The Niira Radia tapes have been making news, even as the electronic media has chosen to ignore them, especially the ones that feature two leading television journalists – Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi. The tapes suggest that there was extensive lobbying to make A Raja the telecommunications minister for the second term of the UPA and Niira Radia, a Public Relations professional, was at the center of this lobbying.
Now, this in itself is not any news frankly. “Lobbying” is no secret or crime; it’s called “Public Affairs” by most of the Public Relations consultancy companies and they proudly put it up under the “services” section on their websites. Take for example the following paragraph that appears on the website of IPAN, one of the leading PR agencies of India:
“Among our successful campaigns are those on behalf of STAR TV (to beat back a discriminatory cable TV regulation bill), the Soaps and Toiletries Manufacturers Association (to secure reduction in duties on cosmetics), the Express Industry Council of India (to stall a bill designed to protect the monopoly of the post office), the All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association (to counter militant vegetarian groups seeking the closure of mechanized abattoirs producing meat for exports) and the Tea Packeters Association of India (to secure removal of excise duty on packaged tea).”
From the above paragraph, one can conclude, and (s)he would technically be not wrong, that some corporates paid money (unless IPAN carried out those campaigns out of some goodwill) to “beat back” and “stall” bills (inside or outside the parliament?) and decide excise duties that determine the revenue receipt of the government.
Should we be outraged that this is how policies of our nation are framed?
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