A farmer speaks out

The farming sector had a good time in taking dig at government officials and elected representatives at a meeting of farmers with the Dakshina Kannada district administration in Mangalore recently.

Giving a picture of a section of the sector, an arecanut grower said that a person who was a clerk in a primary agriculture cooperative society has become an officer now and getting good pay. But the land of the farmer, to whom the loan was sanctioned by the society, has now come up for auction. “That is our plight," he said.

Red turns green

The Assembly election is not over but Kolkata has started turning green. The Trinamool Congress-run civic body is now busy painting the medians in major roads in green and orange, the shades which are apparently in common with the party's emblem.

While the city mayor refers to the Tricolour as the inspiration behind the move, the buzz is that Kolkata's iconic Writers' Building may be re-painted from red to green, if Ms Mamata Banerjee gains majority in the Assembly election. Incidentally, the Indian Railways has already changed the face of many stations in the State to green.

Gloss is gone

For a couple of months it looked worth it. Wearing a fresh coat of paint, the restored colonnaded neo-Paladian buildings looked 50 years younger and cut an elegant picture.

But today the white pillars in Connaught Place are once again covered with hideous paan stains, and the filth is making a comeback. Ms Sheila Dixit, please note – clean-up jobs are only as good as the maintenance.

Rivals find common cause

In Tamil Nadu, the BJP is practically a non-entity, but it did have its day when it forced arch-rivals and behemoths, DMK and the AIADMK, to join hands to fight it. One of the tech-savvy guys in the BJP uploaded the voters' list of Singanallur in Coimbatore on to his pen drive and then attached it to a laptop.On the polling day, when some voters couldn't find their names on the rolls, the BJP guy ran a search in the laptop and even gave voting slips from it. The irony was even DMK and AIADMK partymen sought the BJP's help to find out some voters' names.

When people realised this and began crowding the BJP assistance booth, the other parties woke up and complained to the election officials. In turn, the election officials forced the BJP to shut the laptop saying there were no provisions in the rules to use computers for such operations!

Sleeping berths

In a recent report, a Parliamentary Standing Committee berated the Road Transport and Highways Ministry for not creating National Road Safety Boards. But it also added a rider, perhaps to prevent a trend: “The committee, however, likes to caution the Ministry over the tendency of putting retired /serving bureaucrats in such important bodies ….(making these bodies a)…resting place.”

The PE wish

Sandeep Reddy, Co-founder and Managing Director of Peepul Capital, a PE fund, had a very telling statement to make to his prospective investees. Speaking at a seminar in Chennai on private equity investors' role, he said, “Your biggest well wisher, after your wife, is myself.”

Lucky winners

In this quiz, the runner-up was to walk away with a cheque of Rs 30,000. But two participants ended up sharing the runner-up position.

As an executive was about to hand over the split-prize money to the joint winners, an almost inaudiblesuggestion came from one of the two —why not Rs 30,000 for each of the joint winners? Oviously, the quiz sponsor, a mobile service provider, did not want to come across as a parsimonious miser. The wish was granted. Each of the runners-up walked away with Rs 30,000.

COMMENT NOW