A traffic policeman was in for a shock when he stopped a Haryana resident for overspeeding. “Why am I being stopped?” the man asked. “You have crossed the speed limit of 50 kmph, that’s why. This is Delhi and that’s the speed limit,” the policeman told him. What came next was something the policeman wasn’t prepared for. “I have paid Rs 6.5 lakh for this car for a reason. If I can’t drive at 70 kmph, what’s the point of buying such an expensive car? You should catch the company that sold me this car . How is it my fault?” the man said. In a hurry Last week, senior police officers visited an area in Jamia Nagar, where a fire broke out in a house and left six persons dead. To avoid local residents and press photographers, an officer, who hurried down the narrow lanes, entered a house, only to realise that it was not the one that had caught fire. The family panicked on seeing the officer. Incidentally, several reporters, who saw the officer entering the wrong house, tried to stop him. But the officer, who thought that they wanted to ask questions, ignored them. Holiday on hold With the nursery admission picture still hazy and summer vacations round the corner, both parents and school principals are in a fix. Parents are busy calling up schools to know if they can take an outstation trip. And with a few schools having begun nursery classes, the confusion seems to have multiplied. “I called up the school to ask if we could go out of the city in the first fortnight of May, but I was told to do so at my own risk,” a parent said. “We have been waiting for three months now and, frankly, it’s been futile. But, as it turns out, we can’t even leave the city. It’s like being held to ransom, except that if something does happen, we’ll be the ones paying the money too,” the parent said. PR help With the Padma awards being handed this week, several doctors from Delhi, including some from government hospitals who were conferred with the honour, hired PR executives. A doctor at a leading government hospital in the capital said, “When the awards were announced, doctors from government hospitals found no space in the media. Doctors in government hospitals attend to the highest number of patients and also devote time to research. While actors, writers, dancers and even scientists find mention in the awards lists, we don’t. It’s absurd because even people from our own fraternity did not know that I was going to get this award.” He said they got the idea of hiring PR personnel after speaking to doctors from private hospitals, whose names appeared in the media. “We were relying on the government issuing a press release. But we learnt that awardees also do their own media management since very few people read the government press release,” he said. Cop hospitalised The investigation into the death of Medanta Medicity cardiologist Pankaj Gupta, who was run over by a Haryana Roadways bus, ran into a small hurdle after the investigating officer had to be admitted to Medanta Medicity for a day for chest pain. Only a day before, he was heard saying that too many phone calls enquiring about the case were taking a toll on him and that he felt exhausted. Police officers at Sadar police station said he was coming down a flight of stairs on the day the driver of the bus was rearrested when he collapsed. “He has a heart condition,” an officer said. Woman power With the Delhi High Court’s first woman Chief Justice taking oath of office last week, the spotlight has shifted to women in the High Court. During speeches at a welcome function held by the High Court bar association, the president and vice-president, both men, made special mention of the five women members in the newly elected Delhi High Court Bar Association. They also stressed on better interaction between the bar and bench, and encouraging women lawyers. Press releases spree Officials of different departments under the Delhi government have started issuing press releases following the Lt-Governor’s orders. For instance, releases on summer action plans, revenue generation and steps taken to prevent theft of water have been issued recently. “The Delhi government has made tremendous efforts to boost tax collection during 2013-14, which helps in maintaining a healthy financial position and implementing developmental and welfare programmes,” one press release stated. At 4, AAP supporter While Yogendra Yadav may not be the most active Aam Aadmi Party leader on Twitter, his tweet, which had a photo of a letter written by a four-year-old AAP supporter who donated her piggy bank to the party, went viral on the social networking site. In the letter, the four-year-old explains her reasons for writing the letter. She also writes about the problem of drugs in her home state Punjab. Poster war After the JNU Students’ Union called for a march by students to Varanasi and a door-to-door campaign against Narendra Modi, a poster war began in the campus between the ABVP, the DSF and other organisations over how the AISA had called a march on behalf of the union without consulting members of other organisations. In response, the union president said, “At the Centre, whoever heads the government promotes its policy. Likewise, as the union is led by the Left, Left politics will be promoted.”
