Location Problem

ONGC can claim to have made some important contribution in the test flight of Agni V missile last week. The longest range missile to have ever been fired by India,Agni V was required to be tracked by five ships during its flight. Given that the missile had to make a 20-minute journey,the Navy,which is already stretched for resources,decided against diverting its facilities for so long. The government then roped in the ONGC which has several ships routinely operating in the Indian Ocean region. Four ships of the company were retrofitted with missile tracking equipment while the Navy provided the fifth ship.

Fresh Opportunities

For a change,the opposition BJP has decided to let its second-rung leaders take charge of the debates in the Lok Sabha for the next few weeks. The House has to discuss demands for grants of four ministries,and the party has decided to field relatively younger faces or first-timers as their main speakers. Anurag Thakur has been asked to initiate the debate on Home Ministry while Lalji Tandon will do the honours for the Urban Ministry. Similarly,Nishikant Dubey would be the lead speaker for the party on the debate on Commerce Ministry and Sanjay Jaiswal on the Health Ministry.

Belated Entry

The newly-nominated Rajya Sabha members of Trinamool Congress — three senior journalists from West Bengal — did not take oath on Tuesday,as scheduled,because their Leader of the House,Railway Minister Mukul Roy,was not present in the city. Roy was busy in the Naxalism-affected Lalgarh in West Bengal,where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had arranged for a function. With Roy arriving on Tuesday night,the swearing-in would take place on Wednesday.

Facing Heat

Tuesday turned out to be Arun Jaitley’s day to suffer the heat. Jaitley,Sushma Swaraj and Sharad Pawar have adjacent rooms in the Parliament House and it so happens that all the three rooms are serviced by a single AC system. Whenever one of them starts feeling cold,he or she asks the AC to be switched off,thereby putting the other two to inconvenience. On Tuesday,the AC was switched off on Sushma Swaraj’s request. The three are now learnt to have together put in a request to get a separate temperature control unit in each of their rooms.