As dozens of nasty SMS jokes about Suresh Kalmadi were being circulated last week,the beleaguered CWG Organising Committee Chairman was in for further embarrassment when one such SMS joke landed on the cellphone of one of the high-ranking bureaucrats in the Central government when Kalmadi was sitting right next to him. The amused official passed on his cellphone to another high-ranking government official present there,who then went on to read out the joke aloud,much to Kalmadis chagrin. As if to add insult to injury,officials later said that the joke could not have been much of a bother to a now,somewhat immune,Kalmadi. Ticket-seekers or money-seekers? Congress leaders are making tall claims about the partys prospects in the coming Assembly elections in Bihar. One of the indications,they say,is the surging crowd of ticket-seekers from the state at the party headquarters in New Delhi. There were not so many ticket aspirants even during elections in Congress-ruled states. Party sources,however,attribute the rush to rumours in Bihar that the Congress would give Rs 75 lakh each to its candidates in the state. As for the reality check,Congress president Sonia Gandhis much-publicised plan for a rally at Gandhi Maidan in Patna,which was deferred last August,is all set to be shelved. The state leadership is not willing to organise this meeting as Gandhi Maidan rallies are supposed to be a test of a partys and a leaders strength. A poor turnout at Sonias rally could not only send out a wrong message to voters but also expose the hollowness of all tall claims. BJP cool on Ayodhya It is not just the Congress-led government at the Centre which is worried about the fallout of the Ayodhya verdict. While there are reports that some top Bollywood stars received requests from Mumbai Police to issue an appeal for peace,BJP chief Nitin Gadkari was surprised when he got a call from Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil,seeking his partys cooperation in maintaining peace. It is interesting to see that while the Centre has gone into a pro-active mode issuing an appeal and even banning bulk SMS and MMS services the BJP,on the other hand,has so far maintained an unusual cool. Many in the BJP are of the view that the Centre is overreacting and is creating unnecessary panic in the run-up to the verdict. Why cry? Rahman asks OC During a media interaction last week,Commonwealth Games Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi made a mention of the fact that he had stayed at Manchester University during one of his visits abroad. But the manner in which Kalmadi uttered the word university had many of the foreign journalists baffled and amused. Eenearcity is how the word sounded to many of the foreign scribes,who were quick to ask whether he was referring to Inner City a term often used in some countries to describe an area where poor and less educated people live. Meanwhile,grapevine has it that when Oscar-winner A R Rahman was asked to tweak his song to make it peppier,the peeved Mozart of Madras told the top Organising Committee officials that the song best suited for the CWG organisers was cry cry itna cry karte hain kaiko,itna darte hain kaiko a song from the latest John Abraham-starrer Jhootha Hi Sahi. The OC which obviously didnt see the joke in it insisted that replacing the song will do no good and Rahman should,instead,make the track more groovy. Volunteers left in the lurch While a plethora of people,ranging from VIPs to celebrities to anybody having some degree of influence in the government,have got the much-sought-after accreditation passes for the Commonwealth Games,it now turns out that close to 15,000 volunteers who had been put through rigorous training for the past three months have been denied the same. It is being said that the Organising Committee failed to send their forms for police verification in time. With the Delhi Police demanding at least 15 days for the verification,the possibility of the Games missing out the services of volunteers is a fresh worry for the organisers. Last heard,the matter was on the table of Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar,who has asked Intelligence agencies to look into the matter. Also,another confusion has arisen over the aerostat being slowly raised at the function. SPG is said to have objected that this would block the view of the VIP box where the President,PM and other dignitaries will sit. It has been suggested that the aerostat be installed and fully raised before the VIPs reach the venue. Media asked to exercise restraint While the verdict on the Ayodhya title suit may have been put off for a while,the government is in a tizzy over the issue especially on the role the media will play. Apart from the Union Cabinet appealing to the nation to maintain peace in the aftermath of the judgment,the government is learnt to have made several attempts to build bridges with TV news channels on the issue. While Round One saw News Broadcasters Standards Authority Chairperson Justice J S Verma advising news channels to ensure cautious coverage,I&B Secretary Raghu Menon followed it up with a meeting with broadcasters. The next day it was Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister,T