High Powered?
WHAT is a high-powered meeting? In 1977, L K Advani, the then I&B Minister was to present a white paper on ‘misuse of mass media during emergency’. Dr. V S Gopalakrishnan, IAS was a Director in the ministry – yes the same Gopal whose cartoons we had carried – who used to prepare the initial drafts. In one of his drafts, Gopal wrote, “in a meeting held by the Prime Minister….”. Advani corrected it to, “in a high-powered meeting chaired by the PM…”. Gopal told Advani that there was no need to bring in “high-powered” as any meeting by the PM was obviously high-powered. After long arguments Advani gave in and said, “OK, let us not call it high-powered; any meeting (then) not attended by Sanjay Gandhi cannot be really called high-powered”