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Journalism of Courage
Scuttle tax?
Not long after the BJP announced K.L. Sharma8217;s nomination to contest the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat, the Municipal Corporation put forward a proposal to impose a property tax of 10 per cent on commercial properties. The step was allegedly initiated by ruling party members in response to the Administration8217;s direction to quot;generate your own resources.quot; However, it must also be noted that dissident BJP councillors owing allegiance to Satya Pal Jain control the Corporation. Could it be that denial of the BJP ticket to Satya Pal Jain had anything to do with the tax proposal? It will certainly affect BJP candidate K.L. Sharma8217;s chances in the Chandigarh Parliamentary election.
Quick return
Honesty is not dead. When an Indian Express staffer lost his purse containing Rs 800 and documents last Wednesday he thought it was gone for good, but he hadn8217;t reckoned on Anup Singh, a resident of Panchkula8217;s Sector 15. Anup found the purse near the Sector 4 petrol pump in Chandigarh and handed it over to Home Guard constables Baljinder Kaur and Karamjeet Kaur, who were on duty nearby. The Express staffer soon got a phone call from the Home Guard girls and within an hour of losing it, he had got it back from the Sector 29 Traffic Lines. Hats off to Anup, Baljinder and Karamjeet!
A few weeks back, the military police found a six-year-old girl roaming about aimlessly in the Chandimandir cantonment. On being questioned, she gave her name as Neelam and said that she had run away from the home of her uncle, Maya Ram, residing in Sector 9 of Panchkula, as she did not like living there.
The civil police were contacted and in the meantime the girl was put up overnight with the family of a JCO. The next day, the military police contacted Bal Niketan in Panchkula8217;s Sector 2 and the girl8217;s family was traced. Her father, Tota Ram, a resident of Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh, was contacted and Neelam was handed over to him after she identified him.
The Bal Niketan management also wrote a letter of commendation to the military police by whose efforts the girl was restored to her parents.
Last post
Chandimandir resident Rachna Singh has written a long poem about soldiers posted in Siachen. It concludes:
They pause and now they fall asleep;
A strange new power governs their lives
As they are on top of the world.
These soldiers sacrifice their lives
To save their Mother. They remain
In the hearts of their countrymen
As Amar Jawans.
Bedi8217;s bail declined
What does a Magistrate do when the bail application of Kiran Bedi, booked under Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, comes up for consideration? He rejects the bail plea on grounds that the offence is serious and drops the surname, quot;Bediquot; from the order 8212; lest the public should wonder what went wrong with the former UT IGP!
Fleeting chance
Lawyers at the district courts complex had a good laugh recently: an accused being escorted to trial tried to escape from the cops. They set out after the man 8211; literally in hot pursuit 8211; and luckily for them, were able to chase him down after a 100-metre sprint. They might have lost their jobs had the man got away.
What worries the police is that, what with the Supreme Court ruling barring handcuffing of the accused without prior permission of the court, they may have to keep their running shoes on all the time.
Promoted
Former UT Inspector General of Police, R.P. Singh, has been promoted and posted as Joint Commissioner of Police, Vigilance, Police Headquarters, Delhi. An AGMU-75 cadre officer, he was earlier posted as Additional Commissioner of Police, Delhi.
Pata nahin 8230;
The ideal hospital staffer should have the patience of a saint and the stamina of an Army commando and that goes double for those who man the phones. One major complaint, and a perennial one, is that the telephone is never answered properly, quot;Yahan se nahin pata lagegaquot; is the pet answer. Maybe the hospitals should go in for attitude training to help the staff be a little more cooperative and sympathetic to those calling in to find out about sick relatives and friends.
Taking it off
You8217;ve heard of weight-loss programmes that offer to take the flab off you for huge sums of money? Student leaders on the campus who protested the fee-hikes with fasts-unto-death were far more successful. From less than six days of fasting, former Campus Council president Munish Anand lost seven kilos. quot;I have lost whatever weight I had gained after college,quot; a lean Anand remarked. He had graduated from college in 1994.
So if you want to lose in just about five days what you gained in five years8230; Anand8217;s got the answer.
Overheard
At a recent function to release former Punjab Police IG, B.S. Danewalia8217;s book, a journalist observed: quot;Most of those present here seem to be retired.quot; quot;Retire ho ke hi aqal aandi hai,quot; Danewalia shot back. Should one conclude that service and aqal are mutually exclusive?
Baap re!
The photo that accompanies this week8217;s edition of Cityscape captures a hoarding on Madhya Marg. Erected by the Chandigarh Police, it warns quot;Some innocent-looking objects can be very dadly.quot; Not to be confused with fatherly?
