Meeting mode

With Congress president Sonia Gandhi back at work after her surgery,the National Advisory Council is all set to meet on October 21,after a long gap.

With Congress president Sonia Gandhi back at work after her surgery,the National Advisory Council is all set to meet on October 21,after a long gap. Earlier,Sonia would convene NAC meetings almost once every month. But no meetings were held in August or September,when Sonia was out of the country for her surgery. The two items likely to be on the NACs agenda are the debate over re-definition of poverty line and the Karnataka High Courts verdict against the governments stand on NREGS wages.

Missing warrant

The CBI team that landed at the residence of former union minister Dayanidhi Maran in Chennai on Monday forgot to take a crucial document with them. When the security guards posted at Marans residence asked for the search warrant,the team realised that the warrant was with another team of officials set to arrive sometime later. The security guards kept the team waiting till the other team arrived,delaying the search by about half-an-hour.

Hanoi to Bangalore

Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang was originally scheduled to visit only Delhi and Mumbai during his trip to India later this week. But a meeting with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna in Hanoi last month has resulted in the addition of Bangalore to his itinerary. It so happened that when Krishna called on Sang in Hanoi last month,Vietnamese officials introduced him as the man who changed Bangalore into Indias Silicon Valley. Impressed,the President had a long chat with Krishna on Bangalores metamorphosis and expressed his desire to visit the city. Krishna lost no time in asking the MEA to make the necessary arrangements for the President during his scheduled visit to India. Accordingly,Sang will now spend a day in Bangalore on Tuesday before coming to Delhi. He is expected to visit some IT companies and a few educational institutions in the city.

Date problem

The biennial Indian Defence Expo scheduled for early next year is a big crowd-puller. The expo is generally organised in the third week of February,but this time the Defence Ministry,which organises the event,had to push it to the end of March. The dates had to be changed apparently because the Ministry failed to book the venue,Pragati Maidan,in time. Someone else had already booked the venue during the relevant dates to hold the Khoobsurat International Show.

Modi vs Nitish

A day before BJP leader L K Advani was to begin his rath yatra,Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi posted a statement on his blog lending his support to the senior leaders initiative. While that may have pleased Advani no end after all it was Modis apparent reluctance for the yatra that had forced Advani to shift the starting point from Gujarat to Bihar the statement seems to be indirectly taking a dig at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Once a Chief Minister of Bihar had stopped a yatra of Advaniji. It is a matter of immense pleasure that today,the Chief Minister of the same state is flagging off Advanijis yatra, Modi said in his blog.