Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 14 January 2018, was awarded the ‘first-ever’ Philip Kotler Presidential Award by the World Marketing Summit (WMS) India.
The official Twitter handle of the PMO India tweeted the following photo and said that the award “focuses on the triple bottom-line of People, Profit and Planet. It will be offered annually to the leader of a Nation.”
According to the Kotler Awards’ website, the awards were named after the ‘father of modern marketing’, Philip Kotler, and were “developed to honour true mastery in the field of marketing and management, and to celebrate the achievements of advertising and marketing teams and individuals alike.”
However, the official website of the WMS Group does not mention the newly-founded 2019 Presidential award at all. Nor does it mention the jury members and the process of selection.
In fact, the most recent summit mentioned on their website is the one that happened in December 2018, where Gajendra Singh, Director (Marketing) of GAIL India was awarded the ‘Kotler Award of Excellence’.
Rahul Gandhi Takes Jibe at Modi over ‘World Famous’ Award
While senior leaders of the BJP, including Piyush Goyal, Vasundhara Raje and Smriti Irani, congratulated PM Modi on Twitter, Congress President Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at Modi about the opacity around this award.
‘Most Confidential Award Ever’: Social Media Questions ‘Dubious’ Kotler
Speaking to The Wire, Tauseef Zia Siddiqui, who was reportedly the point of contact for the Kolter Presidential Award, said, “It’s a very confidential award.”
Many took to social media to question this ‘confidentiality’.
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