Foothouse Blues

You’ve got to be careful who you invite to speak at your function. The Royal Bank of Scotland Foundation, which recently gave away Earth Heroes Awards at a ‘simple’ ceremony in Delhi, learnt this lesson thanks to Jairam Ramesh.

You’ve got to be careful who you invite to speak at your function. The Royal Bank of Scotland Foundation, which recently gave away Earth Heroes Awards at a ‘simple’ ceremony in Delhi, learnt this lesson thanks to Jairam Ramesh. The function was held at a ‘green’ farmhouse in Ghitorni—an urban village near the Delhi-Gurgaon Border—miles away from the city centres of Delhi and Gurgaon. Jairam Ramesh was here to give away some of the awards. As soon as he got the mike, the Honourable Minister of Rural Development apologised for landing late at the venue, which he said was rather far away. Then he explained at length how he had been told that the venue was chosen to reduce the carbon footprint of the event. And then he wondered, loudly and clearly on the mike, whether the carbon footprint incurred in travelling to the venue by the people present there had been calculated. He might have had a point, but insulting your host is a rather unsubtle way to put it across.

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Alok Singh