “A United Nations task force to tackle terrorism.”

This is the kind of Kool-Aid statesmenship in the guise of thought leadership that is being increasingly dished out by the likes of Mr. Kalam or former Infosys Chairman NR Narayana Murthy in India. And promptly recycled in the super spam that only IT departments can generate. Indeed, the email from my IT dept ends with this appeal to create more spam: “If you feel that this point is to be considered, forward this to all your friends.”

What if we start contributing to “saving corporate costs” by getting rid of people who think up such nonsensical emails that then waste precious employee time?

“For having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour, and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off, the President-elect is TIME’s Person of the Year.” (Read full package of stories here)

If the criteria is that Time’s “Person of the Year” selection was the “person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year,” this Romantic Realist thinks a more interesting and riskier bet would have been to give it to all the:

The Wall Street scammers.

After all, they have upended the global economy like nothing else has this year.

But I suspect Time will sell a boatload of the year-end issue given how Obama mania will peak through 20 January inauguration in Washington DC when he is sworn-in as the President. And who would buy yet another downer on scandals and resulting economic gloom?

Meanwhile, if we were to pick someone for India’s Person(s) of the Year, would it be a) its cricketers (IPL, Aussie win, England win)? b) the team at ISRO? 3) the UPA for securing the India-US nuclear deal? Or…?

Just wondering.

What struck me was how the invitation, about four artists and their video installations, doesn’t even make a pretense that the opening is about their work. The invitation, from an Indian affiliate of Fleishman-Hillard International Communications, the large global public relations firm, is all about the Page 3 value of this event. The email invite’s subject matter is: Invite : An art evening with Socialites, Designers & Artists (Today).

Beyond listing the names of the four artists (small mercies), it lists 20 “confirmed guests”, dropping names like Bal, Gandhi, Jaipuria, Jindal and Munjal,like sugar in front of flies, as well as 7 other “artists/photographers” who are also showing up. And from the list, it appears just one of the four artists whose work is being shown is actually coming to the opening!

Wonderwall

Invites you to

A Cocktail evening

To showcase Video Installations

by

Ravi Agarwal

Priyanka Dasgupta

Sukanya Ghosh

Adrian Fisk

At:

Clarion Collection

(Formally known as The Qutub Hotel)

Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg

New Delhi – 110016

Today, Dec 17, 2008

At

7 PM

The Confirmed Guest List includes

Mr. & Mrs. Vineet Agarwal

Mr. Ashish Anand

Mr. & Mrs. Jas Arora

Mr. Varun Bahl

Mr. Rohit Bal

Mr. Rohit Gandhi

Mr. Rahul Khanna

Mr. & Mrs. Shaleen Jain

Ms. Ashna Singh Jaipuria

Ms. Preeti Singh Jaipuria

Mr. & Mrs. Naveen Jindal

Mr. & Mrs. Sanjay Kapoor

Ms. Shefali Munjal

Mr. & Mrs. Parmeet Sawhney

Mr. & Mrs. Hameet Sawhney

Mr. & Mrs. Vikramjit Singh

Mr. & Mrs. A.D. Singh

Deepika Jindal

Mike Knowles (Royal Society for Arts UK)

Swapan Seth

Artists/Photographers

Anjum Singh

Manisha Gera

Shivani Agarwal

Pradeep Dasgupta

Dinesh Khanna

Sandeep Biswas

Ravi Agarwal

Iram Sultan

About Video Art:

Over the past few years, artists have been creating video artworks. They are being encouraged by select galleries in India and abroad, as well as by a very small but growing number of Indian collectors who are fascinated by the medium and are not afraid to try something new. The first works of video art were created in the West in the 1960s, and Indian artists began experimenting with the medium in the late 1990s. It is shot like a film, using any camera, but the similarity ends there.

