Washington Post journalist sticks to article on PM

A day after the Prime Minister's Office attacked The Washington Post for its article on Manmohan Singh's poor leadership, the reporter is still sticking to his story. Reacting to the PMO letter, Simon Denyer wrote in a blog that he had no reason to apologise and the previous apologies were due to delays in procedure, not the article.

But Denyer did acknowledge that the comments attributed to Sanjaya Baru and Ramachandra Guha were picked up from a 2011 article. The Post published a correction with regard to quotes attributed to the Prime Minister's former Media Adviser Sanjaya Baru and political historian Ramachandra Guha.

"An earlier version of this article failed to credit the 'Caravan', an Indian magazine, for two statements that it originally published in 2011. The assertion by Sanjaya Baru, a former media adviser, that Singh had become an object of ridicule and endured the worst period in his life first appeared in the 'Caravan', as did an assertion by Ramachandra Guha, a political historian, that Singh was handicapped by his 'timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty."

"While both men told The Post that the assertions could accurately be attributed to them, the article should have credited the 'Caravan' when it used or paraphrased the remarks. The article has been updated," said the correction.

On Wednesday, the Post called Manmohan Singh 'a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government'. The PMO reacted sharply, calling the report 'unethical and unprofessional'.

(With additional information from PTI)