Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu was caught on the wrong foot while trying to quell Opposition anger in the Lok Sabha last week. When Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, joined by other Opposition members, was demanding an immediate discussion on the Rajasthan farmer suicide incident, Naidu addressed CPI(M)’s MB Rajesh, saying “At least you should understand. You are educated”, at which Kharge sprang up in protest asking the Minister whether he implied that the others were “uneducated”. Naidu had to beat a hasty retreat, saying “I actually meant, educated about the rules (of the House)”!

The big fat Infosys wedding?

Why is it that Infosys chose to postpone its quarterly results and hold it another state for the first time? Insiders say it was probably because the entire management and the board had been invited for the marriage of the daughter of one of the board members in Chennai. So does this explain it, or what?

Shaky foundation

When it comes to taunting the Opposition, nobody does it better than the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. At the Mahindra & Mahindra facility in Zaheerabad, Rao said it was due to the neglect of previous regimes that Telangana came into being. He went on to state that if all the foundations stones laid by previous regimes for projects that never took off were collected, a new irrigation project could be constructed with them.

Tata Motors’ diesel tree

The grounds of the picturesque Lake House located within the Tata Motors plant in Pune is home to a few unusual trees, including the famed diesel tree of Brazil, Copaifera langsdorffii. This was planted with much love, and expectations, by the late MD Sharma, the horticulturist credited with designing not only the lush surroundings, but also a complex artificial lake system that attracts migratory birds. The tree is said to yield 4-5 litre of hydrocarbons per day from its trunk. Outside of their native habitat, the trunks of the decades old pair outside the Lake House are slim; so it will take a while before this natural wonder delivers.

A bar owner’s plight

The leader of the Kerala bar owners has announced that he will launch a movement against corruption and graft in public life.

Biju Ramesh, the controversial working president of the Kerala Bar Hotels Association, who a few months ago openly said that the bar owners had paid crores of rupees to politicians, must be tired of bribe-paying! Ramesh, a wealthy businessman, who used to own half a dozen bars before the Oommen Chandy government got 300-odd bars closed down in a new policy shift.

State of play

The Kerala government is assiduously trying to woo back an apparently ‘slighted’ metroman E Sreedharan after he threw up his arms in despair at the nasty games that politicians play when it comes to laying the ground for massive infrastructure that his home State badly needs.

He has already had a tough time with the slow-moving Kochi Metro. He was even more bogged down with the ‘light metro’ projects proposed for Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy rushed into the scene and requested Sreedharan to stay back, but the latter put his foot down laying down strict conditions. The result is there to see: the State government has sanctioned the release of ₹850 crore for widening arterial roads in the two cities where the light metro is proposed at a projected cost of above ₹ 6,500 crore. In between, actor Mohanlal had through his popular blog sought apologies to Sreedharan on the State’s behalf.

Tailpiece

No point of order during zero hour despite the ‘disorder’ in the house (Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan clarifying a rule of procedure)

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