Under The world: Cut to size

The jury is still out on whether the Mumbai Police managed to gauge the simmering discontent among Muslims in the city over atrocities faced by the community in Myanmar and Assam. A probe into the riots that broke out near Azad Maidan on August 11 will eventually establish slip-ups,if any. However,intelligence inputs or the lack of them notwithstanding,a senior officer in charge of security at the venue was caught on shaky ground when asked to explain the context of the protest. During a de-briefing session,a senior ranking officer was asked to speak on the “background of the issue”. His answer reportedly shocked his contemporaries and juniors. He reportedly said a “Mongolian MLA marrying a man from the Muslim community” was the root cause of problems in Assam. He may have been referring to Congress MLA Rumi Nath,representing Borkhola Assembly constituency in Barak Valley,who was attacked by a mob after she announced her marriage with a Muslim without divorcing her first husband. The police officer in question was the command head for the police deployment at the Azad Maidan grounds and had also shared the dais with 17 others.

New Politics

While the India Against Corruption movement’s foray into politics hit some hurdles,the Lok Satta Party founded by former IAS officer Dr Jayaprakash Narayan launched a membership drive to mark the start of India’s 66th year of Independence. Calling for change in governance instead of change in governments,the party’s email promises change for a better future and exhorts common citizens to stop being silent spectators to corruption. But the punchline takes a quiet dig at the currently popular trend of deriding politicians of all hues: “The answer to bad politics is good politics,not no politics. Join us.”

Price of a speech

During a meeting of the panel members of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) undertaking last week,Shiv Sena’s Sunil Ganacharya had pointed out that tenders for the procurement of certain basic equipment are attracting the same set of companies to bid repeatedly. Urging the BEST general manager to look into the issue,Ganacharya said he suspected that the BEST designs the specifications of the equipment in such a manner that only these companies are able to meet the requirements. The general manager asked Ganacharya to bring an example to light where the BEST has tweaked specifications as against standard specifications for some equipment to benefit a specific company. Ganacharya response elicited wide smiles all around: “I only get Rs 50 as honorarium for every meeting. How much am I supposed to talk in that?”

Number Dropping

Congress corporator from Hindu Colony Naina Sheth,a first-time corporator after being elected in the civic elections held in February,led to an awkward moment in the BMC’s general body meeting on Thursday when she inadvertently gave away the late Vilasrao Deshmukh’s cellphone number during her speech. Corporators were paying glowing tributes to Deshmukh during the meeting of the general body of elected corporators when Sheth began to praise the former chief minister’s accessibility to all. “Mr Deshmukh was a humble and approachable man,” she started. “I could just pick up my phone and call him on his number 98XXXXXXXX for any advice and he would always answer the phone himself,” she said. The uncomfortable awkwardness that followed was fortunately shortlived as Sheth was the last speaker for the day and the meeting was adjourned immediately after.