New Delhi:
Delhi is in Pakistan and Kolkata is in the Andamans, at least according to an ad in the newspapers on Saturday by the railway ministry.
The ad has a map of India dotted with cities that are geographically completely out of synch. The Eastern Railways has expressed regret and blacklisted the ad agency that made the blunder.
The half-page ad claims it will show tourists India as never before and the map under that legend does exactly that, it shows Delhi in Pakistan and Kolkata floating somewhere in the Bay of Bengal and a host of other cities completely out of place.
The ad was about the Maharajas Express to be flagged off from Kolkata by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday. The Express is for tourists at 800 dollars a night per person. Eastern Railways blames the ad agency Adunique 76 for the faux pas.
"Our sentiments, our emotions were hurt by the advertisement and we took steps against the advertising agency immediately. They were blacklisted. Still we regret, we are really that the mistake happened in our advertisement," said Samir Goswami, CPRO Eastern Railways.
Eastern Railways claims the approved ad did not have the error. Executives of Adunique 76 told a news agency that the map and the railway route traced on it are an artist's impression and not to scale.
The big debate now is which blunder was worse, the railways ad or the one in January which had a picture of a former Pakistani Air Force chief along side the PM's and Sonia Gandhi's issued by the government to celebrate the National Girl Child day.