Reporter’s diary: Minister’s ‘Posco’ speech amuses scribes

The acronym often gets spelt as Posco, and though this reporter has seen many people, including officials, make this mistake, she was taken aback to hear state health minister also fumble with the word.

This reporter was present at an event held by the state health department at the Tamil Nadu Dr M G R Medical University recently and while addressing a press meet after the inaugural event of the 5th annual conference of Indian Medico Legal and Ethics Association, Dr C Vijaya Baskar spoke about the need of awareness on ‘Posco’Act among medical students and its importance.

Throughout his speech, the minister used ‘Posco’ instead of Pocso. Surprisingly, he did not even correct himself and continued his address to the media. The reporter thought that if the minister knew about the mistake he had made, he would have corrected himself before continuing with the session. And even though no one pointed this out to Baskar, many could not resist exchanging a few glances at each other. After the event, while a few reporters concluded that it was just a slip of the tongue, others were amused at the gaffe.