Out of the box
BJP MP and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satya Pal Singh seems to be doing a lot of ‘out of the box’ thinking in Parliament. last week, speaking in the lok Sabha, he first advocated the need for abolishing private education and replacing it with uniform public school education for all children. His second idea was to give more weightage to the votes of educated and well-meaning people vis-à-vis those who are uneducated or have criminal backgrounds. Asked how he proposed to implement these complex electoral exercises, Singh who as a giant killer defeated RlD chief Ajit Singh in Baghpat, said, “Wait ...I am working on it..”
Decorated defence
When the Government was firefighting the charge of conflict of interest against one of the SC judges, hearing the National Judicial Appointments Commission case last week, three senior came to its rescue. Senior lawyers K Parasaran, KK Venugopal and Harish Salve provided the necessary legal ammunition to the Centre to convince Justice JS Khehar to hear the matter. Incidentally, the three lawyers shared a common bond. While Venugopal and Salve were recently conferred Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan respectively, 87-year-old Parasaran is a part recipient of both these honours.
Rare gesture
While political temperatures ran high during the ongoing session of the Rajya Sabha, the House saw a rare gesture of civility on the opening day when former Defence Minister and senior Congress leader AK Antony walked across to the treasury benches to greet the Cabinet Ministers. Reciprocating the gesture Union Minister Kalraj Mishra reached out to pay his respects to former PM Manmohan Singh and leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Speaking Deputy Speaker
Normally Deputy Speakers do not take part in any debate in the lok Sabha. But that is not the case with M Thambidurai. The AIADMK leader recently put Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a tight spot by asking tough supplementary questions. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had to intervene to stop Thambidurai from going further. Grapevine has it that Thambidurai’s party supremo J Jayalalithaa has instructed him to strongly raised issues related to Tamil Nadu, as most of the AIADMK MPs are first timers.
lions vs Tigers
The lions of Gir and tigers from the rest of the country are vying for the status of the national animal of India. Grapevine has it that the Government is rethinking on this issue in favour of lions. The wildlife experts are aghast. According to them, after Taj Mahal, tiger is the second biggest attraction of the country. “Tiger is our national glory. It is a pan Indian animal, spread across the 18 States. lions should not be allowed to grab their honour,” quipped an official.
MRs for Auroville IJ
last week, the HRD Ministry conducted interviews for selecting a director at the Auroville Foundation, Puducherry, which is funded and controlled by the HRD Ministry. Nearly three dozen were interviewed by top officials of the Ministry. Among those who appeared in the daylong interview were also cloth merchants and medical representatives. At the end of the day, the Ministry rightfully decided to scrap the interview and call for fresh applications from candidates with expertise in material and spiritual researches.
Applying brakes
Even as Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has been committing to building more roads and highways and promising funds to States, most recent examples being those of Haryana, Delhi and Punjab, officials say that it is high time he applied brakes. Most pending projects, even those which have been long approved by Cabinet, have not found much interest among private developers and the Centre lacks the wherewithal to fund all under EPC mode.