Government plans 21 press meets, talkathon

by Shivendra Singh · May 20, 2015

The NDA government’s publicity blitzkrieg on the occasion of its first anniversary next week will comprise among other things six press conferences by senior ministers in Delhi, one talkathon and 15 press conferences at venues other than Delhi, to be addressed by ministers, usually from those states.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley has circulated a schedule to the concerned ministers asking them to “make it convenient” to attend the conferences as scheduled. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) is already preparing the stage for the high-profile conferences — the first is in Delhi on May 22, where Jaitley will showcase the achievements of the government.

The ministerial interactions will continue till June 10, with the last two being by Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ram Vilas Paswan in Patna and Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar in Bengaluru.

Most senior ministers have been assigned specific duties. Jaitley will hold one more press conference in Vadodara on May 26 — the date when the government took oath exactly a year ago; Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi will be in Lucknow on June 9; and MoS (Home) Kiren Rijiju and MoS (Sports) Sarbanand Sonowal will be in charge in Guwahati.

Besides Jaitley, the interactions in Delhi will also be addressed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh. Goyal, MoS (independent charge), Commerce, Nirmala Sitharaman and HRD Minister Smriti Irani will also hold a talkathon.

Leaving nothing to chance, the government has already put in place slogans to emphasise that it has been continuously at work and has worked for the poor — a counter to Congress‘s renewed campaign portraying the government as one that is working only for industrialists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a rally in Mathura, the birthplace of RSS idealogue Deen Dayal Upadhyay, to kick off the celebrations on May 25.

“Under his (Narendra Modi’s) dynamic leadership, we have taken a number of significant initiatives in various spheres of our national life which includes economy, energy and infrastructure, social security, transparency and good governance, among several others, impacting the life of our people. The ‘narrative’ of these pro-people, pro-poor, pro-farmer measures should reach out to our people to not only empower them but deepen their participation in our process of development and governance,” Jaitley said in his letter to ministers dated May 18.

Stating that the PIB has been instructed to arrange press conferences to ensure this communication happens effectively, the letter asks ministers to “make it convenient” to present themselves at the designated time and venue to address the press conferences.

Source:: Indian Express