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PM Modi meets top US CEOs, many keen on India opportunities

WASHINGTON: ''It’s complicated,'' just about captures Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s knotty ties with the Indian media.That relationship is playing out in all its complexity during his US trip. The large media corporations from India that are trailing him believe he gives preferential treatment to US-based media, including Indian scribes here, because they are less hostile/more friendly/less challenging, etc, to him. In short, they are soft on him.At the centre of the heartburn coursing through the media centre at the New York Palace Hotel over the weekend was the decision by the Prime Minister’s office to meet a small group of US-based correspondents, present company included, for what was described as a private ''social interaction.'' The ground rules were made clear at the outset — No cameras, no tape recorders, not even pen and paper, and no reporting of anything spoken at the meeting.Modi hasn't eaten in four days, Americans baffledThe Prime Minister wanted to meet the US-based press to get a sense of how they saw US-India ties, developments in India, etc. In fact, he would be asking questions and wanted to hear from the journalists.The meeting was supposed to be hush-hush — but you can’t keep anything secret in a situation where the media centre is located in the same hotel where the Prime Minister is staying. Besides, the PM’s meeting with US-based scribes was printed in the PM’s schedule, available to resourceful reporters.As it turned out, since no journalist worth his salt will refrain from asking questions, we bombarded the PM with questions the moment we were ushered in the meet him: How is his fast going and what does it involve? His thoughts about US, his previous visits, his expectations from the Obama meetings and so on — for a good half hour — but no recording, no notes, and no reporting.Everything, even the meeting itself was off the record.In fact, as we exited the meeting, we wanted at least a token record of the engagement with a group photo. But even our phones had been confiscated. Two officials from the Prime Minister’s team finally took some pictures — which may never see the light of the day in the light of what followed.Outside, India-based journalists who were excluded from the engagement were stewing in anger. They simply did not buy the explanation from officials that Modi chose to meet with US-based scribes because a) India-based journalists get to interact with him in India and b) He wanted to hear from US-based journalists who he had not met for a long time.Every effort was then made by our dear friends and colleagues from India to extract the last morsel of information about the meeting from fellow scribes and the few officials present, causing some embarrassment and mortification. Then, unconstrained by ground rules that bound the US-based correspondents, the visiting journalists freely reported ''fly-on-the-wall'' accounts of the meeting, including reports of Modi’s previous visits to the US (which TOI had reported in considerable detail even before the Prime Minister arrived in New York).But despite his current stand-off — or stand-offishness — with the Indian media, Modi has had a long history of engaging with them. In fact, the reason he sought out US-based journalists on this trip is precisely because he engaged them extensively in the 1990s, in the same way as his media outreach successor Ram Madhav did in the 2000s. Even in Delhi, as the BJP general secretary, Modi engaged the Indian media regularly.Things changed after the 2002 Gujarat riots, around and after which time, the media also grew exponentially in India.Modi believes the media was unfair, even hostile to him. He is also disturbed by the hyper-aggression of the media, including hordes of television cameras chasing after news, sticking their long microphones in people’s faces. He prefers quiet engagements and is even now said to meet a journalists for background, off the record chats.The underlying principle: I want to meet you to understand what’s happening, not to give you news.He also believes that the rise of the social media has obviated the need for intermediaries. He has a tight-knit media team that handles his Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, circumventing mainstream media (MSM). He himself spends around half-an-hour daily online getting a sense of what’s happening outside the bubble he is in.But India’s MSM is all steamed up about this perceived slight — and being shut out. Some of them are also upset about not being taken on the prime ministerial plane. There was also much dismay about organizers of the Madison Square Garden event charging television networks thousands of dollars for satellite uplinks at commercial rates, before the matter was resolved (it was eventually free).India's MSM also believes Modi is now reaching out to media outside the country because they are less aware of what happens in India and are less questioning (the outside media believes it is less biased).''Wait till the honeymoon period is over. Then he will realize how much he needs us,'' hissed one senior scribe who is covering the PM’s visit.