After skipping Finance Minister’s dinner, journalists boycott briefing

Relations between the Finance Ministry and journalists covering it has been uneasy after entry restrictions were imposed by the former but it came several notches down on Friday with correspondents boycotting a press briefing of senior officers.

This is considered a big embarrassment for the government as just weeks back, most of the journalists covering the Finance Ministry in the North Block stayed away from the post-budget dinner hosted by Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

On Friday, journalists walked away from the conference hall at the National Media Centre (NMC) after they were told that the officials addressing the media would only read out a statement and not take any questions.

The event turned even more dramatic when Finance Minister's Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian went out of the hall to apparently seek advice from top bosses on whether questions can be taken from the media but did not come back. Later, he could not be found anywhere near the conference hall.

In between, journalists kept insisting on asking questions and refused to accept the one-way traffic or monologue by the government while senior bureaucrats felt themselves to be in very awkward situation.