RTI reveals Make In India logo designed by foreign co’s Indian arm!

Going against the essence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-touted initiative to promote India as a manufacturing hub, the logo of the Make in India campaign was designed by a foreign firm’s India arm, a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed.

'Make in India' is NDA government's ambitious initiative to attract international investment in the country. (Make in India website photo)

This information came to light after Neemuch district-based RTI activist Chandrashekhar Gaur filed an application in this regard with the Ministry of Commerce and Industries, New Delhi.

The Make in India campaign was launched by the PM just months after he assumed office to give a push to India’s economy.

However, controversy over its logo erupted soon after — first over the logo’s similarity to advertisements displayed by Zurich Cantonal Bank on local trains in Zurich and later when sections of media raised the issue of it being designed by a subsidiary of a US-based consultant firm.

The logo was designed by the Indian subsidiary of Portland, Oregon-based Wieden+Kennedy, one of the largest independently owned advertising agencies in the world.

Responding to criticism over hiring a foreign firm for the Make in India logo, Amitabh Kant, secretary of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), on

Thursday tweeted, “Logo has been designed by young Indians led by an Indian creative director. This is an Indian subsidiary of W & K.”

Congress distances itself from Chidambaram’s remark on Afzal Guru’s hanging !!

Congress distances itself from Chidambaram’s remark on Afzal Guru’s hanging!!

Chidambaram has been quoted as having said in a newspaper interview that he felt it was possible to hold an “honest opinion” that the Afzal Guru case was “perhaps not correctly decided” and that there were “grave doubts about the extent of his involvement” in the Parliament attack.

Congress on Thursday distanced itself from its senior leader P Chidambaram’s remark that the case of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013, “was perhaps not correctly decided”. “The decision of the honourable Supreme Court in the Afzal Guru case is final and declaratory of law and justice in the case. It is futile to reopen this debate since the matter has attained judicial finality. Every citizen and instrumentality of the government is bound in law to accept the judgment of the final court,” party spokesman Ashwani Kumar told reporters.

 Kumar, also a senior advocate like Chidambaram, said that “Congress party accepts the SC judgment in the case as final and correct”. Replying to a question, he said the Supreme Court has itself said that “we are not infallible but we are final” Chidambaram has been quoted as having said in a newspaper interview that he felt it was possible to hold an “honest opinion” that the Afzal Guru case was “perhaps not correctly decided” and that there were “grave doubts about the extent of his involvement” in the Parliament attack. Chidambaram was Union Home minister when Afzal Guru’s mercy plea was rejected by the previous UPA government in 2011.