Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has denied any prevalence of a climate of intolerance in India.<br/><br/>Mr. Jaitley said, the stray incidents of people making irresponsible statements could not be generalised as prevalence of intolerance in the country.<br/><br/>He was speaking during a media round-table with Indian reporters in Washington.<br/><br/>Dubbing such loose statements on either side of the political spectrum as 'terrible' and 'highly condemnable', the senior BJP leader, however, said that they are 'extremely rare' in a large country like India.<br/><br/>Historically, such stray incidents have taken place, Mr. Jaitley said while responding to a media question.<br/><br/>He also said, the alleged prevalence of intolerance in the country is a creation of media. He observed, a news channel can show the same four people giving irresponsible statements and build a story around it. <br/><br/>What gets projected is in a large body of politics there would always be three or four people who would react aggressively and disproportionally to events, said the Minister.<br/><br/>Mr. Jaitley is currently on a week-long tour of the US to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.<br/><br/>Over the weekend, he would travel to New York to interact with the business community there. He will also address a meeting at the United Nations.

Condemning the stray incidents of people making irresponsible statements, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said, this could not be generalised as prevalence of a climate of intolerance in India.<br/><br/>He was speaking during a media round-table with Indian reporters in Washington.<br/><br/>Dubbing such irresponsible statements on either side of the political spectrum as "terrible", the senior BJP leader, however, said that they are "extremely rare" in a large country like India.<br/><br/>Historically, such stray incidents have taken place, Mr. Jaitley said while responding to a media question.<br/><br/>He also said, the alleged prevalence of intolerance in the country is a creation of media.<br/><br/>He observed, a news channel can show the same four people giving irresponsible statements and build a story around it.<br/><br/>What gets projected is in a large body of politics there would always be three or four people who would react aggressively and disproportionally to events, said the Minister.<br/><br/>Mr. Jaitley is currently on a week-long tour of the US to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.<br/><br/>Over the weekend, he would travel to New York to interact with the business community there.<br/><br/>He will also address a meeting at the United Nations.