Mukul Rohtagi
As senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi was arguing his case via video-conferencing, presence of statues and other antiques in the background had Chief Justice of India S A Bobde curious to know whether he was standing in some museum. Rohatgi replied that he was at his farmhouse, and had shifted there so that he could swim every day. Later, while arguing, the sound echo from Rohatgi’s side prompted the CJI to observe that he should spend more on improving the sound system than on artefacts.
Let’s Fleet
The government does take pride in being tech-savvy, and it seems Union ministers have adopted a new service launched by Twitter quite enthusiastically. On Tuesday, the social networking site inaugurated fleeting, temporary posts—called fleets—that will vanish after 24 hours. Among one of the first adopters from the Cabinet were two of the most senior members, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. While Shah’s post was about party-related work, his virtual rally for West Bengal. Singh’s fleet related to his ministerial responsibilities. Sharing a picture of himself with soldiers, Singh posted: “My first fleet is dedicated to the Indian Armed Forces. The courage, valour and indomitable spirit of our armed forces is unmatched and unparalleled.”
Culture Vulture
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has nominated two members—Hans Raj Hans and Navneet Ravi Rana—to the General Assembly of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. Singer-turned-politician Hans Raj is the BJP MP from North-West Delhi. Rana, an Independent MP who represents Amravati Lom Sabha constituency in Maharashtra, is a former actress who has played key roles in Telugu, Punjabi, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi movies.
Cleaning Op On Track
With regular train operations not expected any time soon, Indian Railways is learnt to be gearing up to clean its tracks. The idea apparently came from Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, who told top officials to get on with the work. The officials, it is learnt, were told that if tracks remain clean, people would also find find it worthwhile to keep them clean. Keeping the tracks in suburban railways and elsewhere flanked by habitation has always been a perennial challenge for the Railways.