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Union Minister Jairam Ramesh on the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh: Ek dulhan (bride) aur do dulhe (bridgrooms). Aur dono me se ek hi dulha, dulhan ko le gaya . One bride (Hyderabad) and two grooms (Telangana and Seemandhra). And one of them got the bride (meaning Telangana took Hyderabad). DDLJ déjà vu?
The hoarding games
Nandan Nilekani, the former CEO of Infosys, smiles down from several hoardings at key junctions in South Bangalore, the constituency from which he is likely to contest in the coming election.
His opponent from the BJP is likely to be HN Ananth Kumar who, unfortunately, has been left with less hoarding space at vantage spots. All Nilekani now needs is a little support from the Congress cadre. Now, that may not be quite as easy as putting up hoardings.
Front goes back
What role do antilock braking systems (ABS) and distance sensors play in India? At a seminar on automobile R&D, Bosch Ltd’s regional president, Friedrich Boecking, commented that people in India had no clue about safety on roads. The ABS feature had only helped convert “front crashes” to “back crashes” he said, and the same went for distance sensors.
The lesson? Manufacturers should avoid over-designing — design for repair and re-use, and for abuse by the end-user. Hard talk.
Touché
An executive of an MNC asked his PR team to arrange for a media interaction. But when mediapersons started questioning him, his standard responses were: “I am sorry but I am not aware of the matter” or “It’s not that I am avoiding an answer, it’s just that I am not authorised to speak”. Irritated, the journalists decided to leave. On their way out someone from the PR team asked if anything could be expected in print the next day. A journalist shot back: “Sorry, but we are not authorised to write.”
No ifs and butts
Director Anurag Kashyap is in the Bombay High Court these days explaining why he does not want to carry the statutory warning of smoking being injurious to health in his yet-to-be launched film Ugly . As the Court decides whether Kashyap’s creative freedom is curbed, cancer surgeon Pankaj Chaturvedi from the Tata Memorial Hospital has written an open letter countering the director’s objection. From Superstar Rajnikant’s cigarette flipping tricks to Humphrey Bogart’s rings of smoke to the Marlboro men who showcased their product, smoking has led to different destinies, the surgeon writes, and not all were glamorous. “I don’t believe that a talented director of your stature needs ‘Ugly' smoking scenes to enhance the impact,” he concludes. Over to the High Court.
Jairam Ramesh, again
When N Kiran Kumar Reddy quit the Congress to set up a new party, Jairam Ramesh said: “The 128-year history of Congress has shown you may go out of Congress but Congress will not go out of you.”
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