Royal route

While Law Minister Salman Khurshid has been taken to task by the Supreme Court for his “locking up businessmen would dry up investment” statement,he has received support from unexpected quarters — the Standing Committee that is deliberating on the Lokpal Bill. When former Chief Justices of India — J S Verma and M N Venkatachaliah — appeared before the committee last week,one of the members sought to know whether the Law Minister of a democratically-elected government was not even free to speak his mind. “The less said the better,” one of them is learnt to have said,without specifying whether he was referring to the court or the Law Minister. The question,incidentally,had come from a non-Congress member of the Standing Committee.

Posthumous Praise

Congressmen are amused by senior party leader Makhan Lal Fotedar’s revelation to the author of an unauthorised biography of Sonia Gandhi. As mentioned in the book,he told author Rani Singh that the late Indira Gandhi had “always wanted a Kashmiri girl” for a daughter-in-law,but “Sonia is just like a Kashmiri girl; faithful to her husband,faithful to the family. I am satisfied”. With the late Prime Minister not around to corroborate or deny her purported remarks to Fotedar,who incidentally,has been sidelined in the party,his revelation has only evoked sniggers in the grand old party.

Driving Force

The Supreme Court Bar Association president and senior advocate P H Parekh is known to regale his audience at farewell functions of Supreme Court judges with little known details about the retiring judge’s personal life. He is,however,careful not to divulge the source of his information. One such detail about Justice Raveendran,whom he admitted was the toughest to get information on,was that the judge,though a “superb” driver of his Lambretta scooter during his lawyer days,was “less than average” behind the wheel of a car. So much so that,Parekh said,people in the judge’s native city of Bangalore used to steer clear of his way on the roads.

Military Creativity

The visual shows a Sikh soldier in full battle gear,shouting a war cry. Superimposed on this is head of a roaring lion! This is no Bollywood poster but one of the pictures in the ‘Creative’ photo gallery of the Indian Army’s new refurbished website,which is attracting some attention these days. The new website is said to have been prepared after a considerable amount of internal deliberations. So much so,that top Army officers were given a special briefing on the website at the recent commanders conference.