Speed ‘Stupefying’
Commissions are known to take considerable time to submit reports. But this time a ‘miracle’ happened. The Rural Development and Migration Commission submitted its interim report on the mind-boggling migration issue with a speed that has left many gasping in wonder. The commission set up by Trivendra Singh Rawat government in August last year started functioning from October last. While releasing the much-awaited report, the vice- chairman of the commission claimed that the teams deputed by the commission visited a ‘jaw-dropping’ 7950 villages and conducted comprehensive surveys on myriad aspects of the migration. The fact that the commission in a span of less than six months conducted survey in thousands of villages, completed different questionnaires, complied various data, analysed figures, uploaded the research analysis, derived inferences and had it published has stupefied many. However, those, inclined to carping about everything, doubt the genuineness of the contents of the survey. Many say that the report of the commission is devoid of any mention of the methodology used for the important survey, though it has mentioned in details the reasons which are triggering migration. They wonder, as they are wont to, over whether there is anything new in the report which is already not in the public domain.
‘Microscopic’ Harish Rawat
The indomitable Harish Rawat remains without peer when it comes to using innuendoes, subtle yet pointed, directed at his adversaries. The leader was at his best recently at Haldwani when he appeared before media while holding a telescope in one hand and a lens in another. Finding all baffled, he explained the use of these scientific instruments, saying that they would help him during his Kedarnath trip to minutely find out with the scientific precision the works being done by the incumbent government and also to compare them with what was done when he was helming the state as the Chief Minister. His trip to the revered shrine was politically remarkable as the crafty politician not just put the BJP -helmed State Government on the dock but he embarrassed also a much younger state chief of the Congress Pritam Singh and other party leaders as he outshone them with the spring in his gait remaining intact despite his advancing age. His ‘political’ pilgrimage was tested by nature too as rains and snow whipped through the areas surrounding the shrine. He got stranded at the shrine by the quirky nature for some time. When the eventful, nature-tested journey came to an end everyone expected that Harish Rawat would go full throttle, hitting out at the state government on the ongoing Kedarnath reconstruction works. But true to his style, he flummoxed all as he was all praise for the administration, something which again proved that he remains as enigmatic as ever.
Babu’s siesta
Afternoon nap of a Babu holding a very senior position in the state administration is drawing sneers from the staffers and the visitors alike. During the afternoon hours, when the sun is at its dazzling peak, the Babu slips into a blessed siesta after taking lunch in own office in the secretariat. The door is locked once the hands of the clock point at 1. 30 pm and it remains so for close to a couple of hours. There are, however, varied accounts accounting for the time he remains out of bounds for all behind the bolted door. Some, who hold him in awe , say it is his time to go through some important files, secluded. But others say he enjoys an afternoon breather from the humdrum drudgery of flipping through the irksome files.