No government advertisement on Netaji

Despite spending crores in advertisements, Indian government did not spend any money on advertisement on Subhash Chandra Bose's birthday.

Even as the government is spending crores of rupees on advertisements, no advertisement was released on the birthday of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose to spread his message to the public.

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The Department of Audio-Visual Publicity of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry gave this information in response to a Right to Information Act petition filed by Delhi resident Dev Ashsih Bhattacharya.

In reply to a question on how much money was spent on various government-sponsored advertisements in print and electronic media and how much of this amount was spent to spread the message of Netaji, the DAVP did not gave details about the money spent on the freedom fighter.

"During the period from April 1, 2006 to March 23, 2007, DAVP has issued display advertisements to various newspapers worth Rs 1,096 lakh and an amount of Rs 100 crore was spent on the electronic media.

"No advertisement was released by the DAVP on January 23 this year to spread the message of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. However, telecast of 60 seconds was done free of cost by the Doordarshan News," DAVP Central Public Information Officer Shalini Narayanan said in the reply to the RTI application.

"It was shocking for me to have this response," Bhattacharya said and added this was an insult to the great freedom fighter who had rendered invaluable service to the nation during its freedom struggle.