Her lucky number is 7, this time

For the newly-elected Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa, the number 7 was said to be lucky this time. Consider this: The number of seats that her party, the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, contested in the Assembly election was 160 (1+6=7); after her party's resounding victory, she took oath of office as Chief Minister on 16th (1+6=7); the number of her ministers in the Cabinet is 34 (3+4=7) and, finally, on the first day of taking over as Chief Minister, she is said to have signed 7 files.

It is believed that the last time when she was the Chief Minister, the number 9 was lucky for her.

Green tea for Didi

It is said that West Bengal's newly elected Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, sees red at the sight of anything red. She doesn't even like red colour on her sari, according to some news reports.

After all, she carried out a long struggle to oust the Reds after 34 years of uninterrupted rule. But, surprisingly, when it comes to her favourite drink, Didi still prefers ‘Lal Cha' (red tea sans milk), as a scribe who had gone to interview her found out.

After the interview, the scribe was tempted to suggest to Didi to start drinking ‘green tea' instead. Double benefit: Good for her health and politics! (Trinamool's colour is green).

Who leads the Maharaja?

Has the Ministry of Civil Aviation now taken on the role of running Air India?

Earlier this month, when pilots called off their agitation, the minutes for settling the dispute were signed by a three-member team led by a senior Ministry official. There was no official from the airline management signing the document.

Just when scribes thought this was a one-off incident, came another instance which showed just who the boss is. A statement outlining the increase in flights by Alliance Air in the North East was issued by the Press Information Bureau. It said that the Civil Aviation Ministry had decided to increase Alliance Air services in the North East, thereby sealing the issue.

Adani in faxing fix

These days, the BSE and NSE fax machines have been working overtime as companies rush to announce their results. The impact of this hectic activity was felt in Ahmedabad recently when Adani Enterprises Ltd invited the media to announce its results.

Scribes had to wait for nearly 40 minutes for the company officials to reach the venue. It was later learnt that it was mandatory for the companies to fax the results to the two premier stock exchanges before announcing them. With the BSE and NSE machines overloaded, AEL officials were stuck and could not announce the results despite trying very hard. Eventually, after a long wait, they heaved a sigh of relief, apologised to the waiting reporters and declared the results.

JPC and Pandora's Box

At his first press conference, JPC Chairman, P.C.Chacko, faced many searching questions from scribes. Reason: The JPC decided to dig deep into the migration package awarded by the NDA Government to telecom operators under the New Telecom Policy in July 1999.

One scribe asked Chacko whether the JPC was reopening the Pandora's Box.

He sought to know whether JPC will call as witnesses the then external affairs minister (Yashwant Sinha) and then Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (Jaswant Singh). Both were part of the NDA Government that approved the migration package and were now members of the JPC.

Pat came the reply from Chacko — “It is not that we (JPC) have opened the Pandora's Box. Pandora's Box has been entrusted to us by Parliament! Our reach is very extensive. Terms of reference are our guidelines.

From 1998 to 2009, all matters relating to policy, Cabinet decision, implementation can be looked into by us”

Next day, Yashwant Sinha gratuitously offered to depose before the JPC, taking the sting out of its tail.

Catching ‘em young

While campus hiring by infotech majors invited a fair amount of flak for luring teenagers into the job market, a Bangalore-based pre-school, located amidst leading software companies, is promoting itself as a place where “next-gen CEOs are groomed”. Now, isn't cradle-snatching being taken a bit too far?

Case of the missing cylinder

A colleague in Delhi applied for an Indane LPG cyclinder refill. The dealer asked him to do a telebooking. On doing so, he got a booking confirmation via SMS saying that the cash memo had been generated and the refill would be delivered shortly. A day later, a fresh SMS landed up stating that the cylinder had been delivered at his home. But nothing landed up at home.

The colleague, who insists on never exercising journalistic privileges, decided to junk his principles for once and called the company directly. Sure enough, another cylinder arrived in no time. So, where did the missing one go? Alas, streamlining of services is still a far cry in the Capital.

Phishing in troubled waters

The latest to be dragged in the phish-list is Satyam Computers. The buzz doing the rounds these days is an e-mail from one Ms Radha Ramalinga, posing as Satyam founder Byrraju Ramalinga Raju's sister-in-law, seeking help to move funds from Holland to India as the Raju brothers are in “big trouble” in India. At least, this is one bait the Rajus can't really account for!

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