Oz to Spend $ 250,000 on Indian Journos for Improving Image

To mend diplomatic row over ‘racial’ attacks on Indians, the Australian government is going to spend an estimated 250,000 dollars to bring Indian journalists to the country for the purpose, said media reports.

According to reports, through its international media visits budget, the Department of Foreign Affairs will be paying flight and five-star accommodation bills of 10,000 dollars each of 25 Indian reporters for taking tours of Australia with focus on Melbourne.

The journalists will get luxury accommodation at top Melbourne hotels, tours of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and concert tickets, said reports.

The Herald Sun reported that the comfort and entertainment being lavished on the journalists and the tightly scripted itinerary is meant for covering up the attacks on Indian students that caused the Indian media portray Melbourne as racist and almost triggered a diplomatic crisis.

Besides, government also doubled the diplomacy budget for Australia’s High Commission in New Delhi from 50,000 dollars to 107,000 dollars as part of public relations campaign to help repair the damage caused by months of negative publicity and street protests, said reports.

However, the opposition parties have criticized the government move, said reports.

Lashing out a state government for spending money on journalists, Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said that money would be better spent preventing the bashings which have given Australia its ‘PR problem’, reported ‘Herald Sun’ according to reports.

“I think it would be much better spending the money on better policing of our streets because that’s the basic problem,” Abbott was quoted as saying. “Our streets aren’t safe, particularly the streets of Melbourne, which appear to have been pretty seriously under-policed.”

(Based on internet reports)