Cn 038; heard

Sukhbir Badal8217;s innocuous praise for Coca Cola and Pringle Sweaters as recently reported by this paper, seems to have got the goat of a lot of people.

Brand Sukhbir
Sukhbir Badal8217;s innocuous praise for Coca Cola and Pringle Sweaters as recently reported by this paper, seems to have got the goat of a lot of people. While some 8216;seasoned8217; geriatric politicians have unfairly dubbed it as lack of focus on the part of the Akali Dal president, other reactions include fulminations and even ridicule. The problem perhaps arises because of the stereotypes assigned to the politicians. A politician8217;s predilection for a particular product isn8217;t a bad thing and neither is his association with a brand. There are two instances worth mentioning here. While signing the Oslo Accord with Yaser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin used a Pilot pen. The Pilot pen company of Japan ran an ad campaign which read 8211; There is a line between war and peace and this was written with Pilot. The sales of Pilot pens catapulted by 10 times after this. Likewise, former US President Ronald Reagan in his halycon days did model for a cigarette company. None of these associations prevented Rabin or Reagan from achieving stellar heights. There is no reason why Sukhbir should be subject to unfair opprobrium.

Public service
A so-called gurdwara in Sector 32 was playing cupid for the past over two decades. Its owner Gurmeet Singh who had simply installed a Nishan Sahib and kept the Guru Granth Sahib at his home claimed that it was a gurdwara, and used this false identity for conducting marriages for couples on the run or those under other exigencies. For this Gurmeet would charge anything between Rs 4000 and 10,000 per wedding. Finally, the High Court acting on a petition issued a restraint against this illegal gurdwara. Subsequently, when the Express team contacted Gurmeet, he replied, 8220;I was merely doing a social service. They don8217;t want me to be here, so I will go and serve in some other part of India.8221; Anyone interested in such 8216;service8217;?

Chacha Kalam
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam displays love and affection for children, of the sort people associated with Jawaharlal Nehru. It was the fondness which Nehru had for children that led to commemoration of November 14 as Children8217;s Day. No modern leader after him made such an effort to reach out to children. But Kalam8217;s love for children was first noted when he became the President, where he would make it a point to interact with children on various functions organised on November 14. Even in his post-President avatar, Kalam remains an ideal for a lot of children. This can be attributable to his clean, erudite, rocket scientist image. On his recent trip to Chandigarh where he attended a series of functions, Kalam made a point that he interacted and posed for photographs with the children who were assembled. This despite the fact, that he had to rush back to Bangalore in time to monitor the success of the Chandrayaan mission. Here is looking at you, Chacha Kalam.

Have the car and drive it too!
Middle-level officers, including various Joint and Additional Secretaries, are squirming in discomfort ever since a government dictum termed their keeping of official vehicles as unauthorised. According to the new directive, they were to return their vehicles. These officers got together and met with the top brass of Punjab8217;s bureaucracy and requested them that they be allowed to retain their cars. Since it was a government decision, the sympathetic IAS officers couldn8217;t make a direct concession but they suggested an ingenious way out. They asked them to submit the vehicles which were issued in their names back to the government and take new cars from the common pool of various boards and corporations of the Punjab government. This way, the government8217;s directive was not violated and they could get their cars too. Evil genius, did you say?

Pretty as a picture? No more!
Till just a few days ago, a giant-size portrait hung on the wall of a conference hall in the Congress Bhawan hall. It hasn8217;t taken long for it to turn an 8220;eyesore8221;. Margret Alva8217;s picture on the wall has started to bother many. During the recent session of the Youth Congress here a few days ago, presided over by IYC chief Ashok Tanwar, several Congressmen could think of just this. All they were curious to know is the fate of Alva8217;s picture on the wall. Nobody8217;s willing to be pinpointed for doing this unceremonious task. But for how long? Loyalties have changed.

Flowery greetings
For Home Minister Shivraj Patil8217;s visit to the Congress Bhawan, a number of people from slums and colonies had been brought to the venue. On being asked if they knew what was the rally for, they quipped, 8220;Congress ka bhashan hai. Nehru ke bare mein batayenge.8221; Meanwhile, on the stage, the recycling of bouquets was being done. With the number of people who had to present flowers to Patil exceeding the bouquets available, the same flowers were being circulated over and over again.