At a telecom industry event last week, a handful of operators went overboard enumerating all the "great" things done by Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Among them was an international player - which is engaged in a long-running tax dispute with the Indian tax authorities and which got a rap on its knuckles as recently as in October 2015 over call drops - that went on to praise the minister even for his efforts to strengthen public sector units such as BSNL.
Off stage, ministry officials were visibly embarrassed. One of them said operators should refrain from doing things that send out all the "wrong signals" to a largely "neutral" audience.
