Accent Problems

The Rajya Sabha is witnessing a peculiar problem. The top floor managers from the UPA belong to south while the opposition NDA leaders come from the north. In the business advisory panel meetings, Sushma Swaraj's heavily sankritised Hindi sounds very nice to parliamentary affairs minister Vayalar Ravi, his deputy V. Narayanswamy and
Congress' chief whip P.J. Kurian but it leaves a huge communication gap. Sharad Yadav of JD (U) and Gandhi Azad of the BSP privately admit that they have problem understanding what the UPA team says or offers.The Rajya Sabha deputy chairman K. Rahman Khan and chair panel veteran Jayanti Natarajan too hail from South which makes the ruling UPA team packed with southern flavour.

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Lessons for Media and Congressmen

AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi believes in basics.Recently a young TV reporter given Congress beat called on him.Dwivedi quickly handed her over a copy of Indian National Congress party constitution urging her to read it. Dwivedi has a grudge that many correspondents covering the Congress are not familiar with party constitution and its history. But a cursory look at the party constitution's provisions about maintaining discipline and probity and
ethics in public life clearly show that many senior Congress ministers and CWC members need to read the party constitution more attentively than media.

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The Zimbabwean "bonanza"

It turned out to be too good to be true. Pashupatinath temple authorities in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh rubbed their eyes in disbelief when they received a cheque in their donation box carrying several zeroes. When they added it up it came to One crore. But within days, the sense of exhilaration turned into anger and rage when a Mumbai-based Forex bank converted the crore into a princely sum of Rs 2. 26 paisa. Worse news followed---the cheque clearance charges amounted to Rs.

Patil's goof ups

Jaipur blasts have once again brought in focus inept handling of internal security. But home minister Shivraj Patil is sitting pretty. His loyalty to 10, Janpath is providing a crucial ring of protection.Patil's personal staff is however getting jittery over their minister's insistence to speak in Hindi making liberal use of Marathi. Patil's aides want him to speak in English particularly when addressing the media. The need to switch over from Hindi to English is
not without a reason. The minister reportedly said there was a need to teach a lesson to militants. But his usage of word "shiksha" led to confusion as in Hindi it means "to educate" but in Marathi it amounts to punitive action.

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Lalu's man does a Lalu

Union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh is going the Lalu way. The minister whose department is handling NREGS and other UPA flagship projects is getting calls from some top business schools in USA and Singapore. Representatives from over 15 countries have already called on Raghuvansh seeking tips for the success of his initiatives. It is however unclear how Raghuvansh's party boss Lalu views the minister's success.