BELOW THE LINE. Questioning skills

It had taken all Rajiv Pratap Rudy’s skills to be polite, but he was forced to speak up when it came to safeguarding his territory. During Question Hour in the Lok Sabhha last week, MPs were repeatedly aiming questions on ‘skill’ to Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya. When he couldn’t take it any more, Rudy, who is Skill Development Minister, finally intervened to say ‘skill’ was his ministry’s forte! The irony was not lost on the next questioner, Kirti Azad, the BJP leader from Bihar. The former cricketer sent down a googly with: “I have a question on vocation and skill, and whoever wants can answer!”

Power to pull strings

Power and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal is savvy as they come. At the launch of Indian Wind Energy Alliance, Goyal also revealed his funny bone is alive and well.

Addressing the audience, which included former finance minister Yashwant Sinha’s son Sumant Sinha, who is founder of ReNew Power Ventures, the minister said, “I am mostly available to meet with the industry. Only if you need me to get the Ministry of Finance to write cheques I can’t help you. But Sumant can maybe pull some strings.”

The reference was not lost on the gathering. Sumant’s brother Jayant is the Minister of State for Finance.

One for political networking

If there is Facebook for social networking and LinkedIn for professional networking, what is there for political networking? Voteran. Set up by a group of techies in Kochi recently, the new portal promises to help its users “make political connections”.

According to founder Gokul Menon, it will enable users to politically connect with each other, express opinions, engage in debates and even launch a political party. It will be interesting to see how many likes this one gets.

Fermenting issue

They may not be known for quick decisions, but one cannot deny the ingenuity of Indian bureaucrats. At a recent bankers’ meet in Bengaluru, the issue of relief package to grape growers hit by a natural calamity in Karnataka came up. As the bankers and government officials had failed to arrive at a consensus on the quantum of relief and the number of growers to be covered, a senior bureaucrat exhorted them to act fast and quipped, “Any further delay will turn the grapes into vintage wine!”

Lost hopes

The roster was their only hope, now even that has been taken away. Over a thousand employees of a now-defunct airline had stopped getting salaries for two years. But they would still religiously go to the office every day and mark their attendance, hoping to get their dues. But last month, the roster went missing. The message couldn’t have been clearer.

The subtle messenger

The RBI governor believes in subtlety. When asked about banks not passing on interest rate benefits to customers, Raghuram Rajan said, “Recognise the difference between describing a phenomenon and requesting an action. It is not my job to tell the banks what to do. All I am saying is that even though rates have come down, they have not passed it on.” Got it?

This is Siddaramaiah speaking

This is one tech idea that even the seasoned PR machinery of the PMO hadn’t thought about. An invitation card sent by the Karnataka government to launch an e-governance initiative included a two-minute pre-recorded speech of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

So each time one opened the card, the chief minister would start talking about the initiative, first in English and then in Kannada. The technology is often used by greeting card makers, but the Congress leaders, who till now were overshadowed by their tech-savvy counterparts in the BJP, will like the sound of this one.

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