The Statesman has distinguished itself through objective coverage of events, its value as an honest purveyor of news emphasised at times of crisis such as the Bengal Famine of 1943 and the infamous internal Emergency of the mid-1970s. It is forthright in the expression of its views. Its pursuit of the truth has been relentless and often at considerable cost to itself, as when the government of Indira Gandhi, in gross abuse of power, attempted to suppress its voice and when the government of Rajiv Gandhi interfered with the grant of statutory clearances to its modernisation plans unless the paper changed its editorial stance.