Mumbai underground

Poster Boy

At a dinner meeting with journalists at his residence off Pedder Road on Friday,Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte said if anybody deserved a hoarding for himself,it was his deputy,Additional Municipal Commissioner Mohan Adtani. A visibly fatigued Adtani had over the previous 24 hours ensured that about 6,050 illegal hoardings were removed in the city. Though the BMC drive came only after the High Court took a serious view on hoardings following a PIL,making the city hoarding-free definitely wasn’t an easy job. None of the editors at the round table mind one for Adtani.

False Start

ON most floors of the F south ward office of the BMC is a professional architectural model of a revamped version of the office building. At the base of the glass-encased model is a phrase in bold letters,“On the road to success,there is no finishing line”. Considering the restructuring model has been in place for a while and the F south building looks nothing like what has been envisaged,an inside joke among officials is that there seems to be no starting line to success either.

Final Countdown

The prospect of the country’s first monorail arriving in the city this year is exciting not only for citizens,but also for the several MMRDA employees who have been working on the project for the past four years. Expecting the full trial runs for the final leg of the safety certification process to start from June 1,the employees of the transport and communications division of MMRDA have started counting days,literally. The soft board outside the department of MMRDA building in BKC has a new paper pinned on it every day. The paper proclaims the number of days to go before the final trial begins,and is changed every day.

Man of action

Dr Gustad Daver,Medical Director of Hinduja Hospital,in an interaction with The Indian Express,was asked his opinion on television shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs and how close they are to reality. Shrugging,he said that these shows glamourise reality and when asked,“Do you watch it?”,came a prompt reply,“No,I do it.”

Welcome Gesture

Dignitaries and official guests on a trip to Mahahrashtra could be in for a treat the next time they visit. The state’s bureaucrats in charge of taking care of visiting VIPs had found out that the Rs 25 lakh marked annually was not enough to showcase Maharashtra’s hospitality. After repeated requests,the state has now decided to double the fund to Rs 50 lakh. Protocol officers in charge of handling state guests are now hoping that the extra money would help them ensure that state guests have a good time.

Word Play

Maharashtra has been demanding financial aid from the Centre for drought relief and the many ways in which it is trying to get more funds was evident when Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar was addressing the Vidhan Parishad. He kept referring to the situation as drought,due to which Shiv Sena MLC Diwakar Raote asked him whether the word should be drought or scarcity. In the official context,the state government has been using the Marathi word tanchai,which means scarcity. Pawar replied,”The condition is that of scarcity but while writing to the Centre,we use the word drought.” Pawar was referring to using the seemingly more effective word while asking money from the Centre. His reply elicited both raised eyebrows as well as smiles in the House.