The latest publicity campaign of the government, aimed at Election 2009, does not focus on the Indo-US nuclear deal. Instead, it aims to reach out to the common man.

   *  The committee of secretaries has drawn up a note that will be the basis of the campaign
    * The focus will be on price rise
    * The planned campaign will highlight the steps taken by the government to check prices of essential commodities
    * The rise in global prices of foodgrains will be compared with that in domestic markets to show that inflation has been kept at a minimum.

    * The N-deal will be only be cited as one of the achievements of the UPA
The UPA government may have staked its life on the high-sounding Indo-US nuclear deal.

But it knows well that, as a poll plank, the deal is not likely to have much resonance with the aam janata. So, even a week before the trust vote was won, as its publicity wing brainstormed on issues to be highlighted in the run-up to Election 2009, the irony
is that it was the Congress-led UPA government's humbler pro-people programmes that topped the agenda.

The committee of secretaries, which met a week before the trust vote in Parliament on July 22, decided that no effort should be spared in convincing the public of the government's sincerity about bringing down the prices of essential commodities. The Principal Information Officer (PIO) in charge of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) was directed to use all means of communication at her command to drive home that message. Characteristically downplaying the drive, Deepak Sandhu described it as a routine affair: "We do it from time to time. We've also decided to put the information online." She also said that key ministries, like agriculture and finance, had been roped in as part of the effort.

The buzz in the relevant corners of bureaucracy has just one sense: the government means business. Last September, when relations between the UPA and the Left had plummeted and talk of a mid-term election was in the air, the government had hired Percept, a Mumbai-based advertising agency, to publicise its flagship programmes. The focus then had been on projecting the achievements of the government through a unified campaign. This time, the perception is that the focus should be on the hinterlands and the remotest corners of the country. "The government feels it is not enough to just focus on the national media and the mainstream newspapers. It is time to actively woo the regional press and the radio to carry the message of the government," an information & broadcasting official says.

But what exactly does the government propose to convey? The note from the committee of secretaries marks out the contours of the proposed campaign. Here's what it says about the UPA government trying to keep a check on the price rise: "Wheat prices have increased by 68.5 per cent internationally, while the increase in the domestic market is only 8.4 per cent. Similarly, rice prices have gone up in international markets by 169.9 per cent, while the increase in domestic price is only 8.4 per cent." It describes how prices of petrol, diesel, and domestic lpg have been kept under control. Global prices versus domestic prices--that's what the government wants highlighted.

The subtext is that, given the global economic and food crisis, things could have been a lot worse without effective government intervention. The campaign is also aimed at showing that the government has increased the amount of food supplied through the public distribution system (PDS).