IAS camaraderie
Last Saturday evening onwards, social media saw angry tweets by many babus and IAS Officers’ Association against the conviction of former Coal Secretary HC Gupta. Some officers gave clean chit to Gupta by describing him as an honest officer. Some even called for amendment to Prevention of Corruption Act. Some even blamed the judiciary. By night, many of these officers deleted their posts, especially those in which they castigated the judiciary. Grapevine has it that the PMO gave an earful to these officers for going public with their reaction on judicial verdict.
RS in ‘good humour’Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu
who took over as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha last Friday left his imprint by his famous one-liners. When Opposition members trooped in the Well he came out with “All in well, not well.” Again, when an MP sought to raise a ‘Point of order’, Naidu quipped: “There is neither order nor a point.” Further, on not finding DMK MP Tiruchi Siva, he said, “(Lord) Shiva is everywhere but not here today.”
Welcome to RS
Cutting across party lines, MPs congratulated Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Rajya Sabha last week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced new ministers inducted into the cabinet between monsoon and winter sessions of Parliament. Congress MP Kumari Selja and Rajani Patil shook hands with Sitharaman when the house was adjourned briefly after a din by the Opposition. D Raja(CPI) was also seen exchanging pleasantries with the defence minister. The Elders also vigorously thumped desks when Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu congratulated Mary Kom (nominated) for winning an international boxing medal two weeks back. Many members were seen looking at her vacant seat. Mary Kom is now busy training for some upcoming tournaments.
Loud appeal
High-decibel arguments by lawyers have become a norm in the Supreme Court much to the dislike of the judges. Last week, two judges — Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justice AK Sikri — in separate cases, openly aired their sentiments by saying they are “allergic” to lawyers who shouted down their opponents. But that was not the case with former Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar. He baritone voice seem not to irritate judges as much. When one lawyer complained to the CJI against Kumar raising his voice, the CJI remarked, “God has given him this decibel. He has been known to have a loud voice since the time we have watched him argue.”
PHDCCI for Swachcch Bharat
The latest to join the central flagship scheme, Swachchh Bharat Mission’s bandwagon is business house PHDCCI. It has chosen to take up special cleanliness drive under its CSR activities around the premises of temples located in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s turfs — Benaras and Gorakhpur. The business chamber has plans to install waste-to-compost machines at Gorakhnath Math, Gorakhpur, and Vishwanath Temple, Durga Temple and SankatMochan temple in Benaras, and Banke Bihari Temple of Vrindavan to reprocess the flowers and other bio-degradable waste within the temples’ premises to convert them into manure.
National Museum set to grow
With the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) shifting from its premises at Janpath to the Tilak Marg, the National Museum in the capital can now hope to see the resumption of phase III of its building expansion plan that was conceived way back in 2003. The land vacated by the ASI is adjacent to the National Museum, which is the country’s largest museum. Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma will lay the foundation stone of the project on Monday. Presently, National Museum is displaying just 7.61 per cent of its total over 2 lakh collections at its 29 permanent galleries.