PM press conference was ‘fixed’ NORA CHOPRA 4th Jan 2014 The list of journalists allowed to ask the main questions in the first phase of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's press conference was sent by the media department of the All India Congress Committee. This fix was set up by the AICC media secretary Tom Vaddakan and his boss Ajay Maken in association with Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari and Prime Minister's communications adviser Pankaj Pachauri. They even vetted the questions that the journalists asked. A very senior journalist from a Tamil Nadu paper was humiliated; he was told he would be invited, but when he went to collect his invitation, he learnt that it had not been cleared. His place was given to a Tamil journalist covering AICC. When some journalists protested, Pachauri told them they should have joined the queue in front of Tom Vaddakkan or him two days in advance and given them their questions. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Joomla SEO powered by JoomSEF