Lead India 09-Is it about just promoting TOI group?

Just yesterday, I had blogged about TOI’s campaign and how it can be made more effective. And today, I came across an advertisement of Lead India 09 which basically was asking people to visit its website for discussion on its blogs, join a community, take a pledge, participate in contests and games, download Lead India badge, jokes and interesting caricatures.

Now what has participating in games and contests have to do with the objectives of the Lead India campaign? “Download jokes and interesting caricatures,” when we are talking about such a serious subject as “igniting a spark to light the fire of change.” (using TOI’s words)

What amazed me is that there is nothing about “know your candidates and political parties.” Lets all vote but for whom? If we follow TOI’s advise, we will end up getting either BJP or Congress to power which is what we are going to do anyway. How does the Lead India campaign help?

How do people make the right choice that Times of India campaign talks about without having reliable information to decide about who to vote. The campaign talks about “No to criminals” but how do people know who are the people with a criminal past. For instance, I know about the obvious ones but not about all the candidates with a criminal past. So how do I make the decision?

I do hope Times of India is also not taking advantage of elections to just promote its media assets and not its real asset, that is, its country.

Avinash Narula