Central Hall

Politicians are quick learners, particularly when it comes to acquiring skills to further ones interest. Ever since television happened, they know which media to woo. Politicians are perhaps the only breed, apart from journalists, who have an intimate knowledge of how the media works. They talk of deadline, copy, box item, and often slip in suggestions to use certain information as a box item or even as the second lead on Page One. But today things have changed. The camera seems to have done things to them. Not only do they take lessons on how to come across well on camera, but also on how to deliver punchy one-liners. Convinced that a two-second visual on television is worth a thousand words in print, the wise politician waits for print journalists to leave at the end of a press meet, so that he can deliver the sound-bite into the forest of video-cameras. Laloo Prasad Yadav is one politician who knows he makes good copy and good visuals. He has clearly come a long way since the days of Karpoori Thakur when he used to visit newspaper offices in Patna, urging reporters and chief sub-editors to carry his press release. In the dock today, he is convinced that print and TV journalists would be out of jobs if he were to be jailed, since there would be no good copy, no good visuals!

MPs Report Card

Ram Naik of the BJP is one among the few MPs who take their jobs seriously. A third-timer in the Lok Sabha, he is often at the centre of debates, cogently putting forth his views and exchanging words with the speaker on rules and conventions. One of his recent achievements is to get the necessary resolution passed, making it mandatory for every session of Parliament to begin and end with a recitation of Vande mataram. Every year, Naik comes out with a report card, setting out his activities during the last 12 months. This year, the report card is in the form of a well-produced booklet. The 90-page booklet carries a colour portrait on the cover, and has several advertisements. Naiks achievements during the year: the setting up an independent corporation for Mumbais suburban railways, and imposing a ban on foreign vessels fishing in the deep sea. Naik says people are aware of his work, and that is why they have elected him thrice from north Bombay, from where even S A Dange did not win twice.