Indian FM demands apology from PTI
India's foreign minister has demanded a public apology from the the
Press Trust of India (PTI), after it described him as "absent minded" in
parliament, the national news agency said yesterday.
PTI had reported Thursday that S.M. Krishna "had to be prodded" by
the speaker of the Lower House to make a scheduled statement on the
situation in Sri Lanka, and that he then failed to immediately find the
speech in his file. The news agency said that Krishna had served a legal
notice alleging that the report was "completely false" and "malicious"
and that a public apology is required. The notice also claimed that PTI
had made efforts to deliberately damage the minister's reputation in
recent months but did not mention any examples.
The agency called the notice "an extraordinary step," citing
legislation that protects media from lawsuits regarding the coverage of
parliament unless a report can be proved to have been made with malice.
Krishna has previously come under fire for alleged public gaffes,
notably in February this year, when he mistakenly read out a speech by
his Portuguese counterpart at a United Nations meeting in New York..
AFP |