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Patna,(BiharTimes): The seventh anniversary of the Nitish Kumar government was a significant departure from the past six ones.
For the first time the poor man’s money were not spent so lavishly on government advertisements as in the last six years. Instead of four, five, six and even more pages of advertisement the dailies got just one or two pages. According to one information more than two dozens big and small dailies got the advertisement. |
Though the government showed less generosity towards them this year––may be because of the campaign by some social groups and BiharTimes––yet the print media was thankful to the state government. Most dailies on Nov 24 carried front-page interview of chief minister Nitish Kumar.
On Saturday itself the chief minister organized a Press conference at his residence and fielded questions from the journalists. Unlike in the past the atmosphere appeared more relaxed and he was allowing questions to be asked more freely. The chief minister was seen addressing journalists with their names.
Those covering various Press conferences for the last many years observed this change in the attitude of the chief minister.
It needs to be recalled that on May 10, 2011 BiharTimes, on the basis of information procured through RTI activist Purander Sawarna, did a story “Rs 28.47 crore spent on Govt advt in Bihar last year”. It highlighted as to how little known Hindi and Urdu newspapers walked away with huge advertisements.
Though the story created a lot of storm yet it had little impact on Nov 24, 2011, that is, on the sixth anniversary. But in 2012, due to reasons better known to the state government itself, the ad-blitz was not so strong. However, at the Press conference and interviews Nitish left no stone unturned to highlight the achievements of his government.
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