Calling the shots

These days its become very easy to identify who a supporter of Om Prakash Chautala,the president of Indian National Lok Dal,is

These days its become very easy to identify who a supporter of Om Prakash Chautala,the president of Indian National Lok Dal,is. All his supporters are supposed to have a signature caller tune on their mobile phone,which goes something like this: Hari-hari pugree wale ki,mhari saari mauj Chautale ki. The caller tune comes with a price of course,like any other caller tune. Presumably,the service provider is quietly hoping for an increase in the support base of Chautala.

Wedded to Priority

While his Cabinet comprises mostly of old loyalists of his father,Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is walking the extra mile to keep the younger MLAs,who could not be accommodated in the Cabinet,in good humour. On Friday,Akhilesh landed in Delhi for the first time after becoming the Chief Minister and planned to stay on for the annual meeting of CMs on internal security on Monday. But then,he was reminded of the wedding reception of a Samajwadi Party MLA who had got married in the run-up to the Assembly elections. Akhilesh promptly changed his plan and decided to fly back to Lucknow over the weekend to attend the ceremony and return for the CMs meeting on Monday. The MLA in question has won from Ayodhya,a traditional stronghold of the BJP which has elected a Samajwadi Party candidate for the first time.

No Takers

The government seems to be getting really desperate now. For almost six months now,it has been searching for a suitable candidate to post as First Secretary in Yangon,Myanmar,to look after the various projects being run by the Government of India there. But it has had no success. It has put out as many as three advertisements one in November last year,then in February and the third last week. Considering that this deputy secretary level position is open for officers belonging to all services not just the foreign service the government is clearly at a loss to explain this apathy.

Cartoon Backlash

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Soon after the cartoon episode,tweets and posts on Mamata Banerjee have taken over the social networking space. Most of Saturday,# Arrestmenow became the top trending subject on Twitter with people posting jokes on Banerjee and her reported intolerance towards anything that makes fun of her government and party. Some of the most retweeted one-liners were: Why did Mamata Banerjee cross the road? To see if the chicken was making fun of her. Other top trending subjects were # twothingsthatdontmix,where,again,people posted entries like: Mamata and sense of humour,#twothingsthatdontmix. The cartoon or the collage that is at the root of the entire episode was re-posted across websites as a mark of defiance. Trinamool Congresss Derek OBrien,otherwise a busy tweeter on all issues,remained away from Twitter all of Saturday. By evening,news spread in the cyber world that the CID in West Bengal had started tracking IP addresses that had posted defamatory material about Mamata in the past!

Narrowing Ambitions

With his original goal of getting the Lokpal Bill passed looking nowhere near fruition,Anna Hazare has turned his attention back to his home state Maharashtra. On Saturday,he announced his attention to embark on a statewide tour for a Lokayukta Act in Maharashtra. Looks like his promised India tour will have to wait for the time being.