Fire fiasco
The Speaker of Uttarakhand Assembly is reportedly furious at the incident of a mysterious fire in the house allotted to a Congress legislator Karan Mahra in the MLA hostel. The speaker’s concern on the safety of legislators is genuine as incident of fire in the house of Mahra comes after safety systems were said to have been installed in the MLA hostel after a similar fire was reported in the house of Kedarnath MLA Manoj Rawat, few months ago. However, the word gaining momentum is that the fire in the house of Mahra was not the result of short circuit as is being officially claimed but could have been ignited deliberately. The skeptics point out that since the Congress leader had recently claimed to have sufficient proof against a relative of TSR and in a press conference had openly stated that he would screen these evidences in all district headquarters, the purpose of the fire could have been to destroy evidence.
RaGa’s Rally
As the date of the rally of Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Dehradun draws near, the anxiety on the faces of senior leaders of Congress state unit is becoming increasingly palpable. The concern of these leaders is to ensure respectable crowd at the rally from which Rahul Gandhi would set the ball rolling of the party-pitted against a formidable BJP-for gruelling election campaign in the Himalayan State. Bereft of the resources, the leaders of the once all dominating party, the coffers of which were always overflowing, are facing hard time to transport people to the site of the rally. In a unique way to manage meagre resources at its disposal the party has directed its foot soldiers entrusted with the task of carrying people to rally site by uploading pictures of the buses and other vehicles before they start for the rally.
Childcare chaos
In the midst of ever increasing din of the multi phased Lok Sabha polls and never ending discussions on the shape of the new Government at the Centre, one thing which is being overlooked is that the examination season is at peak in the schools. It is usually seen that during examination time, the heads of department of government are under pressure to grant childcare leaves to the female members of the staff as they are flooded with applications for these leaves. Ever since the childcare leaves were granted exclusively for the women employees by the government considering the additional task of caring the child they have to carry during examinations and illness, these leaves have been a cause of heartburn for the male employees. These leaves have however created an unpleasant situation in thousands of government schools where majority of lady teachers opt for childcare leaves at a time which coincides with the examination of the children they are teaching. In a department like education where female teachers are in large numbers such a situation creates a problem for the school heads and sends wrong signal to the society.