Open any newspaper today and you will find less news and more advertisements remembering the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The ministry of commerce industry, ministry of information and broadcasting, ministry of social justice and empowerment, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, ministry of power and government of Delhi are frontrunners in placing these tributes/ads this time.

What also immediately jars is that the advertisements are from the different organs of the government of India and not from the party whom the leader represented.

Also important is the fact that not many other former Prime Ministers, Presidents or other national leaders have been thus remembered by these GoI ministries in the past.

Does it mean that India has no other icons apart from those from the Gandhi family who are worthy of such posthumous tributes?

Also are there not more befitting tributes to departed leaders than full page advertisements in newspapers?

Even as the rationale behind newspaper-ads as tribute raises questions, our poser still remains if India would have been starved of statesmen had it not been for the Gandhi family.