Delhi confidential: Friendly Fire

Jairam Ramesh had some fun at the expense of his party colleague Rajeev Shukla in Rajya Sabha Tuesday. He supported RJD MP Prem Chand Gupta in his rant against the BCCI even as Shukla, the chairman of the IPL, was busy defending the cricket board. Ramesh even provoked Gupta against the BCCI by reminding him that it refuses to come under the ambit of RTI. He then sat back and laughed heartily at the argument that ensued between Shukla and Gupta. Almost all MPs across party lines, especially Arun Jaitley, were amused at Ramesh’s antics.

Rough Start

Trinamool Congress’s Deepak Adhikari, who became an MP in 2014, finally made his maiden speech during zero hour on Tuesday. But it was not without a few hiccups. First, the House was adjourned twice. Then, when he began in his mother tongue, the Speaker asked him if he had given a notice to speak in Bangla. Although he had sought prior permission, the Speaker had to request him to take a seat till a translator was brought in. When he got up to speak again, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had a submission to make. Eventually, Adhikari managed to deliver his debut speech in Bangla.

Parliamentary Poets

An otherwise commonplace discussion on the Railway Convention Committee’s report on Tuesday inspired some latent poets in Lok Sabha. The first speaker, former railway minister and TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi, had his speech interrupted by TDP members demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh. Despite repeated reminders from the deputy speaker to cut short his speech, Trivedi made sure to sign off with a poem dedicated to the Railways. “Rail gaadi ki chuk chuk mein hi deshwasiyon ki dhak dhak hai,” he said to applause. Highlighting the importance of government investment in Railways, BJP MP Sharad Tripathi responded by reciting another Hindi poem, by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar: “Jo hota hai, woh hone do, yah paurush-heen kathan hai. Jo hum chahenge, woh hoga ismein hi navjivan hai.”

Game For Cleanliness

As many as 22 prominent sports icons might soon lend their weight to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission. This month, the Ministry of Urban Development will take up special campaigns aimed at promoting the mission among the youth. From August 15 till the end of the month, it plans to rope in several sports icons and sports clubs to spread the message through ‘swachhta runs’ and cleanliness drives in stadiums across the country. Some of the existing Swachh Bharat brand ambassadors that the ministry is approaching for participating in the campaign include Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Sania Mirza, Jwala Gutta, Milkha Singh, Pargat Singh, Mohammad Kaif, VVS Laxman, Suresh Raina, P Gopichand and Koneru Humpy.

Latest Addition

The list of government organisations exempted under the Second Schedule of the Right to Information Act has one more addition. The Strategic Forces Command, the NDA government has ordered, will also fall in the exempted category. The list of exempted agencies, which began with 18 organisations beyond the ambit of the RTI Act, has been amended five times, and now has 26 names. In 2011, the UPA government had added the Central Bureau of Investigation, the National Investigation Agency and the National Intelligence Grid in the exempted category.