Easy on RGIJ
The Election Commission has always been prompt to communicate news about its decisions to the media through e-mail and short message service. But when it came to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, the manner in which the journos were informed raised eyebrows. The SMS from the Press Information Bureau (PIB) not only came late evening, but also strangely, it mentioned the Gandhi scion as “RG”. It took some while before one realised RG stood for Rahul Gandhi. It was for the first time, EC employed acronym for a name.
Tall claims
In a bid to attract more visitors from different parts of the world, the Union Tourism Ministry has decided to translate the existing website www.incerdibleindia.org to various foreign languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Korean and Spanish. At present, the website is available in English and Hindi. However, this has not impressed the stakeholders in the industry. They pointed out that the Ministry’s proposal to start a helpline in six UN languages to help foreign tourists has been gathering dust for the last one year.
No funds for lWE-hit roads
Even as bids for roads in Naxal-affected areas have been far and few in the past one year, Road Ministry officials say they can’t be much bothered as the Ministry admits, it has no funds to support any projects. Grapevine has it that officials are not even opening bids for the Naxal or the leftwing extremist areas as the Ministry has no money to fund them. Besides, private players are also reluctant to put in their own owing to the law and order problem. So it is a standstill situation.
Dash for wollens
As the Russians were preparing to receive Defence Minister AK Antony for the induction ceremony of aircraft carrier Vikramaditya into the Indian Navy there last week, it was a last minute dash by officials to buy woolens. When informed that mercury had plummeted to 15 minus degrees and the ceremony will be held on the deck of the ship, they rushed to get hold of caps, gloves and inner wear in New Delhi to withstand Arctic winter at Sevmash Shipyard, Severodvinsk. The officials had to brave extreme cold winds to make the historic occasion a grand success.
Omit faux pas
Following the rape analogy in the context of betting by CBI Director Ranjit Sinha, agency officials pleaded with the beat reporters not to carry the apparent faux pas in the Press. However, after a prominent English television news channel went ahead airing the footage, Print media, late in the evening, also carried the story. The controversial statement drew flak from all quarters — including political parties and National Women Commission. The Director has since apologised.