Old camaraderie

The Congress has been at pains to clarify that the UPA governments decision to grant reservation for minorities had nothing to do with the UP elections and was just a fulfillment of its promise in 2009 poll manifesto. It has also pointed to the fact that a large number of political parties have been demanding it. Incidentally,however,the partys general secretary in-charge of UP,Digvijaya Singh,happened to be a special invitee at the core group meeting of the party in which it was decided to grant reservation for minorities.

Missing the wood8230;

With a simple stroke,the Environment Ministry has appeared to have solved the long standing problem of stockpiling of illegal red sanders confiscated by investigating agencies across the country. It has directed all states and Union Territories to send all seized red sanders to the Andhra Pradesh Handicrafts Development Corporation in Hyderabad,which can use this wood to make various products. Initial inputs received by the ministry suggest that a few states have already expressed interest of shipping huge quantities of red sanders lying with them for years as no one knew what to do with it since sale of the wood is illegal to Andhra Pradesh. But heres the catch: as per the directive,the cost of transporting the material will have to be borne by the Andhra Pradesh government. Judging by the overall quantity of red sanders the states and the Union Territories are expected to clear,officials fear the transport bill could be just too much for the state government to bear.

Ratna contender

After Sachin Tendulkar,Major Dhyanchand,Mirza Ghalib and Sharat Chandra Chattopadhaya,guess who has joined the growing list of candidates for a Bharat Ratna: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The minister was attending a function of the All India Bengali Literature conference in Rourkela where a number of participants lavished wholesome praise on him and even suggested that he be given a Bharat Ratna,leaving him red-faced.

Playing safe

Better safe than sorry. That is what the CBI decided to do when some officers wanted to highlight the Bhopal gas tragedy case on its website. The CBIs website has a section where it loads the important cases investigated by it and some officers thought the Bhopal case should be included. All the case details were summoned and prepared to be put on the website before someone mentioned the ongoing controversy about Dow Chemicals sponsoring the London Olympics. Keen to steer clear of even the smell of a controversy,the CBI decided to not put up the case on its website. Instead,it has put up the Sant Harchand Singh Longowal murder case in that space.