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Time magazine, which published an unflattering article on Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee earlier this month, may consider retracting the story.
An indication to this came on Tuesday evening when a delegation of Indian Americans met Time Managing Editor James Kelley at the Time House in Manhattan and confronted him with Vajpayee's medical records for the past 20 years, which a doctor and a member of the delegation said had been pretty good.
"Mr Kelley, who was joined by about half a dozen editors during the meeting, did not contradict any of the health records of Prime Minister Vajpayee that we presented," Kokila Modi, a renowned doctor who had examined the Indian leader annually for more than two decades and had access to his health records until he became the prime minister, told rediff.com
"Kelley said that Time would give it [retraction of the article] a thought," she said. "They did not deny anything when we told them about Vajpayee's health records and confronted them with the question as to where they got the story about his failing health from."
"I think we got the impression that they are serious about it and would give it a thought although they did not say yes or no in clear terms," she said.
"But the Time staff did not make any comment as to why they published an article for which there is no factual basis," Kokila said.
Among those who met Kelley included Dr Mukund Modi, founding member of the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party, his wife Kokila, Rajeev Khanna, president of the India American Chamber of Commerce, Ramesh Diwan, a university professor, and N Lakhan, a businessman.
Mukund said that the Time staff was cordial and listened to the viewpoint of the delegation. "Kelley did not have a chip on his shoulder and he and his associates listened to us for more than an hour although the appointment was for only half an hour," he said.
Kokila said she was asked by Kelley to write a letter to Time detailing Vajpayee's health, but she declined saying that verification of the prime minister's health was the job of the reporter who wrote the article.
"I told them to do a proper research and come out with a story which is true and correct," she said.
In the article, the magazine said, "The frail bachelor seems shaky and lost, less an aging sage than an ordinary old man."
Last week, a Time spokesman in New York had said that the magazine stood by the article.
"But today they did not defend their story so strongly as they did last week," Kokila said.
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EXTERNAL LINK: The controversial article on the prime minister
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