An unusual raid

Implications for both media and private banks

Indira Gandhi was a relative greenhorn in the matter of how to control the media. She used blunt instruments like limiting access to newsprint and regulating what price newspapers could charge — earning the disapproval of the Supreme Court. Later, in her dictatorial phase, she resorted to plain censorship. Subsequent rulers have realised that it is easier to control those who own the media than those who work in them. When a newspaper owned by a Mumbai businessman, Vijaypat Singhania, was proving to be a nuisance, one of Rajiv Gandhi’s flunkeys called him to Delhi and treated him to what