Third eye: When big brother isn’t watching

When big brother isn’t watching

Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu’s habit of reprimanding erring party MPs on how to go about their work, has earned him the sobriquet of ‘Big Brother’ among younger MPs. The title has gained currency in Winter Session when Naidu regularly gives a piece of his mind to one junior minister after another, for straying from the party line.
Courtroom choices

Taking cue from senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s repeated argument that his clients were “very keen” to appear before the Court, Subramanian Swamy urged the Court to adjourn the case only by a week so that Rahul, Sonia and others can appear in person.

To this, Singhvi quickly retorted “date of your (Judge) choice”. The Judge decided to give Singhvi’s clients opportunity to prove their “keenness” in ten days. And yes, the Judge added, “don’t come in the morning”.

Drafting the bureaucratic way

While it will take some time before a New Education Policy (NEP) comes up, the nomenclature of the drafting committee has promptly been changed. Earlier called the Drafting Committee for NEP, it is now been changed to ‘Committee for Evolution of NEP’. The change, it is learnt, has been effected at the behest of the committee chairman, former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian who felt that the ‘drafting’ bit indicated no more than mere data collation.

Feeling the pinch

Roads Minister Nitin Gadkari was stuck in traffic for two hours while going from Delhi to Gurgaon on Monday. The ordeal made him realise the pain of fellow travelers stuck in the jam and of those for whom this is a daily problem. Last heard, the minster has summoned officials from NHAI and other departments to discuss ways of decongest such logjams on roads in Delhi and NCR.