E-Paper
Pat Ramadoss when he's right
You refer to the Union Health Minister Dr Ramadoss as the "Union's Healthiest Minister" with regards to his being awarded Luther L Terry Award of the American Cancer Society. I don't want to hold a brief for him but for the anti-tobacco cause he is determined to promote his latest notification for pictorial warning on tobacco products, a welcome measure. I cannot make out why an apparently respectable national paper like yours should resort to such sarcastic off-the-cuff expressions like "Healthiest" minister.
I refer to your edit Message’s clear: Leading smokers astray dated July 7, 2006.
You refer to the Union Health Minister, Dr Ramadoss as the "Union's Healthiest Minister" with regards to his being awarded Luther L. Terry Award of the American Cancer Society. I don't want to hold a brief for Ramadoss but for the anti-tobacco cause he is determined to promote his latest notification for pictorial warning on tobacco products is a welcome measure.
I cannot make out why an apparently respectable national paper like yours should resort to such sarcastic off-the-cuff expressions like "Healthiest" minister. And you go on in the same strain to ask "so what if it's at faraway smoke-friendly America". And as if that is not enough as a sequel your edit breaks into a typical Keshto Mukherjee hiccup. Do you mean to suggest that India is a smoke-friendly nation?
After blandly admitting that tobacco consumption is a "bad thing" you refer to this message as "loudly reverberating". And what is exactly your argument when you say "that the only problem was that those at the convention were neither smokers or growers — effectively demanders and suppliers — to have a real say on this matter". Does that mean that non-smokers are barred to have any say? You could as well say that non-journalists cannot have any say in any question of freedom of press.
Your edit gives an unmistakeable impression that you pooh-pooh such messages which are clearly not quite healthy to your editorial well-being. But is that any excuse for indulging in such meanly sarcastic phrases as "Healthiest Minister"?
