An advertisement published on behalf of the Pakistan Navy for a multi-national exercise prominently featured images of Indian Navy warships – even though India is not among the countries invited to participate in the manoeuvres being held in the Arabian Sea, the website of an Indian magazine reported on Wednesday.
This is not the first time that such a mistake has crept into advertisements issued by government agencies in India and Pakistan. In March last year, an advertisement issued by the police force in Pakistan’s Punjab province featured the logo of its counterpart in India’s Punjab state.
In January last year, an Indian government advertisement pictured former Pakistan Air Force chief Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed alongside Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and cricketer Kapil Dev.
The full-page advertisement for the AMAN-11 exercise, which appeared in The Nation and Nawa-e-Waqt newspapers, featured images of the Indian Navy’s Delhi, Godavari and Talwar-class warships, reported Outlook magazine. It also featured images of US warships under the slogan: “Together for peace”.
Orient Advertising, the company which made the ad on behalf of the navy, used a picture from Indian navy’s exercise Malabar exercise held last year in which US and Indian warships participated to highlight the ongoing Pakistan navy’s AMAN-11 exercise currently being held by the Arabian Sea.
CEO Orient arrived early morning in Karachi and was asked to explain his position by navy officials, who faced embarrassment because of the advertisement.
The CEO reportedly also held a meeting at his Karachi office with his co-workers to address the issue. Senior navy officials refused to give a comment on the record. However, they said that they were not taking the issue lightly and were considering the option of taking the ad agency to court.
A regional director at Orient said that unlike previous years, the ad was not prepared by the agency’s team in Karachi, but was made by their Islamabad office, where the CEO of the company sits.
The company is blaming its Islamabad based creative director for the blooper. Orient’s Regional Director Islamabad did not return calls to give his version. The CEO too refused to speak with The Express Tribune despite repeated attempts even though he was in Karachi.
Human error – which has crept into the pages of this newspaper enough times – is clearly the evident cause of the mistake, said one media observer, adding “If nothing else perhaps this error is a sign that the Pakistani navy should have extended an invitation to our neighbours to participate, thereby helping lower the continued tensions that persist between the two countries militaries.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 10th, 2011.
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