Modi govt's ad spend could feed 46 million children mid-day meal for a year

Midday meals for 45.7 million children for a year. One day’s wages for 200 million workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). About 6 million new latrines. And at least 10 more Mars missions.

These were some of the things that could have been financed with the money that the current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government spent on publicity in the four years it has governed India.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government spent $753.99 million on advertising its flagship schemes in the 52 months between April 2014 and July 2018, according to the information made available to the Rajya Sabha (Parliament’s upper house) by Rajyavardhan Rathore, minister of state (Independent Charge) for information and broadcasting.

This amount is double the sum spent by the government’s predecessor in 37 months: The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government spent $377.32 million between March 2011 and March 2014, according to this 2014 response to a Right To Information (RTI) query filed by activist Anil Galgali.

'Processing' visa applications of Jadhav's wife & mother, confirms Pakistan

Pakistan on Sunday said the visa applications of Kulbhushan Jadhav's wife and mother had been received and were being "processed", days after it again rejected India's plea for consular access to the death row prisoner.

Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal confirmed in a tweet that Jadhav's family had applied for visas.

"Visa applications of mother and wife of Commander Jadhav received for their visit on humanitarian grounds," Faisal tweeted.

He further said the applications were "being processed" but did not give any time line for approval of visas.

On Wednesday, Pakistan had rejected India's plea for consular access to Jadhav at the ICJ, claiming that New Delhi wants the access to get the information gathered by its "spy".

In its counter-memorial submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Pakistan said the provision of such an access under the Vienna Convention is only for legitimate visitors and not for spies, a media report said.

Pakistan said that Jadhav is not an ordinary person as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage activities.
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