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(iv) Overall assessment
India is the world's largest democracy, holds
a key position in sia, and has the added
distinction of being the most expensive FCO
post in terms of information funds. It is an
enormous and complicated country in which it
is easy to find justification for an almost
indefinite expansion of information work.
have had, however, to accept that the relation-
ship has radically altered over the years, and
that although we still have important objectives
to achieve they are more limited in scope and
require different and more limited methods.
We
We nevertheless have to take into account factors
which differentiate India from many other
countries with a similar kind of background,
India has a free press, and one which is
recognised to be the most important and
influential means of communication.
Good
relations with the press are therefore of some
importance and can be a great asset to the
Mission as a whole. Similarly, if we are now
setting our sights only on the "influential
few", then those few are still, in the context
of Indian society, pretty large in number.
the High Commissioner has said, we still have an
important political and information role to play.
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