Cn 038; heard

There is a neologism that is doing the rounds of the UT Administration these days. It is called the donkey syndrome. The asinine term implies the situation where a hard working officer is given additional charge. This term gained currency recently when an HCS officer, who was being given additional charge by his senior, pleaded with him not to increase his already heavy work load. The superior jokingly remarked, 8220;We call it the donkey syndrome, where a hard working and honest official situation is akin to that of a donkey, that implies he is heaped with loads of work without any reward or recognition.8221;

I am not temporary

There is a lot in the name after all! Ask the Punjab Congress chief who deeply resents his being referred to as the 8220;acting chief of the Punjab Congress8221;. At a recent press conference he spent considerable energies explaining to the media that there was no transience to his designation and he was in fact the real President of the Punjab Congress. His detractors point out that this is his response for being perennially in the shadow of his illustrious party colleagues including Captain Amarinder Singh and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal.

8216;Clutter-free8217; office

The incumbent Director Public Instructions Schools clearly does not share the enthusiasm of his predecessor for public interactions. One of the first things, which Samwartak Singh did on assuming charge was to remove all the 8220;unnecessary8221; furniture. This is certainly an indication that he doesn8217;t like too many visitors flocking his office. This is in stark contrast to Setia, who was so fond of public interactions that his office was always 8216;densely populated8217;.

Sensex : R.I.P

Forwarded emails and unwanted SMSes are most often of the obnoxious variety. But there are times a genuine pearl lands in our inboxes. Last week, this particular one was doing the rounds which brought smiles to people8217;s faces even in these morose economic times. It conjured an imaginative obituary for sensex in the following words- Humare priye Shri Sensex ji ka swargwaas ho gaya hai. Yeh pichle 9 mahino se bimaar they. Reliance, SBI, Infosys, ICICI ke pita thhey. Hang Sang aur Nikkei ke bhai aur Down Jones ke jamai they. Unki Prarthana Sabha Lehman Brothers ke wahan rakhi gayi hai. Zarur Padhare. loosely translated in English- Our beloved Mr Sensex has expired. He was ill for the last nine months and is the father of Reliance, SBI, Infosys and ICICI. He was the brother of Hang Sang and Nikkei and son-in -law of Down Jones. Please visit his condolence meeting scheduled at Lehnman Brothers premises.

Empty stands

The vacant stands at PCA Mohali, even on the momentous day when Sachin Tendulkar surpassed Brian Lara8217;s record to become the highest run-getter in Test Cricket, has left the cricket administration highly demotivated. Whereas the representatives of International Cricket Council ICC expressed their reservations, some of the former cricketers said that PCA should not be given a Test match in future. The region certainly has a predilection towards the shorter formats of the game, but if a relegation to the stadium being made only a One Day centre comes, it would lower PCA8217;s prestige considerably. Cheap thrills apart, the Test cricket is where, the real prestige lies. Just like a cricketer doesn8217;t gain any eminence till the time he performs in Test Cricket ask Yuvraj, a stadium is esteemed only if it is a Test centre.Let us hope that the spectator presence increases over the remaining days of what has so far been a very absorbing match with plenty of milestones.

Roadblocks

The work of recarpetting of Chandigarh8217;s roads, after an extended monsoon left gaping potholes, has started. While the residents of the city welcome the move, they are unimpressed by the timing of the work. The contractors working on this project seem to work from 9 am to 5 pm which means that during peak hours, the roads are blocked. This exacerbates the heavy traffic and results in excruciating delays. Is it too much to ask that this work should be done at night or during wee hours of the day? After all, that is how things are done in the more efficiently managed cities of the world.