Operation Sindoor’ attracts gold-diggers

Wars are about grief and valour and more often than not also about hard-nosed business. Seeing the glitter of gold in India’s nationalist frenzy, four Indian entities applied for the trademark ‘Operation Sindoor’, among them Reliance Industries. On Thursday, according to The Hindu, Reliance Industries withdrew its application for the term ‘Operation Sindoor’. It explained that the application was inadvertently filed by a junior employee without authorisation. It wasn’t inadvertent though that in 2013, business tycoons had created Gujarat’s controversial chief minister Narendra Modi as their preferred prime ministerial candidate. The choice brought rich dividends: promoters got huge contracts, including one related to the French Rafale warplanes.