In a scramble to go close to Modi, "future" PM, top PR firms start making important personnel changes

Well-placed sources close to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi are happy – that, even as Modi is fighting a “winning battle” in the Lok Sabha polls to become India’s next prime minister, already, several public relations (PR) firms have begun to line up, even are closing ranks, and are vying with each other to be close to circles around the PM aspirant. According to these sources, they are making an “unprecedented effort” by recruiting persons who they believe have had access to Modi’s inner circles in Gujarat.

“If till now it was only one top international consultant, APCO Worldwide, involved in organizing the Vibrant Gujarat world business summits for Modi, which had managed to reach close to him, now things are clearly changing”, the sources point out. So close did APCO Worldwide reach to Modi that allegations began flying high on how the top international firm was “hired” for 25,000 US dollars a month to promote Modi worldwide, even campaign for visa, denied to him by Washington, amidst influential circles in the US.
While vehemently denying that APCO Worldwide in any way tried doing any other work beyond organizing public relations for the Vibrant Gujarat business summits, which were a biennial event after 2003, latest information with these sources suggests that PR firms in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere are trying hard to “highlight” how they are in no way worse that APCO Worldwide in promoting Modi, he becomes India’s Prime Minister. “There is already a lot of one-upmanship”, the sources point out.
By way of example, the sources say, one of the senior persons working with APCO Worldwide and having big claims of access to the chief minister’s office (CMO) in Gandhinagar, has just joined a top Delhi and Mumbai-based firm, Adfactors PR as senior vice president strategic communications and public affairs. “Tushar Panchal worked with APCO Worldwide between 2011 and 2013. His claim to have access to the CMO has seen him quickly ride up the PR ladder”, these sources point out.
Earlier, Panchal worked with Hansa Public Relations, which carried out a recent opinion poll for NDTV India channel. The opinion poll gave BJP under Modi close to 230 seats in the Lok Sabha, and the NDA a clear majority. Soon after the NDTV released its results, allegations were made that Panchal, as head of services to government practice for APCO Worldwide, “influenced” the poll, carried out by Hansa, in a very big way.
Sources close to Modi claim that while Adfactors PR may have “hired” Panchal in the hope that he would help reach closer to the circles around Modi, he is only one of the several persons who were “vying hard” to “handle” Modi’s PR job in the recent past, but with not much success. “Panchal’s exit from APCO Worldwide, if anything, was not amicable”, the sources point out, suggesting that Modi's did not allow to to go even closer to Modi after the Vibrant Gujarat business summit. APCO Worldwide's contract with the Gujarat government ended in March 2013.
Meanwhile, Panchal's profile describes him as a “specialist with over 20 years of experience in communication fields such as advertising, corporate communications, public relations, investment promotions, public affairs, government affairs and marketing communications.” It adds, “He specializes in relationship management and development and implementation of marketing and corporate communication and business strategies.” He is supposed to help top corporate circles in India by making an impact on the future BJP rule under Modi.
As the Adfactors PR’s website says, “As the world's largest democracy, India also has the world's largest number of political parties. Whether incidental or deliberate, their ideologies impact the functioning of practically every institution and sector.” Adfactors PR was hired by Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), which is a dream project of Modi. GIFT has so far failed to take off. Other PR firms which are seeking to go closer to Modi have also worked for the Gujarat government’s various agencies, including Mutual PR, Perfect Relations, Acti Media, Simulations and so on.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog