The world, including India, maybe facing a severe economic crisis but it seems that the Indian political parties are immune to the global economic slowdown. According to a recently released survey of Centre for Media Studies, around Rs 10,000 crores (USD 2 billion) will be spent on Lok Sabha Polls 2009. This does not include the cost of conducting assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. What is surprising here is that the amount to be spent (USD 2 billion) is more than what US President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates spent on their campaigns.
State machinery succeeded in deflecting public anger from political class to TV media
Let the Government not forget that in Mumbai-like situation where the terrorists are in their aggressive best and the Government might in its fiercest form, the media presence cannot be blocked in any healthy democracy. And there were no operational details that we were privy to. We had disseminated only that which was in public gaze and was most obvious.