The State Bank of India in Delhi hosted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for a performance review meeting with heads of public sector banks. This meeting was very different from previous meetings held in the same building. For one, the meeting was attended by representatives of private sector banks as well. For another, bouncers were conspicuous by their absence. Earlier, when the UPA was in power, bouncers deliberately kept journalists from talking to bank chiefs. Phew, breathing easy!

Ministering to yoga

Amid a raging controversy over whether yoga should be made compulsory, the Karnataka health minister UT Khader has come out in support of practising yoga. Citing his own example at a press conference in Mangaluru recently, Khader said he used to weigh 95 kg. Thanks to a regular regimen of practising yoga and controlling his food habits, he managed to reduce the weight to 75 kg. While he is all for encouraging people to practice yoga, he said that it was finally an individual decision, whether to take it up or not. Speaking for himself, though, he said he practices yoga whenever he gets the time. Supple body, supple mind.

Nap snap

Seems like Housing.com co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav likes the attention on social media. After taking a dig at the founders of Olacabs and Zomato recently, Yadav took a picture of Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka sleeping in an airport lounge. Yadav posted the snap with a caption that read: “Infosys CEO Sikka. When I asked something he replied I just want to sleep without listening to the question.”

The post got 1,854 likes, 51 comments and was shared 120 times, apart from receiving some media attention (covered by a couple of newspapers and a news agency). Let sleeping CEOs lie.

Don't worry, be happy

Why foreign companies are more bullish on India than Indian companies is a billion-dollar question plaguing the minds of policymakers, bankers, investors and analysts alike.

When asked what he thought about this, Jeremy Hunter, president of the Henkel group, India, answered point blank: “You people are worried about 7 and 7.5 per cent GDP growth and want to push it to double digits… Let me tell you never in my life have I seen even this kind of growth in Germany.” Overperforming?!

Fighting for credit

After approving the sole bid by Adani Ports and SEZ for the Vizhinjam mega port project, the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front seems to have managed to blunt the Opposition charge as campaigning for the by-elections to the Aruvikkara Assembly constituency in Kerala peaks. The Opposition Left Democratic Front has alleged massive corruption in the ‘deal’ that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy ‘struck’ with the Adani group.

But the chief minister chose to give it back by saying none other than VS Achutanandan, former chief minister and now leader of the Opposition, had gone out of his way to host the Adanis and proposed to them the Azheekkal and Cheemeni ports in Malabar as part of a chain of major infrastructure development projects for the region.

Cooking up a challenge

P Ramulu, former director-general of police of Andhra Pradesh and now chairman of the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation, had a word of advice for hoteliers who were present at an award function recently: Eat right and you can avoid visits to a doctor; this is my prescription for good health.

At the Telangana Food Awards event in Hyderabad, he said that during his teens he had mastered the art of cooking and challenged anyone who could cook gutti vankaya koora (brinjal gravy curry) as well as he did; he even put down a ₹1000 wager. Then he went on to advise the hoteliers present not to pick up the challenge as they were certain to lose! Now that’s some level of confidence!

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