If it is not all right in the eyes of The Hoot for NDTV to select the BJP’s prime minister-in-waiting L.K. Advani for a “Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2009, was it OK for Business Standard—in which Hoot editor Sevanti Ninan has a stake—to invite the leader of the opposition to hand the Business Standard Awards in 2008?
Photograph: courtesy Business Standard
Also read: Should the media be honouring politicians?
IJR 
I admire your impartiality. Long live skepticism, particularly your look-at-all-with-the-same-lens version of it.
There are two possible answers to your question, depending on whether one likes Shri. Advani:
First, “Hamam mein sabhi nange!”
Second, as described in an old Sanskrit subhashita which goes “Vidvattvam cha nripatvam cha naiva tulyam kadaachana; svadeshe poojyate raja vidvan sarvatra pujyate”) — implying that everybody likes the king or the powerful one.
Honoring Advani at this time may be a way to show that one expects him to be Prime Minister later this year!
Here’s the complete verse
विद्वत्त्वं च नृपत्वं च
नैव तुल्ये कदाचन ।
स्वदेशे पूज्यते राजा
विद्वान् सर्वत्र पूज्यते ॥
The status of a scholar can never be compared with that of a king. A king is worshiped only in his kingdom, whereas a scholar is honored everywhere.