Coffee cordiality

You must give it to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for acknowledging absence of old school cordiality in current day politics.

At the launch event of veteran banker N Vaghul’s book ‘Reflections’, she observed as to how following C Rajagopalachari’s humane approach and coffee cordiality to his political opponent P Ramamurthi of CPI (despite their ideological differences) may not fly in the current times and would in fact be “grossly mistaken” by political pundits.

Going by the recent vacuous Budget session, one can kiss goodbye to coffee cordiality at least for now.

CCI’s quandary

The recent Delhi High Court ruling in the Startups (ADIF) case against Google has put the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in a quandary. Reason: Delhi High Court has said that CCI can discharge adjudicatory functions without quorum, yet it cannot discharge administrative functions without quorum, turning entire approach and understanding of CCI of its own law topsy turvy.

In the last seven months, CCI has to put its adjudicatory work on hold citing lack of quorum — due to absence of CCI Chairman. But it was discharging its administrative functions. But now things have taken such a bizzarre turn that CCI is in a dilemma about the state of the administrative actions it had already taken in the past seven months.

Going ahead, the Commission will be unable to procure a computer or hire office staff as they would require administrative approval.

Snakes at Chennai Airport

On Friday, the Chennai airport saw arrival of unusual visitors — 22 live snakes. They were seized from a female passenger who arrived from Malaysia. While such live animals arrive in cargo, the officials at the airport were surprised to see it in the baggage.

What is more intriguing is how the baggage got past the security at the boarding destination. This is a serious security lapse, says an aviation expert. Officials at the airport had a tough time in catching these snakes that slithered out of the luggage.

Before time!

On Saturday, guests attending the first Food Conclave organised by the Telangana government were caught off guard. These events usually never start on time and the crowd is kept waiting for the Chief Guest or Guest of Honour to arrive. But, Saturday 9 am witnessed a different story.

The man behind the show Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao, popularly known as KTR, the Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development; Industries and Commerce; and Information Technology, Electronics and Communications of Telangana was there before 9 am and was seen waiting for the guests to arrive before entering the main hall to kick off the function which was to start at 9:30 am. But, it was not before 10 am that all the dignitaries arrived.

But people could not complain when the closing session got delayed as KTR was occupied with some other work. As someone said in jest, “this was KTR’s way of getting back!” Our Bureaus

comment COMMENT NOW