Washington Post write up stokes govt anger

A US daily's trenchant criticism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has come under attack from Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, who plans to take up the issue with the External Affairs Ministry so that "strong action" can be taken in the matter.

"The article on the prime minister by a paper like Washington Post is unacceptable.  The claims made there are completely baseless and we reject it," she told media persons.

Soni was reacting to an article in The Washington Post with the headline 'India's 'silent' prime minister becomes a tragic figure'.

The article said Manmohan Singh had helped set India on the path to modernity, prosperity and power but critics now say that the shy soft-spoken leader is in danger of "going down in history as a failure".

"....But the image of the scrupulously honourable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government," the write up said.

Soni said she would take up the issue with the Ministry of External Affairs and other government departments and act against it.

"They had done this kind of things earlier and had apologised.  If the Washington Post has written things like this against the prime minister, trust me I will take strong action against them," she said.

Similarly, a couple of months ago a 'Time' magazine article that had dubbed the prime minister as an "underachiever" and "unwilling to stick his neck out" on reforms had created a storm. The government had then too reacted strongly against it.