The Ranchi district administration is at war. Not behind enemy lines or against any sworn adversary, but to save the tradition of democracy.
In an unprecedented campaign to boost polling percentage on Vote Tuesday (December 9), the authorities on Thursday mimicked a late 19th century military technique to spread the big message by air-dropping pledge letters in various areas of the state capital.
A two-seater Cessna aircraft took off from Birsa Munda Airport around 2.30pm and during 30 minute of hovering dropped around 1.5 lakh flyers with a " loktantra sankalp (pledge of democracy)" in areas like Bariatu, Kanke and Morabadi. The exercise will be repeated on Friday with twin sorties of half an hour each.
Airborne flyers have been used for military propaganda and psychological warfare since 1870 when during the Siege of Paris, a French balloon dropped government proclamations in German over Prussian troops.
Aerial leaflets were first used on a large scale during World War I. The British dropped packets of flyers over German trenches containing postcards from PoWs, detailing their conditions, surrender notices and general propaganda against German generals. By the end of the war, almost 26 million leaflets had been air-dropped.
05/12/14 Raj Kumar/The Telegraph
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In an unprecedented campaign to boost polling percentage on Vote Tuesday (December 9), the authorities on Thursday mimicked a late 19th century military technique to spread the big message by air-dropping pledge letters in various areas of the state capital.
A two-seater Cessna aircraft took off from Birsa Munda Airport around 2.30pm and during 30 minute of hovering dropped around 1.5 lakh flyers with a " loktantra sankalp (pledge of democracy)" in areas like Bariatu, Kanke and Morabadi. The exercise will be repeated on Friday with twin sorties of half an hour each.
Airborne flyers have been used for military propaganda and psychological warfare since 1870 when during the Siege of Paris, a French balloon dropped government proclamations in German over Prussian troops.
Aerial leaflets were first used on a large scale during World War I. The British dropped packets of flyers over German trenches containing postcards from PoWs, detailing their conditions, surrender notices and general propaganda against German generals. By the end of the war, almost 26 million leaflets had been air-dropped.
05/12/14 Raj Kumar/The Telegraph
