PM to brief media today

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It will be the first press conference that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be addressing in the last four years. It will also mark his first interaction with the national media during the tenure of United Progressive Alliance-2, which completed its first year in office just a day ago.

So the cavernous Vigyan Bhavan, located in the heart of Delhi in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ), is all set to see the Prime Minister’s interaction with an army of mediapersons who are all set to descend there on Monday morning.
The attempts by India to bridge its trust deficit with its neighbour Pakistan post-26/11, the 2G spectrum allocation controversy that telecom minister A. Raja finds himself embroiled in, the sniping that has been witnessed in recent months among some of his Cabinet ministers, the controversial Women’s Reservation Bill and troublesome allies like the DMK and the Trinamul Congress may be just some of the bouncers bowled at the Prime Minister.
However, its unlikely that any of them will manage to ruffle a Prime Minister known for his cool and calm demeanour. For instance, when his attention was drawn during his February 2006 press conference to the Opposition’s charge that he was “the weakest Prime Minister, a fugitive Prime Minister, a Prime Minister in office but not in power”, the Prime Minister, then in his first term, had responded thus: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have not done anything to deserve such epithets. I should be judged not by what Mr Advani says but what I do.”
The Prime Minister may also rate his government’s performance like he did during his first press conference after taking over in UPA-1. Asked then how he would rate it, he had given his government a six on 10 while stating at the same time that he was not happy with its performance.