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Brown in America

Indian-American group sued for Sonia Gandhi ad

By: Santosh :+: Under: Brown in America, Politics
On: ⋅ May 9, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

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Last year, Indian-American members of a group named “Forum for Saving Gandhi’s Heritage”, published a full page $65,000 ad in the New York Times targeting Sonia Gandhi. [NDTV story] [the picture of the ad]

The ad was also followed by protests when Sonia and Rahul Gandhi visited the UN to participate in the International Non-Violence Day. Last month, the Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC) served legal notices for defamation and libel on 3 members of the outfit demanding $100 million dollars in damages plus miscellaneous costs. [ExpressIndia.com]

To me, the ad seemed like a huge waste of money. To those who knew Sonia Gandhi, they probably already made up their mind to like her or hate her and the ad was not going to change that. To those who were not familiar with Sonia Gandhi (layman on the streets of America), the ad basically conveyed to them that Sonia was not related to Mohandas Gandhi. Other than that, Americans are used to seeing attack ads in mass media on a regular basis and are probably inured to them by now. So in essence, they spent $65,000 to take out a full page ad saying someone is not related to someone. Think of it this way, an American in India takes out a full page ad in the Times Of India saying George Washington is not related to Denzel Washington (totally random choice of two people with similar last names). Americans in India know that and Indians in India probably know that and even if they don’t, they could care less. The entire effort seems like a massive waste of money and resources, not counting the lawsuit which is breathing down their necks.

Having seen the ad, what are your thoughts on the entire saga?

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Discussion

4 comments for “Indian-American group sued for Sonia Gandhi ad”

  1. 1: nidhi | May 9, 2008, 4:47 pm | Direct Link

    wow. my thoughts are wow, what a waste on both sides. people have a heck of a lot of time to waste on hate.

  2. 2: Sidhu | May 9, 2008, 5:34 pm | Direct Link

    The lawsuit by INOC (US), which is part of the Indian National Congress, filed in the New York State Supreme Court named the three members of the Forum - Narain Kataria, Arish Sahani, and Bharat Barai.

    Link
    Oh wait, we have heard about them before,

    Kataria, who heads the India American Intellectuals Forum, which takes up various Hindutva causes such as its recent campaign against Christie’s in New York auctioning M.F. Husain’s paintings, has denied any knowledge of the INOC complaint.

    See, this is not the ONLY idiotic thing they did, however, from the same link above, looks like they are ‘friends’ of the BJP, so it’s still the same dirty politics on a new turf. And money or time wastage is no stranger then. I would be surprised if they didn’t waste time or money.

  3. 3: Santosh | May 9, 2008, 10:27 pm | Direct Link

    Kataria, who heads the India American Intellectuals Forum

    Great find, Sidhu. It’s our old fiends…err…friends, the India American Intellectuals Forum.

  4. 4: raja r | May 14, 2008, 9:04 pm | Direct Link

    …they could care less.

    Maybe they should

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