Massaging the media by tickling the underbelly of its movers and meisters is the cheapest trick in a politician’s handbook. And never does it get more obvious (and more obscene) than when Karnataka Rajyotsava is round the corner, and it’s time to honour the good and the great of journalism for their “contribution” to the State.

The year of the lord 2010 was no exception, with representatives from every news channel and newspaper finding—if not cajoling, pressuring, even threatening—their way into the list of 182, including one worthy who has spent less than three years on the Kannada nela, and would be hard put to name one restaurant in Bangalore besides quote-unquote ^^Koshy‘s^^.

Could this, therefore, be one reason why these telling pictures of a tired chief minister, who had to greet, garland and honour the giants of the nadu at the rate of one person every 45 seconds at the Rajyotsava fete, did not make it to any newspaper this morning?

Or, could it just be plain courtesy, if not patriotism; a desire to not show a beleaguered and battered CM in negative light on a day as luminous as November 1?

Or, is only poor H.D. Deve Gowda destined to be shown yawning or sleeping?

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Below is a letter shot off by the editor of Kannada Prabha, Shivasubramanya K., in late October, to colleagues and friends expressing his disinclination to receive the Rajyotsava honour, while firmly asserting, apropos of nothing, that he did not “apply” for it.

After the B.S. Yediyurappa government acceded to his “request” by not including his name in the final list, Shivasubramanya put the matter on record with a front-page box announcement, stating that the only reason he had made such a request was because the task of building the newspaper was still “incomplete”.

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Composite photographs: Karnataka Photo News

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The B.S. Yediyurappa photo portfolio

1) Is it an idol? Is it a statue? Is it a mannequin?

2) One leg in the chair, two eyes on the chair

3) Yedi, steady, go: all the gods must be crazy

4) Kissa Karnataka chief minister’s kursi ka: Part IV

5) Why did the chief minister cross the road divider?

6) Sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down

7) Dressed to thrill: Yedi-Chini bhai bhai in Shanghai

8) Survival of fittest is a great photo opportunity

9) Drought relief one day, flood relief the next

10) How a chief minister should drink tea. (Or not.)

11) Let the rebels know, the CM will not bow one inch

12) Even four pairs of hands can’t stave off the flak

13) Yediyurappa regime slips into yet another sandal

14) Behind every successful cyclist, there are a few men

15) Life’s a cycle. What goes up must come down.

16) A leg up for the one is a leg up for the other

17) The emperor’s new clothes has a loose button

18) Why does this poor, selfless soldier cry so much?

19) The great Indian rope trick adds inches to a giant

20) Even Alan Donald would quiver at such a glare

21) One sanna step for man, one giant leap for anna

22) A party of loafers, thieves, liars and land-grabbers 

23) Three years in power = three rings, or is it four?

24) Say hello to the sarsanghchalak of the ‘ling parivar’