Judge halts parade

The Republic Day parade dress rehearsal came to an abrupt halt near the Supreme Court last week, much to the surprise of the marching contingents.

Made to wait for close to 15 minutes by the traffic police, the participants in the parade were clueless at the sudden stopover. It was later known that one of the Supreme Court judges was arriving late to the court. When the judge finally arrived, the  drums, trumpets and bands came alive on Tilak Marg and the parade proceeded.

No takers

The offer of veteran Congress leader ND Tiwari to lead Uttarakhand as Chief Minister, has not only been rejected by the party but also attracted jibe from many quarters. “If Tewari has to be made the CM, the party will need to take clearance from Mahila Congress,” quipped a political analyst while reacting to the former CM’s offer. Tiwari had to quit as Andhra Governor following sex CD scandal.

Reddy’s plight

Even though Petroleum Minister Jaipal Reddy has consciously avoided getting actively involved in the Telangana controversy. But since he hails  from the region, he is getting a lot of flaks for the Centre’s inaction on the Statehood demand. While leaders from Andhra region blame him for not taking action to prevent announcement of Telangana by P Chidambaram in December 2009, the leaders from Telangana region are angry that despite belonging to their region, Reddy has done little to convince the Government to fulfil its promise of a separate State. Such all-round criticism has forced Reddy to avoid going to his home constituency. Even if he goes to Andhra Pradesh he gives no prior notice to avoid meeting the leaders from warring factions.

Rudalis

When BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar recently attended an election rally at Mayang Imphal, he confronted a bizarre situation. Everyone on the stage and among the audience broke down when Moulana Abdus Salam, the only Muslim candidate in BJP’s list for Manipur, rose to speak. “People are crying because of Moulana’s emotive speech. He is quite popular, but has not won even one election ,” a local leader told Javadekar. Javadekar  was left wondering whether he was at the rally of rudalis.

Army and age

The row over Army Chief VK Singh’s age, and strained relationship between military and the Government in Pakistan, spawned several one liners in the corridors of power in New Delhi. One of them goes: “In India the Government decides, the age of its Army Chief. In Pakistan, it’s the Army Chief who decides the age of the Government”.

Unfriendly environment

Environment Ministry is in the news not over “green issues” but for tussle between Minister Jayanthi Natarajan and senior most Ministry official Director General of Forest PJ Dalip Kumar. Last time when Kumar had won support of the wildlife experts over the issue of non-viability of cheetah reintroduction in Kuno Palpur in Madhya Pradesh, Jayanthi put her foot down against his objections. They clashed once again when Natarajan shot down Kumar’s proposal to set up two forest research centers in Delhi with a corpus of `1,000 crore from Compensatory Afforestation Fund.

Bihar envy, Gujarat pride

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has earned all-round kudos for transforming the State, which was once seen as epitome and backwardness and lawlessness. But a Supreme Court judge thinks otherwise. In course of hearing of a case, Justice Aftab Alam, who hails from Bihar, said, “Our State used to have a competent administration at one time. Things are not improving there.” In the same breath, the judge heaped praise on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. “Your State is competent in many ways,” the judge told lawyers appearing for Gujarat giving them a reason to cheer.

Scattered CRPF

CRPF officers are finding increasingly difficult to manage  the scattered branches of the paramilitary in the national capital. While the medical branch is located at Saket, training and communication branch is at RK Puram, and pay and accounts office is at Mahavir Nagar. The Directorate at the CGO is also not all inclusive as welfare branch is separate from the main building while the paramilitary has been allocated two floors at the old CBI building. Various cells are being relocated in order to make for new posts created for the ever expanding paramilitary. The scattered offices lead to wastage of time as well as energy. Is anybody listening?

Wary Congress

Its relations already strained with the Trinamool Congress, the Congress-led UPA at the Centre is refraining from further annoying the Mamata-led West Bengal regime. For, despite over 100 crib deaths being reported in Government hospitals in the State, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has entirely left it on his subordinate Minister of State for Health and Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandopadhyay to handle the issue. In contrast, Azad was quick to criticise the Mayawati Government in UP for failing to curb deaths due to Japanese Encephalitis disease.

Simple solution

Amidst much hue and cry over Election Commission ignoring cold wave in fixing dates for election in Uttarakhand, officials pointed out that the dates of Uttarakhand and Goa, where election is scheduled to be held on March 3, should have been inter-changed. Presenting a simple solution, they noted that elections in Goa could have been held on January 30, when weather there is pleasant, and those in Uttarakhand could have been held on March 3, solving the problem for the officials on election duty as well as the voters.