The finance minister’s animus did not, however, extend to other journalists. At the recent Economic Editors’ Conference, an elderly journalist from Chennai put up his hand to ask a question. Before he could begin, Chidambaram observed that the journalist was perhaps the only person to attend all the Economic Editors’ Conferences in the last three decades. “Forty years,” the journalist corrected him proudly. But then, Chidambaram first became a minister in the Union government about three decades ago.