About Wonderwall:

wonderwall.co.in is an e-commerce website that’s the brainchild of Ajay Rajgarhia, and is India’s first ecommerce website specializing in fine art photography and other new and upcoming forms of art.A platform to showcase established names and also introduce upcoming artists, the website is dedicated to making photography an accessible form of art to the public at large. Says Ajay Rajgarhia, “With Wonderwall I hope to be instrumental in getting people to understand and develop people’s interest in fine art photography and other new and upcoming forms of art, irrespective of medium”.

To unveil the site to the public, Wonderwall had it’s first exhibition at the Alliance Francaise, New Delhi in May 2007. The exhibition was curated by Ajay Rajgarhia. Wonderwall aim is to organize regular exhibitions in the capital as well in other cities and countries. The aim is to target people who would like a “touch & feel” before they buy fine art photography”. Ajay Rajgarhia/Wonderwall has been associated with more than ten exhibitions since inception, in cities like Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai etc. Tokeep current with market trends, and with its objective of being one of the first few entrants in a new medium of art, Wonderwall is now getting into Video Art, and the current show celebrates the launch.

RSVP

Nikhil Kumar

Account Manager LexiconPublic Relations & Corporate Consultants

(A Fleishman-Hillard International Communications Affiliate)

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Can we blame artists and gallery owners and their publicists for behaving this way if media houses would rather focus on comings and goings rather than the art?

Ps: In the interests of full disclosure, I had bought a photograph from Ajay Rajgarhia and his Wonderwall gallery, but I don’t know him otherwise.

The Hindustan Times decision to prominently display such a column was somewhat tempered, however, by a recent example of what is known as “correction-as-weapon” tactic where a “correction has been used both as a means to acknowledge an error and land one more jab at a source’s expense,” a tactic well chronicled by Craig Silverman in his 2007 book, Regret The Error. (Checkout Silverman’s website here)

Here is how it all played out.

On 2 December, Hindustan Times published a provocative story (read the full story online here) after the Mumbai terrorist attacks headlined “Buried in the rubble, ten questions.” Among the questions was this one at No. 5:

5. A day after the terrorist attack and casualties at the CST Railway Station, why did Sumana Raghavan fly down to New Delhi and party at Taj Palace hotel with Railway Board colleagues?

That question prompted AK Saxena, additional director general (PR) of the Central Railway to write a 139-word letter to Hindustan Times saying, among other things: “Question 5 is not based on facts and is unjust, unfair and misleading. When the terrorist attack took place at CST station on November 26, Sowmya Raghavan, then General Manager of Central Railway, was present in Mumbai and was continuously monitoring the situation…Immediately after the attack, she visited CST and guided rescue and relief operations. She visited the injured in hospitals and met family members of the dead…In the article, even her name was wrongly spelt as ‘Sumana Raghavan’. The statement that she attended a party at Taj hotel in Delhi is totally incorrect and baseless.”

Ideally, one would imagine that the honorable thing for a newspaper to do at this stage would be to simply acknowledge and correct any errors.

So what did Hindustan Times do? In a 210-word response, the reporter on the story began by saying:

“We regret that the name of Ms. Soumya Raghavan was misspelt in the story. We have also not disputed that she was in Mumbai on the night the attacks began. As the story mentioned, the party in her honour was held the next day in New Delhi, at the Mumtaz Mahal hall of the Taj Palace hotel. However, we regret reporting incorrectly that she was also present that night.”

So far so good. End of the mea culpa? Apparently, not really. Here is what the reporter got to then add, among other things:

“The point of the story is not to make a personal attack on one official…”

Ok, fair enough. End of story? Apparently not really, really. Here is what the reporter got to add again to the now lengthy rejoinder, now 178 words longer than the original Questions No 5:

“Even in the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the railway station, she left behind a headless set-up…”

I don’t know about you but sounds like a “personal attack” to me that had nothing to do with the original story or the errors to be corrected.

Here to your right is how the entire saga looked on the page.

As Silverman writes in his book: “The phenomenon of the correction-as-weapon is both amusing and troubling. A correction should by all means read as though a human wrote it, but journalists should resist the urge to turn corrections into parlor tricks or platforms for airing personal gripes.”

