Eye for detail
The State government’s well intentioned schemes — life insurance cover for farmers and free eye check up camps for all — no doubt, received overwhelming support from the people but their launch itself has earned criticism due to a glaring mistake.
The advertisement released to newspapers on the launch day contained a picture of a couple along with that of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The picture of the woman and her child was identical in the ads released to Telugu and English papers but the photograph of the husband standing beside her differed from one language paper to the other.
The negligence of the officials concerned over cross checking the ad before it went for final print attracted a lot of flak, especially on the social media. This is not the first time that ads released to papers by Information and Public Relations Department has drawn flak. A goof up had triggered much public criticism during chief ministership of late Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
‘The Real Man’ in KCR
The ‘man’ in Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao came out at a media conference that he addressed last week when a reporter asked him if TRS had a secret understanding with the BJP.
Mr. Rao’s reply was he believed in openness in public life, nothing secret about what he did. For bravado sake, he said “I am a man”. Years ago, Mr. Rao had praised NTR as a ‘man’ referring to an instance when an official counselled the former Chief Minister that a step proposed by him would earn bad name to the government. NTR asked the official to do what he was told as the former was the head of the government. “Let the bad name come to me”, Mr. Rao quoted NTR as saying and paid tributes to him as the ‘real man’.
Of ducks, giraffes and power supply...
At the outset one may wonder as to what’s the link between duck, giraffe and power supply. However, the fact is that the bird and the animal are used to describe the demand for energy in a supply system during different periods of a day, particularly in the West. At an event on energy held here recently, co-chairman of a sub-committee of Confederation of Indian Industry S. Chandrasekhar said the usage of term “duck” was in the practice in the US for over a decade now to describe demand of energy in the morning, afternoon and evening hours comparing it with tail (medium-high), belly (low) and neck/head (very high), respectively. Further, he went on to explain that the demand of energy of late was resembling giraffe. Well, in the East, particularly in India we can compare the energy demand the other way... neck/head, belly and tail for morning, afternoon and evening periods, respectively.
Importance of ethics
Journalists often take things for granted, more so when it is related to their profession without realising that they can’t break the trust, either with the source or the leaders who share their thoughts with them.
Though often their breach of trust is overlooked, not all take that easy. Congress president Rahul Gandhi was one who showed them when the trust is broken. During his recent interaction with editors and senior journalists in Hyderabad he started the conversation with a request that it was strictly off the record and nothing can be recorded either. When a TV journalist started recording the conversation on his phone, Mr. Gandhi took objection and politely asked him to delete it. But the journalist brushed aside the objection only to be told again that the recorded clip had to be deleted. When the journalist was not willing, Mr. Gandhi’s team took the phone and deleted the recorded clip.
(M. Rajeev, N. Rahul, B. Chandrasekhar and R. Ravikanth Reddy)