Ad nauseam

Tamil Nadu Congressman H Vasanthakumar’s eye-catching jacket ad in The Hindu’s Delhi edition paying sycophantic homage to Sonia Gandhi attracted considerable comment and amusement. But The Hindu’s editor Sidharth Varadarajan is emphatically not amused. Replying to many messages he received on the subject, he put this entry on his Facebook page: “To all those who messaged me about the atrocious front page ad in The Hindu’s Delhi edition [http://on.wsj.com/tLKSv3] on Jan 1, my view as Editor is that this sort of crass commercialisation compromises the image and reputation of my newspaper. We are putting in place a policy to ensure the front page is not used for this sort of an ad again.”