‘Matchless’ people

Tom Altar, the master of ceremony at the inaugural Ahmedabad International Film Festival, performed his part extremely well. Right from introducing the jury members, to calling speakers to say a few words he maintained a humorous yet dignified stance, telling it without hurting anyone. The lighting of the lamp to mark the inauguration, Tom was at his witty best. It so happened that the match box was not kept handy and which delayed the lighting of wicks. Tom just said: "They all are "matchless" people so there is no match box around". This sent the audience into peels of laughter.

Green Katha

We have heard about the Satynarayan Katha being performed here. But Giants Group Ahmedabad North Saheli came up with a novel idea of holding "Vriksha Narayan Katha' in Naranpura area in association with Arasuri Ambaji Mata Devsthan Trust. The Green Katha was narrated by pandits from the temple town of Ambaji. Needless to say, a large number of saplings were distributed as 'prasad' at this Katha. What was more amazing was that the Banaskantha District Collector R J Patel graced the occasion for more than four hours! He administered a pledge to all those present about preservation of trees.

Fine hurdles

Employees in public as well as private sectors are given targets to achieve and all of them face difficulties in achieving the same. Recently a traffic police officer posted in Gandhinagar while talking on a friendly terms explained an interesting obstacle to meet his target of collecting fine from traffic rule violators in the State Capital. The cop along with three other policemen has been assigned the job to maintain traffic at a particular cross roads in Gandhinagar. And according to him, all four of them have been given target of collecting Rs 1,000 as fine from traffic violators each per day by their superior officer. Explaining his plight in collecting the fine the cop said, "Most of the time when we stop some traffic violator, we get a call from some politician or some influential person in the city to let the violator go without fine. And to keep our political bosses happy we have to let the violator go." "In such a situation, it is very hard to collect Rs 1,000 per day as fine," he added.

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