Below the line

Good God!

This courtesy Bala V Balachandran, Chairperson of the Chennai-based B-school Great Lakes Institute, to highlight how people can be blinded by politics. Once, God told US President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he was not happy with the way the world was run, and will destroy it to create a new one.

Obama, addressing American citizens over televisionsaid he had good news and bad news. The good news was that he met God, and the bad news: the world is coming to an end. The Chinese Premier told his colleagues that he had bad news and worse news. The bad news was that God exists. The worse was that the world will no longer exist.

Manmohan Singh rushed to Sonia Gandhi and said he had good news and better news. “The good news is that I was one of the three global leaders invited by God himself for a meeting,” he said. “That’s ok. What’s the better news? asked an anxious Sonia. Pat came the PM’s reply: “Modi can never become the Prime Minister, Ma’am.”

Power lunch

In an informal interaction with some journalists at this year’s Auto Expo in Greater Noida, Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra, Anand Mahindra, said his corporate communications team felt he was not accessible to the media and that he should interact more often with journalists.

“I was told that Mr Ratan Tata would meet some of you over breakfast,” Mahindra said and added that it would have been too much to ask the journalists over for a breakfast meeting, now that the Expo has been shifted to Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh from Delhi. That is why he was meeting them over lunch.

“I am not going to give you any breaking news. These are going to be merely my thoughts on a few issues. You are free to go pick up lunch as we talk,” he told the journalists, who, of course, did not want to miss a single word and preferred to skip lunch.

Nilekani hits the trail

Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani, has already busied himself with the election campaign, even though he is yet to be officially nominated as candidate.

In spite of what his former Infosys colleague, Mohandas Pai, has had to say about his “lack of contribution” to the city’s welfare, Nilekani has been visiting various apartment complexes in Bangalore South to interact with the residents there asking them to “pick only those for public office who already have a good track record in delivering promises.” Over to Pai.

Speeches and decisions

Surely, an efficient broker is the one who can convince somebody to take a spot decision. But then, Sohanlal Kadel, President of Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI), had a tough time convincing TS Vijayan, Chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), to announce one in his speech.

After showering praises on the chairman of the insurance regulator, Kadel went on to say that every word in Vijayan’s speech could offer something to the IBAI, which has a long wish list including reduction in annual brokerage fees.

However, a firm IRDA chief put his foot down and began his speech by saying: “It is said a number of decisions would be taken in my speech, but I am not sure whether this is the way to take a decision.’’ Not surprisingly, he avoided referring to most items on the wish list.

COMMENT NOW