'Brown-nosing version of North Korea': What THIS Shashi Tharoor jibe at PM Modi's ministers means?

"We are sliding into a brown-nosing version of North Korea," the Shashi Tharoor said in a Tweet.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took a jibe at cabinet ministers on Thursday.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, known for his class-apart vocabulary, took a jibe at cabinet ministers on Thursday, saying that it's nearly impossible for any minister to not mention PM Narendra Modi while making an address inside the Parliament. "We are sliding into a brown-nosing version of North Korea," the senior Congress leader said in a Tweet.

As soon as Tharoor's tweet, a number of people were searching for meaning of the term "brown-nosing". For those who aren't aware, brown-nosing is a term used popularly in American English.

As per a definition on collinsdictionary.com, "if you accuse someone of brown-nosing, you are saying in a rather offensive way that they are agreeing with someone important in order to get their support."

The grammarist.com definition of the same says that the term came into use in the 1930s in the American armed forces. "Surprisingly, though the idiom has a vulgar origin, the term brown-nose or brownnose is not currently considered to be a vulgar term," it says.

Tharoor, who often engages with probing questions to the government in Parliament, has expressed disappointment with answers and interventions of ministers in the past.

"The current parliament session has made it painfully clear that it is no longer possible for any minister in this government to make a substantial intervention without repeatedly invoking the virtues of the Prime Minister," the MP from Thiruvananthapuram tweeted.