K A Nair,who invited broadcasters to urge them towards responsible coverage of the emotive issue. Soon after,I&B Minister Ambika Soni came into play to drive home the point. For one,the news channels have been requested not to show old visuals of the structure being brought down. Honeymoon,Tharoor style Shashi Tharoor surely knows how to live it up. On his honeymoon with Sunanda Pushkar,he has been holidaying in Maldives. The couple even called on Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed and have been enjoying their stay in a private resort. Innovative ad or alarm? A unique advertising strategy adopted by an automobile manufacturer in newspapers created a furore on board a commercial aircraft that may lead to a policy change in the near future. The company placed a new talking advert in a few newspapers an audio device that starts speaking as soon as the paper is opened. However,it had an unpleasant effect in an early morning Air India flight from Delhi to Mangalore after scores of the newspapers were opened by passengers together,creating a racket on board. The aircraft,which was ready for departure,had to be stopped and the doors were opened again to offload several stacks of the newspaper. When contacted,AI spokesperson P Chandra Kumar said: The copies were offloaded after passengers complained of disturbance on the early morning flight. Last heard,the authorities are contemplating new norms that would prohibit such devices on board aircraft to avoid similar problems. Minor gains for Mulayam Notwithstanding his counter-offensive against the Congress-led UPA government on many issues,Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadavs tactical restraint with respect to the Prime Minister appears to have got him some minor gains. As he recuperates from typhoid,Yadav was informed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had granted his request of not allotting the official residence of SP ideologue Janeshwar Mishra,who died early this year,to anybody until the conclusion of Lohia Birth Centenary in March next year. Paeans for Chidambaram After leading the all-party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir,Home Minister P Chidambaram has earned praise from across party lines. Though several MPs grumbled that they had been made to work overtime by the Home Minister,they were all praise for Chidambarams rigorous regimen,wherein he started proceedings from morning breakfast and ensured that they went on till as late as 11 pm on both days. Many were also impressed with his meticulous eye for detail in the memorandums submitted before them. For one,Chidambaram recounted all the main points of one representatives memorandum without batting an eyelid,when the said person expressed dissatisfaction over the limited time given to him. However,what earned maximum praise was Chidambarams polite way of reaching out to the representatives in Hindi and Urdu. Aaiye,batihiye,kahiye,sunaiye,shukriya were some of the expressions the Home Minister used during his interaction. SP leader Mohan Singh,in fact,was profuse in his praise,crediting Chidambaram with tactful handling of such a wide variety of people. Mountain of a molehill Nitpicking reached its peak last week when foreign delegates of the Commonwealth Games Federation visited the Games Village. One of the senior CGF officials pointed out to the Indian authorities that he had spotted a stray dog inside the Village. Caught off guard,the Indian officials said that all stray dogs had already been removed from the Village and there was no possibility of any stray animal still being inside. That,however,was not enough to calm the CGF officials nerves,who then went to provide a description of the dog he had seen. As authorities pretended to launch a hunt,they came up with the discovery that it was a collared sniffer dog that had escaped from his leash. This quick-witted fiction appears to have bought officials peace for now. Visa: MEA caught on wrong foot Flooded with requests from babus of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) seeking expediting of visa applications of certain individuals,the British High Commission recently told the ministry that it was finding it difficult to handle such a large number of requests,that too for people other than government officials. The High Commission,in fact,said it had received 30-odd requests in a single day. The matter eventually reached External Affairs Minister S M Krishna,who then stepped in to rein in his ministrys mandarins and asked them to slash the requests. Office Office The Bar Council of India had a well-furnished office,which the current team decided to junk. Now it wants the Government of India to foot the bill for a new office,which,most members say,is not even centrally located. The BCI recently sent a letter to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice,asking it to allocate funds to the tune of over Rs 12 crore for the new office. Surprisingly,the BCI letter also informed the Ministry that it has already chosen a well-known infrastructure company for the job. Nobody knows what process,if any,was followed before deciding on the company. The chances of the government playing along appear slim.