Amen.

Ps: HT Media, which publishes Hindustan Times, also publishes Mint

“Najaam Sethi, Editor-in-Chief of Friday Times and Daily Times in Pakistan, has been awarded the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers.

Mr Sethi, whose newspapers advocate liberal and secular ideas in a country too-often torn by religious extremism, was honoured for his outstanding defence and promotion of press freedom under difficult circumstances and constant personal danger.

“Extremists have always used coercion to silence their critics and that is exactly what is happening now,” Mr Sethi says. “This is a battle that the media and the country cannot afford to lose.” (Read his blogs here)

Due to the editorial policies of the newspapers, which condemn autocracy and religious fundamentalism, Mr Sethi has been at odds with both Pakistani authorities and religious groups for many years. He has been threatened with death by the Taliban and other radical Muslim groups, and has been jailed and beaten for offending the government.

“All journalists are aware of the dangers of inciting extremists who violently oppose reporting that is contrary to their view of the world,” said the Board of the Paris-based WAN, meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, in making the award. “Mr Sethi has chosen, in a region fraught with such dangers, to brave them. His commitment to providing truthful and independent coverage in this region, despite great personal danger and sacrifice, is in the best traditions of journalism. We think the award will inspire others to resist such pressure.”

The award will be presented at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum, the global summit meetings of the world’s press, to be held in Hyderabad, India, from 22 to 25 March 2009.

Mr Sethi¹s home and office are under constant guard. The Taliban threatened to kill him if he did not change his editorial policy. He has also received death threats from radical Muslim groups after he published a cartoon that depicted Umme Hassaan, principal of a radical women’s school, “educating” female students to wage jihad and embrace martyrdom.

Mr Sethi was imprisoned on 8 May 1999 for “anti-national activities” after he participated in a BBC documentary in which he spoke negatively of then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and corruption in the Pakistani government. He was released after six weeks and charges were dropped after an international outcry pressured Sharif¹s government to release him. Mr Sethi has long reported on corruption at the highest levels of Pakistan’s government.

WAN, the global association of the newspaper industry, has awarded the Golden Pen annually since 1961. Past winners include Argentina’s Jacobo Timerman (1980), South Africa’s Anthony Heard (1986), China’s Dai Qing (1992), Vietnam’s Doan Viet Hoat (1998), Zimbabwe’s Geoffrey Nyarota (2002), and Iran’s Akbar Ganji (2006). The 2007 and 2008 awards both went to Chinese journalists, Shi Tao and Li Changqing. A full list of laureates can found here.

WAN defends and promotes press freedom and the professional and business interests of newspapers world-wide. Representing 18,000 newspapers, its membership includes 77 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 11 regional and world-wide press groups.

The Iraqi reporter who threw shoes at George Bush

(Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tries to block a shoe as US President George Bush takes evasive action)

But back in India, here is what a rather opportunistic Sitaram Yechury, the Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), had to say as he desperately tried to hog some headlines and find ways to grab political capital from the incident:

Because of PM, shoes hurled at the Indian people too: Yechury

“Because of the Prime Minister, the shoes were hurled at the people of India too, a top CPI(M) leader said today while reacting to the lobbing of shoes at US President George Bush in Baghdad. “The Prime Minister had told Bush that all the people in India love him. It is because of this statement, the shoes have been hurled at the people of India too,” Politburo member Sitaram Yechury told reporters who sought his comments on the incident.” PTI

I don’t know about you but the Romantic Realist thinks perhaps it is time India’s voters gave the Left the boot it deserves, come national elections. If nothing else for this kind of opportunistic nonsense from its leaders, long bereft of any real policy positions.

Exhibit 1

4.07 am: An email with a cute digital image of colorful balloons rising against a blue sky landed in my inbox from birthdaygreetings@updates.jetairways.com, saying:

Sub: Happy Birthday from JetPrivilege

Dear Mr Narisetti,