Trading on humour

What with exporters’ aggressive expectations, the annual review of the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2009-2014 could have been a fraught affair had it not been for Director General of Foreign Trade Anup K Pujari. He set the note in his opening remarks to the conference by saying the FTP was more the result of coincidence than effort — because the initials of the finance secretary’s name were R S (as in R S Gujral) and the commerce secretary’s S R (S R Rao). Then he added that just as Grandmaster Anand Vishwanathan had made India proud, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma would spread anand (happiness) for exporters though the FTP. No one’s sure if he did but Pujari’s facetious humour certainly lightened the tone by making everyone laugh.