Ghost tales

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi has an unusual problem.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi has an unusual problem. He has more than once been allotted a government bungalow in Delhi, which is rumoured to be haunted by ghosts. A decade ago, the Ravi family stayed at 15 Pandit Pant Marg. Ravi8217;s wife Mercy noticed that whenever young children were kept in a particular bedroom they cried and had a very disturbed sleep. When she consulted a Vastu expert, the man concluded that the house was surrounded by death and there was nothing he could do. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Mercy looked up the CPWD records of the bungalow and discovered that an Englishman had murdered his wife in the very same bedroom.

During his current stint as minister, Ravi was offered No 5 Safdarjung Road, a ministerial bungalow in which Atal Bihari Vajpayee once lived. But the downside was that the previous occupant, Pramod Mahajan, was shot dead in tragic circumstances and his aide had died in this house shortly afterwards of a drug overdose. Before moving in, Mercy brought her astrologer from Kerala to check out No 5. The pundit concluded that the Vastu of the well-appointed house was perfect. The only unnatural phenomenon was the presence of two black cats, which wander around the premises.

New commonwealth politics

Countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand are irked by the efforts of an Afro-Asian group to monopolise the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, with India playing a key role in the divisive politics. West Bengal Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim, who was chairperson of the prestigious body for the last three years, is keen to stress the difference between the white countries and others by frequently using the term 8220;new commonwealth8221; and 8220;old commonwealth8221; countries in his speeches. In fact, there was a very real threat of some of the older commonwealth countries boycotting the conference hosted by Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee in New Delhi last year in protest. The situation was saved only after representatives from the UK mediated.

Halim won the election three years back after making a quiet quid pro quo deal with Malaysia to step down in his favour. Now, once again he has broken the gentlemanly tradition of the club by making a deal to keep the post of treasurer in the new managing committee after stepping down as chairperson earlier this month.

Geriatric conference

A conference for governors is to be held next month in Rashtrapati Bhavan and special medical facilities will be arranged for the welfare of the geriatric participants. Probably one of the youngest governors is E S L Narasimhan of Chhattisgarh who is under 65. The more senior governors include N D Tewari from Andhra who is 83, Balram Jhakhar from Madhya Pradesh who is 84 and T V Rajeshwar from Uttar Pradesh who is 82.

Musical chairs

One of the demands of the Jammu protestors is that N N Vohra be replaced as Governor by Karan Singh, since it was Vohra who cancelled the allotment of forestland for the Amarnath pilgrims. If Karan Singh does indeed replace Vohra it would be poetic justice. Vohra took over Karan Singh8217;s place as a trustee of the India International Centre, when the latter resigned in protest over Lalu Prasad Yadav being denied membership because of the criminal cases against him. Singh had assumed the seat would be kept vacant for him to re-join later.

Post monsoon session

The indications are that the Lok Sabha would be reconvened around the middle of September, but there is still no finality about the dates. With some of its allies in the trust vote making impossible demands for ministerial berths, the Government does not want to face a stormy parliament session unless the nuclear deal is first finalised. It hopes that the US Congress clears the deal by mid-September. Since the Lok Sabha session will be merely a continuation of the one that was adjourned sine die after the trust vote, it can be convened at short notice. But the Rajya Sabha will require a notice of 21 days before it can be summoned. Significantly, the formal procedure for convening the House of Elders has not begun.