Land prices in the little-known temple town of Bahucharaji in Mehsana district in Gujarat have shot up in the last few days.

This was after the board of directors of Maruti Suzuki, the largest car maker in the country, announced that it has approved a proposal to buy land in this district for the company's new plant. Assuming that this site would be at Bahucharaji, many Gujarat businessmen are rushing to buy land there. Interestingly, this place is famous for an annual eunuchs' fair; a large number of them have settled there and own land there. Real estate agents are now cajoling them to sell their land. Maruti is likely to buy 1,500 acres. Clearly, Gujarat is going to surprise the rest of India with another first: the State having the richest eunuchs in the country!

Gas, Diesel, Petrol?

Part of a tea-time conversation at the recent Bankcon-2011 held in Chennai: “When our FM says GDP will rise, he actually means the price of Gas, Diesel and Petrol.”

Lavasa… la la

Strange that a Chief Minister's views can change within the space of a day. Last Thursday, Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Prithviraj Chavan, directed the state Pollution Control Board to initiate action against Lavasa Corporation for violating environment laws. A day later when the Government initiated action by filing a case against the promoters of the project , Chavan went on record saying that the project is important to the State and asked the Centre to accord it clearance if all of the Environment Ministry's pre-conditions were met.

Loo-st it

At the recently concluded AdAsia in New Delhi, by the end of day three the loos at the five-star hotel where the event was being held decided to take a break — perhaps unable to take the load of frequent bio breaks by the 1,200 delegates.

While the women's loo had the flush levers falling off and door knobs not working, the men's loo was barricaded by afternoon of day three, prompting remarks from delegates that perhaps they might have to trudge to the neighbouring five-star to relieve themselves!

Safety of women

A foreign bank has unveiled a new HR tool to counter the growing incidents of sexual harassment and crime against women. Last week, all female employees in the back-office unit of this bank were asked to register for a free service by providing names of up to 20 people who could be contacted in case of an emergency. The female staffers will be given a toll free number. In an emergency, a call or an SMS to this number will activate a chain of SOS messages to all the 20-numbers that have been registered by the employee. The entire cost of the exercise will be borne by the bank.

Podium only for the CM

The West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, recently issued a diktat forbidding her cabinet colleagues and other dignitaries from using the podium inside the Secretariat to address the media. She has also banned media-persons from hanging around in the “high security VIP corridor”. Cabinet ministers have been told to address the media either at the press corner or in their respective rooms. And the media persons have been asked to wait in the press corner for “bytes and interviews”.

All this is said to be for security reasons. Officials of the information and cultural affairs department are now “surveying” the press corner to ensure adequate space and facilities.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW