Visitors’ list

This elicited laughter from the audience, even as Gadkari underlined that the statement may actually not sound too politically correct.

Certain that many VIPs would come to visit former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, who was admitted in hospital in a serious condition, authorities at the Army’s Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi decided to place a person at the gate to keep tab of such VIPs. This person, sitting with a diary marked ‘Visitors for Jaswant Singh’, was diligently making entries in his diary about the important persons who came to the hospital to ask about the former BJP leader.

MINISTER’S POINT

Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s speech during an event of the Rural Development Ministry at Vigyan Bhavan on Friday was laced with regular doses of humour. At one point, to illustrate the importance he places on the need to take quick decisions, Gadkari said he believes in the saying that he “likes dishonest people who take wrong decisions but not honest people who don’t want to take decisions”. This elicited laughter from the audience, even as Gadkari underlined that the statement may actually not sound too politically correct.

LANGUAGE NO BAR

LoK Sabha witnessed an interesting bit of interaction between AIADMK member T Radhakrishnan and Minister of State for Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman, who also hails from Tamil Nadu. Speaking in Tamil during the Question Hour, Radhakrishnan raised the issue of Chinese crackers coming in illegally into the country and thus harming business interests of domestic industry in Sivakasi and referred to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s letter to the Centre in this regard, addressing the TN CM with the honorific “Puratchi Thalaivi”(revolutionary leader). Sitharaman surprised many by choosing to reply in Tamil and saying that the letter sent by Puratchi Thalaivi had been received and that the government was taking necessary action.

PAYBACK TIME

Narendra Modi had attacked the UPA government’s Pakistan policy, accusing his predecessor Manmohan Singh of serving chicken biryani to the Pakistan Prime Minister while Indian jawans were being killed on the border. It is time for the Congress to hit back. With the BJP government deciding to sent Foreign Secretary to Pakistan later this month for talks with her counterpart, former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid sought to know whether biryani would be on the menu. He asked whether the secretary has been advised to have everything but biryani. Or has it been decided that she would take her own food or for that matter will not consume salt. He said the government should tell the nation about the menu. “Or whether our biryani was good or theirs.”

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram