The August 21 edition of Business Standard carried a story with the headline “Incidents of rape impacts tourism industry financially: FM”. It quoted Jaitley stating that “one small incident of rape in Delhi advertised world-over is enough to cost us billions of dollars in terms of lower tourism”. It was an agency copy, so it is difficult to say with certainty who was responsible for putting “one small incident of rape in Delhi” within quotes. But what can be said with a fair amount of surety is that Business Standard didn’t use Jaitley’s pearls of wisdom to leverage the story. The report was deadpan and was hardly, if at all, editorialised.



The story – the quote to be more precise – raised quite a storm. Jaitley got pilloried on social media. (Yes, sometimes you have to state the obvious). Indeed #BigMinisterSmallRape and #RapeSmall4BJP trended all day today.