Bringing out truth
The aggressiveness of news channels debates are also seem to influence the court’s proceedings. With lawyers out to contradict each others in the fashion of a TV debate, last week a bench of the apex court faced a piquant situation. During the course of high-voltage hearing of Goa mining case, Justice AK Patnaik remarked, “Just as we see in TV debates, each will stick to his party position. Here also everybody sticks to their position.” Then he went on to add,” clash of opinions will bring out the truth.”
Gen VK Singh’s memoirs
General VK Singh could provide more nightmares to powerful people in lutyen’s Delhi when his memoirs would hit the stand in the first week of November. The General and his close aides are keeping the contents of the forthcoming book a secret. VK Singh’s latest tweets have indicated that he was not going to tamely give up his fight with the people in power. last heard the General is carefully going through the draft aware that any slip-up could give his enemy a chance to attack him.
lucky Draw to White House
The PMO and Ministry External Affairs faced a tough time when White House authorities told them to cut down the number of Indian journalists in the joint briefing of the PM and the US President in the US. The last minute communication from White House forced the Indian authorities to conduct ‘lucky Draw’ to select the journalists to enter the US President’s Home. But the situation became messy when youngsters turned out to be more lucky than editors and veterans scribes. Again rules were tweaked, and all editors and representatives of the national media were accommodated.
Too late
With lok Sabha elections knocking at the door, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is going all out to propagate the achievement and policies of his Ministry. Sources said that the Ministry is working out a plan to arrange Azad’s one-on-one meeting with beat reporters to give him the much-needed media push. It is a different matter that since he took over the Ministry’s charge in 2009, the Minister has rarely held interaction with the scribes.
A new hat
Vijay Chhibber, Secretary Roads Transport and Highways Ministry, has his plate full. In addition to overseeing road and highways projects across the country, he will now also be spearheading the affairs at the prestigious Delhi’s Gymkhana Club. He defeated his nearest opponent former chief of R&AW AS Dulat by close to 300 votes in a poll for the club’s president on Friday evening.
Yadav phobia
The Centre acted with rare speed in sacking Aam Admi Party (AAP) founder member Yogendra Yadav from UGC. Before it removed Yadav from the UGC as one of its members, the HRD Ministry anticipated an ‘intellectual’ protest and thus had a ‘name’ in mind to replace Yadav. Former Director of IIT Kanpur Sanjay Govind Dhande, who was in the race for being appointed as IGNOU’s V-C, has been appointed member UGC for three years. MHRD also rushed to file a caveat in the Delhi High Court understating that Yadav may obtain a stay order against his removal and that the order may be difficult to defend in court of law. Yadav has become the first Member of the UGC to have been retired.
liar parrot
CBI beat reporters, especially those from the electronic media, had a tough time last week as the agency Director and the official spokesperson both kept them in dark over questioning of the Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal in the coal block allocation scam. Same was the case with questioning of BJP Rajya Sabha members Prakash Javadekar and Bhupendra Yadav in connection with a video sting tape in which they were purportedly shown to influence the course of justice in an alleged fake encounter of Gujarat. Both the CBI officials maintained till late in the evening on Thursday that Jindal has been issued summons in the case and asked to appear within a day or two but the confirmation came around 9 pm. likewise, on the day Javadekar and Yadav were questioned, the duo maintained that they were asked to appear for examination and dates were yet to be finalised. However, Javadekar himself conformed that he was questioned during the day.
Unwanted media
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar would often complain about media’s lack of interest in covering his events. But, it was time for Nitish to surprise journalists when he met Ambassadors of European nations over lunch recently. His officials did not allow photographers to click pictures of the event. Next day, some journalists were denied entry at Bihar Niwas here following ‘orders from above’. Is there a change in Nitish’s media strategyIJ
Waiting forever
For several months, hopes run high amongst tiger experts that Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand and Pilibhit Reserve in Uttar Pradesh would be declared tiger reserves. The figures of flourishing feline population in these forests were highlighted by researchers and experts to expedite the process. local media fuelled expectations further with reports on how the formalities are being finalised and only official notification from the respective States is needed. However, several months have passed by in this state of anticipation, but nothing of that sort has happened. Reacting to this situation, an environmentalist said, “It is not enough to just count the feline population, especially when elections are round the corner. One also has to count the voters living within these forests. Tigers can wait but their votes cannot...”