One of the first people in Delhi to receive a copy of evergreen actor Dev Anand’s biography, along with a warm note, was BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad. Anand has not forgotten that it was because of Prasad that he received the coveted Dada

Saheb Phalke award in 2003. As minister for information & broadcasting, Prasad had pointed out that Dilip Kumar had won the award in 1992 and Raj Kapoor in 1987, but Anand, the third member of the troika that dominated the screen for over two decades, had been ignored. Prasad learnt that the awardees of previous years made the selection and that Dilip Kumar did not favour Anand’s name. Prasad was usually not an interfering minister, but that year he overruled the jury’s choice of perennial villain Pran and wrote detailed reasons on the file as to why it really was Anand’s turn to be honoured.

123 licence

US Ambassador to India David Mulford is out of the country for much of the month and so charge d’affairs Steven White will officiate in his absence and presumably handle all issues relating to the Indo-US nuclear deal, popularly known as the 123 agreement. White is a tad embarrassed because by sheer coincidence his car number is 77 CD 123.

Foxy predictor

Only two people really know what H.D. Deve Gowda’s next move is. One is Gowda himself; the other is his astrologer. Even Gowda’s two sons,

H.D. Kumaraswamy and H.D. Revanna are in the dark. On the one hand Gowda has met Congress minister M.V. Rajashekharan Murthy and suggested that he take over as chief minister and his son Revanna becomes deputy chief minister. On the other hand, Kumaraswamy is hopeful of a continued BJP-JD (S) alliance. The astrologer, meanwhile, has informed the BJP that the stars are not auspicious for a BJP candidate to take over as chief minister just yet.

... contd.