Today I started my day with page after page of goverment advertisements rather than fresh from the press daily news. First three pages of Hindustan Times today have advertisements from Odisha govt (Naveen Patnaik featured), Ministry of Rural Development (Narendra Modi featured), Ministry of Renewable Energy (Narendra Modi featured).
The inside pages have seven full page ads – six featuring modi (two of those with Yogi Adityanath), one featuring Kejriwal. Add to that four half/quarter page ads featuring modi (one of it with Yogi Adityanath).
In all this noise, I forgot it was women’s day. That explains the ads by Delhi Police focusing on women’s safety. Thankfully with images of women rather than some politician or administrator. Now I go through all the ads featuring politicians and realize, one full page ad with Kejriwal is wishing ‘Happy Women’s Day’ and listing the events organized by his govt. Another quarter page ad with Modi and Yogi Adityanath congratulating Uttar Pradesh’s achievements to respect women’s power.
Out of all these, the Odisha govt advert is the most straightforward with the tag line – “Everyone Makes Promises, Did we fulfill our promisses made in 2014?” The rest of the page has the report card and links for further information. At least it is clearly saying it is election related.
I wonder how much money is spent on this publicity. Who pays the bill? Is there an upper limit or guidelines so that the party in power does not have undue advantage? The ads with politicians in power prominently plastered on them, have been flooding newspapers for a while now. At least the ones we read regularly – Hindustan Times and Hindu. Many of these have Modi, some Kejriwal, one off here and there from Himachal, Haryana, and today Odisha. I wonder who is the audience. Do newspapers have different editions in different areas? From my own experience, I have not learnt anything about the Yojanas they are advertising. The only thing I remember seeing is Modi, Yogi Adiyanath, Kejriwal.
devayani tirthali 