Cn Heard

Caught unawares
The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation allocates crores in its annual budget for maintenance and upkeep of colonies every year. During meetings,councillors make a lot of song and dance over the “lack of amenities” and “steps that need to be taken” to improve the living conditions in colonies. But it appears that their vocal speeches are mere political grandstanding. In a recent meet,when one of the nominated councillors asked the total number of colonies under the civic body,everyone was flummoxed. Various answers were given in the range of 11 to 18.

No music to ears
The Tagore Theatre recently organised a musical evening that featured internationally acclaimed danseuse Sonal Mansingh and Grammy award winner Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. As the audience waited in keen anticipation of the maestros to give their performances,they were served by an inordinately long preface by the Master of the Ceremony (MC). The MC,who was a young woman,was simply in love with her own voice and kept going on for an hour,‘enlightening’ the congregation on the Indian classical music and the distinguished careers of the artistes. It didn’t occur to her that the audience was aware of their international repute and people had come to the function only to see them.

Clean-up act
After the embarrassing auction recently,where GMADA failed to find any takers for its commercial and residential sites,its officials have decided to spruce up things — quite literally. A senior GMADA official said in future any site which would be put up for auction would first be properly cleaned and the surrounding areas would be decked up,so that potential buyers are not put off by the filth and scum around. 

Unusual joggers
Last week,walkers at Sukhna Lake were surprised to see Andhra Pradesh Police commandos armed with AK-47s. They were a part of the security paraphernalia of an Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS officer of the rank of DIG. The officer concerned is the son of a senior Punjab Police officer and was quite a sight running up and down in his black track suit and dark sunglasses. 

Connecting with masses
The new state BJP president Ashwani Sharma is pretty much aware that the saffron party lost considerable ground because its leaders lost touch with the people. He wants to make amends now. He is looking for a transit accommodation within the party office in Chandigarh,where his interaction with people is more frequent. Sharma plans to shuttle between his house in Pathankot and the transit accommodation he plans in the party office.