Under The world: Avowedly grateful

When a woman accused in a murder case got bail last week,it was “Mummy” who was most ecstatic — a “child” of hers was stepping out of jail,after several months during which “Mummy”,or the slain matka king’s wife Jaya Bhagat,had ensured that her child was treated as well as possible within jail. Bhagat,said sources,has been pretty much been ruling the women’s central jail for the last four years. Accused of having conspired with her paramour to kill her husband for his money,she now not only gets to skip prison duties such as cleaning toilets,but also discourages the dreaded prison bullies from taking an interest in her children. She also has a penchant for picking up the latest jailhouse grapevine,something that endears her to journalists. She loves the newshounds dearly,making it a point to slip in a juicy tidbit to waiting journalists at every court appearance.

After hours

Over the past few years,Hollywood has woken up to Bollywood producers and directors drawing “inspiration” from their films. Consequently,copyright rows have added to the judiciary’s burden. However,a judge’s position was not enviable in the least when,to determine a copyright infringement,she stayed back four hours after court to watch a Hollywood flop and its much worse Bollywood rip-off back to back.

Double trouble

Visitors to the courtroom of the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court on Friday were perplexed when they saw two brand new washing machines among the usual court furniture. This was after one of the parties involved in a trademark dispute decided to take a very direct approach to the litigation,and actually brought the two products,alleged to be deceptively similar,to the court. The machines were the object of everyone’s attention for a full two hours.

Best practices

After an official trip to Australia to study the transport system in the country,O P Gupta,general manager at the BEST undertaking,was informally showing photographs of dedicated bus lanes and bus parking bays for public transport buses on Australia’s roads. Looking at a photograph where long lines of public transport buses were parked one behind the other in a dedicated parking lane on the road,a person couldn’t help pointing out there is no space in Mumbai to replicate such a system. Gupta smiled and said: “The space should be in people’s hearts.”

The age divide

After much hoopla about the new breed of young corporators in the civic body,a 20-something fresher from Govandi,Siraj Shaikh,was recently caught by the Anti Corruption Bureau for accepting bribe. A senior Shiv Sena corporator,with whose party Shaikh,an Independent corporator,had pledged alliance,complained about how Shaikh had a reputation for such activities. “Yet,politics makes us shake hands with all kinds of people,” he said,without acknowledging that such stop-gap alliances do more harm than good. He went on to give accounts of how most new comers have been completely inactive in their wards,especially those who were ‘replacements’ for their parents and even siblings.

Lessons by fire

The state government seems to have learnt its lessons after its headquarters,Mantralaya,was gutted on June 21. A month after the fire completely destroyed the top three floors of the seven-story building,the state has now arranged for a dedicated fire tender to be present within the premise 24X7,with one fire engine and one ambulance posted in the central courtyard. The fire department has also deputed four of its personnel to man the seven-storey state secretariat building in shifts.

Post script

It seems the fire has come to the state government’s aid to ward off many an RTI applicant. Several persons seeking information are complaining that the government has standardised a reply format to applications that reached Mantralaya last month. The information sought has been lost in the fire!