“He (Rahul Gandhi) is shy, reluctant to speak to journalists, biographers, potential allies or foes, nor even to raise his voice in parliament. Nobody really knows what he is capable of, nor what he wishes to do should he ever attain power and responsibility. The suspicion is growing that Mr Gandhi himself does not know,” says The Economist.

The big question here is, why the foreign media has all of a sudden become critical against the Congress leadership? “It will be bit difficult to give a real assessment of the motive behind (criticism of Congress leadership by foreign media) because the sudden upsurge in the media may be a motivated step," said Dr Waiel Awwad, a senior international journalist based in South Asia.

"It could be also the reflection of Indian situation itself that India is having a problem internally and attracting the public opinion because of the corruption and all other stories where the blame is on the UPA and mainly the ruling Congress party that they are seeing it as the main culprit . . You could see in both ways. What is more important is avoid over sensitivity and try to be more transparent and more objective,” Dr. Awwad added.

Whatever the motive, BJP has every reason to rejoice over the reportage and not a wonder its spokespersons have been supporting all the stories that have been published in the foreign media lately. It has even went on to say that foreign media is portraying what it has been saying for years now.

But everyone wouldn't agree that there is any motive and the argument would be simple – foreign media is just highlighting what a section of Indian media has been doing for years – though that fails to make an impact many a time.

"I think the premise of your question is flawed: there is no sense in which the foreign media has become MORE critical of the Congress government than Indian journalists and newspapers -- in fact, the foreign media takes its cues from the reporting and commentary that appears in the Indian media,” maintained Jonathan Shainin, Senior Editor with the Caravan Magazine.

“The Economist piece to which you refer is mostly about a book on Rahul written by an Indian journalist; when the Washington Post calls Manmohan Singh a 'tragic figure', they are quoting Ramachandra Guha -- and, in fact, using a quote from Guha that appeared in Caravan magazine almost a year ago," Shainin added.