Seller defends buyer

Last week prominent news reports appeared saying the Uttar Pradesh government owed computer major Hewlett-Packard (HP) several thousand crores for the laptops it bought to distribute free to senior school students. Given the habits of state governments, this wasn't a surprise. What was surprising was the company's reaction. Soon after, HP's public relations teams scrambled into action, offering journalists from rival publications a story that the payment had been received and that the original story was a political conspiracy to discredit the Akhilesh Yadav government. Where a simple clarification would have done, why the elaborate effort to defend the state government? Perhaps it is because the company will not want to upset the one government that has awarded it the largest laptop contract ever in the history of the country.