Costly Memories!

I wanted to write this originally on 21st May but lethargy got better of me. Even this time I am 2 days late as I should have written this on 20th August. Now what is the connection there? The former is the date when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while the latter is his B'day (which is now observed as 'Sadbhavna Diwas'.

If you read any newspaper of 20th August, it made a painful read. I happened to go through the pages of Times Of India. All I could find were images of Rajiv Gandhi staring out of those big pages. Pages after pages. And who were the well wishers? Here is the small list:

1. Indian National Congress

2. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

3. Delhi Government

4. Ministry of Steel

5. Rajiv Gandhi Centre of Biotechnology

6. Ministry of Commerce and Steel

7. Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna

8. Government of Haryana

9. Ministry of Tourism

10. Mazagaon Dock Limited ( A govt. of India undertaking)

11. Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu

12. Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises

13. Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation

14. Ministry of Women & Child Development

15. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment

16. Another one from Haryana Government

17. Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti

18. National Commission of Women

19. Department of Information and Public Relations

20. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

21. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

And this is just one English news daily. I googled a bit and in one of the blog found that in a total of 12 English dailies, there were 108 Ads covering roughly 48 full pages. This still does not account for a number of regional dailies! Such a wise use of Tax Payers money.

Two years ago, I had to put in a 3x3 inch advertisement in one of the local Hindi daily and parted with 27K!

Historian Ramchandra Guha wrote in Telegraph last year,

“A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that on May 21, 2010, perhaps Rs 60 or 70 crore were spent by the taxpayer — without his and her consent — on praising Rajiv Gandhi. Since the practice has been in place since 2005, the aggregate expenditure to date on this account is probably in excess of Rs 300 crore.”

This practice started in 2005, when UPA came to power and every ministry jumped to show their gratitude to Sonia Gandhi. I am not sure about Rajiv Gandhi but one other Gandhi must surely be crying there up in heavens on such foolish extravaganza!

Cheers!