Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to Bhutan is notable not just for the fact that it cleverly defuses the questions about the strategic orientation underlying the choice of the new prime minister's first overseas trip. It is also notable because there were only a handful of journalists on Mr Modi's plane. True, that could be explained by the exigencies of travel to Bhutan - the airstrip at Paro is relatively small, and so the prime minister took a Boeing 737 rather than the 747 Jumbo Jet that is designated as "Air India One" when the prime minister travels abroad. But this time even the mediapersons accompanying Mr Modi were drawn largely from the newswire agencies; there were only eight of them. As has been done before, Mr Modi could have chosen to travel with a "full-strength" media delegation - running into the dozens - by accommodating them on a separate plane. The choice not to do so, however, should be welcomed.
Under the United Progressive Alliance, Manmohan Singh rarely spoke to the media with any degree of comfort except when on foreign trips, when the mediapersons on board his plane got to ask him a few questions. Mr Modi is not likely to follow the same system. Indeed, he could go a step further by dispensing with the practice of taking a large media contingent on board his plane on terms that were followed by all his predecessors in recent times. This is because there is simply no reason for the Indian government to be subsidising the reporting and travel of any media outlets. While journalists accompanying the prime minister - or president or vice-president - on important trips have to pay for their own accommodation and expenses, they do get seats on Air India One that they don't have to pay for. This practice stands in stark contrast, for example, to how the media delegation accompanying the US president is organised - all costs, including travel, have to be borne by the news organisations. The exact nature of the costs of staying - which class of hotel, and so on - is decided by a nine-member group elected by the entire set of White House correspondents. In India's case, it is decided by the foreign ministry and is frequently unnecessarily exorbitant.
Mr Modi should reform this practice. Arrangements should be made for the media availability of the prime minister on foreign trips, and for a media delegation, but the costs should be entirely left to the organisations themselves to bear. Naturally, logistics can be set up in co-operation with the foreign ministry, so that visas and so on can be arranged. But there is no reason for any particular organisation to be selected by the foreign ministry. Whoever wishes to travel at the price advertised should be able to apply; and a transparent method of selection among the applications - a lottery, perhaps - should be instituted. This is not to imply that any favouritism has necessarily been displayed by the foreign ministry in the past. But it is true that such discretion being available to the government is not good for media independence.
