The Karnataka Chief Minister, B.S. Yeddyurappa, would not have thought that his plan to honour the Indian cricket stars would land him in a ‘legal' soup.

When other State governments offered rewards to the Indian team for winning the world Cup, Mr Yeddyurappa, not to be left behind, announced 4000 sq ft plots in the city for each team member, though there were no players from the State in the team.

When he was told there were not enough ‘good' sites in Bangalore to allot to all, he decided to go for cash award of Rs 25 lakh each.

But now even that seems a distant possibility as a Bangalore resident has filed a PIL against the cash award saying that such huge rewards to the already rich players would be a drain on the State's coffers.

Calling the shots?

Infosys' Mohandas Pai was offered either the COO post or CEO post about nine months ago by Chief Mentor Narayanamurthy. He was made this offer informally when he first expressed his desire to quit. Of course, Pai refused this generous offer. One, however, wonders what the incumbent CEO, the incoming CEO and the rest of the board thought of this unilateral offering of the crown. After all, there is something called shareholder democracy and corporate governance and other such noble concepts that companies claim they are ardent adherents to. Or should we just interpret this as an inadvertent admission about who really calls the shots?

Tale of a suit

Shareholders do not miss an opportunity to complain about wasteful corporate expenses. However, at the 75th AGM of cement major ACC, it was a different scene.

A shareholder, known for her chaste Hindi couplets, said “we understand that you are implementing a lot of cost-cutting measures, but we are surprised to see you today in the same suit that you wore in the picture published in the Annual Report- ‘ Itna to cost-cutting mat kijiye .'

Before the creases of the wide smile on the Chairman, Narotam Sekhsaria's face disappeared, she cleverly sneaked in her demand for a bonus issue to mark ACC's platinum jubilee.

Road to nowhere?

The Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, does play to the galleries at times. At the press meet during his visit to Mumbai last week, he was at his best. Describing the status of the proposed Coastal Road between Haji Ali and Nariman Point, as a classic Indian case of Trishanku (neither here nor there,) Ramesh eased palpable tension in a room full of journalists waiting to pounce upon him with questions of Posco and Jaitapur. But, the best was yet to come. “The first notice regarding CRZ violations has been sent on March 30. In this day and age, I'm shocked that it has not yet been reported,” he said, continuing the good-natured, light-hearted banter with the media.

Raining releases

The Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, seems to be taking the “she will mess up the State like she has the Railways” campaign by her Left rivals in Bengal very seriously.

Ever since elections were declared in West Bengal, her Ministry has gone on overdrive issuing one press release after another. Most of these relate to ‘record' earnings in wagon purchase, scrap sale, network expansion and highest-ever rolling stock. Now, is Didi seeing red and ‘railing' against her opponents?

PR woes

The ad industry's annual gala, Goafest 2011, was a wonderful event. If only one did not have to plead with waiters outside the Conclave venue for a notepad — or a piece of paper — to write on, it would have been even better.

Let's look at the positive side of this - the experience prepared us for the seminars on the next two days, when we picked up every writing pad available in the room they stayed at and some from the lovely lady next door. Except for the Media Badge (thank God for small mercies), the Creative and Media Abby results, and a schedule of speakers (on SMS), one received precious little information of relevance and remained blissfully clueless about the goings on. What took the cake was a PR agency sending in an incorrect caption to a photograph of ASCI members taking a pledge. Forget self-regulation for now; can we start with quality control?

Modi's way

The Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, seldom takes back people who are off his radar. But an exception seems to have made in the case of the bureaucrat turned-entrepreneur, Sanjay Gupta. In 2001, Gupta was shunted out to an insignificant posting, which, at the end of the year, he quit and joined the private sector Adani Group.

Last week, after nine years, Gupta was rehabilitated by Modi and appointed chairman of the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar Metro project. Gupta is known for his project execution skill which, presumably, led to the recall.

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