Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was attacked with chilli powder inside the Delhi Secretariat on Monday in a major security lapse. That is not the first time Kejriwal came under attack. A young woman threw ink at him when he was addressing a “thanksgiving” gathering at Chhatrasal Stadium on a quiet January evening in the capital in 2016, after the completion of a phase of odd-even car regulation scheme. Later that year, a political activist would hurl a shoe at him when he had just begun giving out details of phase 2 of the

odd-even scheme, due within days. The shoe landed near Kejriwal, missing him by a whisker. In 2014, Kejriwal was slapped by an auto-rickshaw driver while campaigning in Sultanpuri, north-west Delhi. Later that day, he was seen sitting at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial, Rajghat, with a swollen left eye. Before that event, he had ink, engine oil and even an egg hurled at him.

Don’t pontificate!

When the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) board was meeting on Monday, former finance ministers (FMs) Yashwant Sinha and P Chidambaram appeared on TV channels to speak about RBI-government relations. A day later, a senior government functionary pointed out that Chidambaram and Sinha should not pontificate on North Block-Mint Road relations, as they both had issues with the RBI during their terms as FM. Then RBI governor R N Malhotra quit after differences with Sinha during his first stint as FM in 1991, while Chidambaram was not on talking terms with two governors, the official said.

Healthy banter

The public speech made by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Viral Acharya and the public opinions of RBI independent director S Gurumurthy about the central bank’s regulations were briefly touched upon during the central bank’s meeting on Monday, in what some termed as “a healthy banter”. A board member poked fun at Acharya saying whether he wanted to be “right or successful” referring to his public speech on October 26 advocating the RBI’s independence. On the other hand, one RBI executive “hoped” that Gurumurthy’s “good-to-bad ratio” of tweets on the RBI would change following the board meeting. All board members had a good laugh.