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Journalism of Courage
Shatrughan Sinha,actor-turned-politician,who has been recuperating in a Mumbai hospital after a bypass surgery to remove blockages in his coronary arteries,has lost a lot of weight. His sense of humour remains intact though. The BJP MP,who could not cast his vote for either the Presidential or the Vice-Presidential election,was visited by senior party leaders,including the Leader of opposition Arun Jaitley,at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Hospital in Mumbai. In his typical style,Sinha lost no time in regaling them about his health and condition as he pointed that he lost over 12 kilos in just one month. To prove his point,he has been showing,to all those who are visiting him,how his trousers have loosened up. If not anyone else,Shatrughans status is certain to be understood by his party president Nitin Gadkari,who himself has shed over 30 kilos since the time he had a bariatric surgery last year.
Serving Time
Divided Opinion
WHEN TV channels started flashing the news of death of Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh,officials in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were uncertain of what to do. Not putting too much faith in private channels,the first thing that they did was to talk to the Home Ministry to seek confirmation of the news. Once it was confirmed that Deshmukh had passed away,messages were sent to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde Lok Sabha and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal Rajya Sabha to inform the respective Houses and suggest immediate adjournment for the day,which was done. However,the issue has not ended. While some MPs want that Parliament should adjourn on Thursday after making obituary references to the late leader,there are others who say that only the Rajya Sabha Deshmukh was an RS MP should be adjourned while the Lower House could function normally. Behind this suggestion is the fact that three important reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General CAG are scheduled to be tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
Fellow Funding
THE rather mediocre research work that the ICHR is attracting has made authorities sit up and take note. That it has been doling out fellowships with a measly Rs 6,000 grant every month has hardly helped its case. So even while the Kapil Sibal-led HRD Ministry has been taking up the cause of doing away with multiple entrance exams,ICHR has decided to bring in an entrance exam from this year to ensure better quality of historical research. It has substantially hiked the fellowship amounts,in the range of Rs 16,000-Rs 28,000 and even more per month,hoping that this might just attract better quality of research work.
Courting Trouble
SEEKING an adjournment in a criminal matter,for the 11th straight time,has landed an advocate-on-record of the Supreme Court in trouble. Irate over repeated adjournments,a Bench headed by Justice B S Chauhan has now issued him a notice to respond to a specific query whether he had filed the petition only for seeking adjournments. Refusing to accept the reason for adjourning the matter on account of the advocates inability to show up,Justice Chauhan further remarked: We are the master of this circus and we will run it the way we want. We will not let anybody play a fraud upon the court. The court has also asked the lawyer to remain present on the next date of hearing.
