Delhi Underground: No ‘outsiders’

At an orientation programme held for Delhi’s 70 MLAs, Deputy Speaker of the Assembly Bandana Kumari made a special request to Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta. Referring to the multiple walkouts from the Assembly by the three BJP MLAs, Kumari said, “I would like to request Vijenderji not to leave the House and go out. Please don’t walk out. Without them (BJP MLAs) everyone tends to feel sleepy,” she said in jest.

Missing money

Women lawyers in the Delhi High Court have asked the Bar Association to install a CCTV camera inside the Ladies’ Bar Room after money went missing from a lawyer’s purse while she was using the washroom. The lawyer first blamed another lawyer for the alleged theft, and then accused the attendant working in the restroom. Things turned worse after the victim said “lawyers from trial courts” should not be allowed to enter the Bar room in the High Court.

Unpopular decisions

While the National Green Tribunal continues to pull up the Delhi Police and the Delhi government for failing to act against air pollution, the much-touted plan by the government to curb pollution shows no signs of becoming a reality. An official said, “The problem is that some of the decisions that need to be taken are very unpopular, and the government is still debating these.”

Ask Prashant Bhushan

In a session titled ‘Media and legislature,’ an AAP MLA asked the editor-in-chief of a leading daily, what she must do if the media had carried “wrong” reports and twisted facts about her allegedly procuring a fake degree. “If you are still on talking terms with Prashant Bhushan, then I suggest you take legal advice from him,” said the senior journalist, tongue-in-cheek.

Unaffected by media reports

When a lawyer complained that news reports of a newly-filed case were being published before the bench took up the hearing, a High court bench said reports did not make judges biased. “We don’t get to read the newspaper on the same day because we don’t have time. We are not affected by what the media says because we don’t see what they say,” commented the judge.

Sounding a note of caution

Rajya Sabha MP and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, who addressed Delhi’s MLAs on ‘How to be an effective legislator’ last week, told the AAP and BJP MLAs that a legislator cannot be unmindful of the religious census as it could lead to communal tension. While advising the MLAs, 46 of whom are first-timers, Aiyar said, “The religious census means nothing. There is no loss or gain from it. But it can cause riots. Some people may already be preparing to do something,” he said.

Gandhi’s advice

At the release of journalist Akshaya Mukul’s book ‘Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India’, several anecdotes of the early years of the Gita Press were shared by the author. Sharing one such instance, Mukul said that Gandhi had advised Hanuman Prasad Poddar, the co-founder of the Press, on two matters related to its publications. He had told Poddar never to publish advertisements, and never to do book reviews as it always upset somebody.