Delhi Underground : Heated exchange

Hi-tech bane

The new appointment-based passport application system has everyone smiling,barring the odd exception. Nitika Verma was given a lot at the Gurgaon office for December 29. She had applied for a tatkal passport on December 22. With the office fixing a daily cap of 300 applicants to avoid rush,the unlucky few who are late to apply are pushed to later dates. Despairing at her situation,Verma said,“Technology has its wonders,but at least tatkal applications were processed and cleared within three days under the old system. Here it took me a week to get an appointment.”

For healthy Metro

Two days before Mangu Singh,the new Managing Director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation,was to take charge,his wife Vir Bala was invited as chief guest to the third anniversary of the Delhi Metro Museum. At the function,mediapersons rushed to get a comment from her. One reporter from a news channel asked her how she would help her husband in executing his duties as the top boss of the DMRC. She said she would “take care of his health and his diet”.

No monkey business

Stray monkeys at the Delhi State Election Commission office have been voted out of the building,and that too within a week after State Election Commissioner Rakesh Mehta filed a complaint against them with the MCD. While many residential and office complexes suffer from the monkey menace and their repeated complaints get a lukewarm response from the civic agency,the MCD staffers could not take lightly the complaint of their former commissioner — Mehta. In all 15 monkeys from the Kashmere Gate headquarters of the Commission have been carted away to Asola Bhati Mines area wildlife sanctuary.

Media watch

Learning from the past experience of the wide media coverage of Anna Hazare’s protest at Ramlila Maidan,the Delhi Police postponed their annual press conference to January 7. In the past years the press meet was usually held in the first four days of the month. Police officers said Team Anna had earlier sought permission to hold the agitation regarding the Jan Lokpal Bill from December 27 to January 5,so they (police) presumed that their annual conference would not get adequate coverage. After the agitation failed to gather any steam,both in Mumbai and Delhi,the officers are now rethinking their decision.

Birthday gift

After the Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal was inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on October 14,the park has remained closed to public. The site was closed the day after it was inaugurated,as officials said a few finishing touches were required before the park could be opened to the general public. The initial deadline for completion of all work was November last year. Now,Noida Authority officials are racing against time to complete the remaining work by January 15,the Chief Minister’s birthday. “It is a project that she has backed herself,so if we open it to the public on her birthday,it will be symbolic,” a senior Authority official said.