Wrong focus

It later turned out that she did write a letter,but only to the chairman of the committee on government assurances,complaining about an unfulfilled assurance.

Wrong focus

In the almost papparazi-like fervor to follow the Rekha-Jaya Bachchan close encounter in Parliament since the actor of yesteryear was awarded a Presidential nomination to the Rajya Sabha,tale-bearing hacks ended up barking up the wrong tree. Doordarshans move to focus on Jaya Bachchan as Rekha took oath in the Upper House on Wednesday,not only prompted protests from BJPs Maya Singh but fuelled rumours that Jaya Bachchan had dashed off a written complaint to the Rajya Sabha Chairman. It later turned out that she did write a letter,but only to the chairman of the committee on government assurances,complaining about an unfulfilled assurance.

GoM MEDIA GOES LOCAL

THE Group of Ministers on Media,it seems,wants to look beyond Delhi and Delhi-based media outfits and influence regional coverage. Right after the ongoing Parliament session,the seven-member GoM,which is headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram,plans to travel to state capitals and hold press interactions with regional media. Last heard,Hyderabad,Bhopal,Bhubaneswar,Patna and Mumbai had made it to the short list. Its believed that the GoM may be further divided into smaller groups to undertake simultaneous travel. This initiative,insiders say,also stems from an understanding that the Centre often emerges as the villain of the piece in almost every local discourse.

JUDICIAL VIEW

SUPREME Court judges are of the opinion that citizens are misusing the Right to Information Act with frivolous requests. Shortly after Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia expressed annoyance in open court about receiving RTI queries about his breakfast menu and social functions he ought to attend,another Bench led by Justice Altamas Kabir voiced the same grouse. This time,the judges on the Bench said they received queries about why they said this or that in court. Senior advocate Harish Salve,who was arguing in court when the Bench made these remarks,said the judiciary practises the idea of transparency to the hilt. He said this is evident in the fact that the judges hold open courts where any member of the public can enter a courtroom and witness cases unfold.

WEB ATTACK

A GROUP of online hacktivists affiliated with the global Anonymous cyber group attacked three websites on Thursday,protesting against censorship of the internet. The group that calls itself opindia said that it brought down the website of the Supreme Court,Department of Telecom and the Congress party with a denial of service attack. While the three websites were facing difficulties in the evening for some time,the Congress party denied that there was any attack. In fact,the Chairman of its Computer Department,Vishvjit P Singh attributed the site being slow due to the massive traffic generated after rumours that it was under attack.

DINNER DIPLOMACY

INDIA and Pakistan have made some important breakthroughs in their trade relations in the recent months. And Indias permanent representative to the United Nations Hardeep Puri let out an interesting secret the other day. During his extempore remarks at a discussion on India-Pakistan: An Emerging Economic Powerzone in New York,he revealed that one of the meetings that had contributed to the breaking of the ice happened at his residence in New York in 2010. Puri told his audience how Commerce Minister Anand Sharma had met Pakistans permanent representative to the UN,Hussain Haroon,when he had invited them both for dinner at his residence. He recalled that the two got along like a house on fire. Puri was quick to point out that he was not seeking to claim credit for the breakthrough and neither was he suggesting that the first idea of improving the trade relations were born at his house.