Comments
A change in the fortunes of politicians gives rise to new appellations and titles. A couple of years ago, Raj Thackeray was dubbed ‘kingmaker’ because of his ability to play spoilsport in a couple of constituencies and thus determine who would win the electoral sweepstakes both in the Lok Sabha and State assembly elections. Certainly the votes polled by his party candidates were often the exact equivalent of the victory margin for the Congress candidates, leading to the view that had the Shiv Sena remained united, it would have been ruling in the State.
Well, times have changed. From being pursued as a partner, Raj has now become practically unwelcome in any alliance. As a rival political leader aptly commented: ‘The kingmaker has now become a Kingfisher!’
Creative sulking
The social media has empowered all the faceless and powerless people. This includes those who work in corporates. See how an IT pro chose to write to the company top brass, using the confession box created by it on Facebook. The mischievous one addressed the post to ‘Dear Appraisal-2014’.
“I know starting from tomorrow, you will bother us for the next two-three months until we get the final hike. As your kids, we always expect a ‘Dairy Milk Silk’ or a ‘Temptations’ from you. But at the end of all this tiring exercise, you will just give us a one-rupee Eclair and start to convince (us) to stay calm for the rest of the year.” Beating the blues with chocolate.
Playing by the rules
At a conference in Mumbai recently, the German host used football rules for moderating the time limit for each speaker. He said: “I will blow the first whistle after nine minutes, show a yellow card in 11 minutes and a red card if the speaker crosses 12 minutes.” When it was RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s turn to speak, he continued the analogy by saying: “Now I have the full 45 minutes for my talk.” Goal!
Watch out
Court controversy and you can be certain of hitting the headlines. Two Argentinean artists have planned an exhibition of the popular Barbie and Ken dolls styled as religious icons.
An international news agency reported that the exhibition, scheduled to open on October 11 in Buenos Aires, would display the dolls as Christ and Goddess Kali, Buddha and Mother Mary, among others. Expectedly, it has raised a storm in North and South America. Protest mails have started pouring in, to journalists in India as well. Headline-grabbing, alright.
Did he really mean that?
The garrulous home minister of Telangana, Nayani Narasimha Reddy, had top police officers red-faced with embarrassment with his comments at the flagging off ceremony of interceptor vehicles in Hyderabad last week.
A local MLA’s suggestion that more of these vehicles be provided to the nearby Cyberabad police whose jurisdiction connected the capital to the national highways and the IT corridor was enthusiastically responded to in the affirmative by the Minister
“Why not?” he said, “for that is where our police get their money from.” Naturally the police were peeved.
However, what the minister actually meant was “that is where the government gets its revenues from”. That sure is a big slip between cup and lip.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.