Delhi Confidential: Pen Drive

After the bypolls, BJP leaders are finding it hard to explain their party’s performance, which has been much below expectations.

Former Supreme Court judge and Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju has decided to write a book on the Indian judiciary.

After stoking controversies over alleged corruption in higher judiciary as well as the failings of the collegium system of appointments to higher judiciary, former Supreme Court judge and Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju has decided to write a book on the Indian judiciary. Announcing his plan on Twitter, the former judge asked his followers to answer in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if Indians had “lost faith in our judiciary?”. Incidentally, Katju’s tenure as PCI chief ends in October and unless the NDA government decides to give him another assignment, he will have a lot of time to write his book.

Sold Out

The organisers for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s September 28 Madison Square outing have announced that the Sunday event is already “oversubscribed” and that tickets are no longer available. The venue has a capacity of 20,000 and a lottery system was used to pick those who would get entry tickets from among the applicants. The website for the event now asks people to cancel their tickets if they can’t come so that those on the “waiting list” can get a chance to hear the PM in New York.

The Blockbuster

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pep talk to school students on Teachers’ Day has apparently created a new TV viewership record. According to data complied by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Modi’s speech that day was watched by about 2.14 crore people across all the news channels, which was about five and a half times the average viewership for that slot in the four preceding weeks. About 1.9 million people watched it on DD News, which was a record for that slot for the channel. Modi has also been informed about the data by the Press Information Bureau.

Blessing In Disguise

After the bypolls, BJP leaders are finding it hard to explain their party’s performance, which has been much below expectations. A party spokesperson, however, tried to give it a spin by saying that it was a blessing in disguise. He said a marginal victory for the RJD-JD(U) combine in Bihar in the earlier bypolls had made Lalu Prasad so overconfident that he was heard telling an MP that he is just a narrow distance away from power in the state. The spokesperson suggested that the BJP may also have become complacent if it had got a comprehensive victory in the byelections.

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