Kapil Sibal had hired two buses to transport journalists to his beautifully landscaped farm in Chhatarpur. Some guests complained about the distance and the lack of hard liquid refreshment, but there was an array of old Delhi chaat dishes to compensate. Meanwhile, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram broke with tradition and hosted a pre-budget lunch for financial journalists at his residence on pongal.

Timed to click

A Swiss manufacturer has conceived and patented a panchang wristwatch which does not just tell you the auspicious dates according to the Hindu calendar but also calculates for you the inauspicious rahu kaal period on a particular day. Since timing is a key element in the lives of our politicians, businessmen and the superstitious, some of our desi astrologers could lose customers to the watch.

Incidentally, the concept of the watch was the brainwave of Chitra Subramaniam, best known as the intrepid investigative journalist who broke the Bofors story. Subramaniam says that journalism and Bofors are now behind her and she has launched a new career in business.

Feeling left out

In the middle of each page of the 2008 Lok Sabha calendar, there is a small picture of President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. Some Opposition MPs quibble that until now the calendar was not personality-based, and if photographs of these three were to be included, then why not pictures of the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition as well? They feel that the three personalities have been selected simply because they belong to the Congress-Left alliance. Neither former president Abdul Kalam nor then vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat figured in the Lok Sabha calendar during their five years in office.

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