We journalists have always been the first audience for all the allegations and counter allegations from the politicians. And when it is the time of elections or even of talks about elections, politicians seem to be on their heels to comment.
A senior Congressman addressing mediapersons in city recently, said that the Election Commission should hold State Assembly elections only after updating the voters’ list properly, taking its own time - no matter the elections be postponed till November this year. He accused other political parties in the state of trying to “kill democracy” by hurrying up the process and putting the valuable voting rights of citizens at stake.
On the other hand, other political parties are accusing Congress of being keen to postpone the elections, calling the same ‘anti-democratic’. And all these parties equivocally claim their stands to be ‘in the interest of people’. It is a weird feeling to hear such similar ‘concerns’ from different mouths with different reasons. Politics has now turned to be power-craving rather than upholding actual democracy. Though political parties seem to have different reasons they all seem to agree on one point - of killing democracy ?! May be, their disagreement is only about the way it is killed!
- Rashmi R Hebbur
My Lord business
‘Here my lord, in this case my lord, the honourable court my lord..’” - this was how an advocate was presenting his argument over a case in the Karnataka High Court recently. None of his sentences would end without addressing of ‘My Lord’ at least for three times. Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph heading the divisional bench was irked by repeated utterance of ‘My Lord”. The CJ with his folded hands appealed to the advocate “please stop this My Lord-My Lord business”. The advocate had nothing to react except than “My Lord, I am sorry My Lord”.
- Shile
Terrorism and Jalebi
If there's a media conference by the DG & IGP K R Sreenivasan, then one can expect a lot of witty quotes than a direct answer to the actual question. And, there was lot of such wit during a press briefing on recent arrests of suspected terrorists which turned out to be a laughter challenge programme to mention the least. Most questions were directed to DG, COD Ajay Kumar Singh, but there was always a witty interference by the DG Sreenivasan.
For a question whether to call the arrested persons as terrorists or suspected terrorists, the reply form DG was that the terrorist was not married, so what do you call him Unmarried or a Bachelor? When a reporter asked how deep rooted the terror organisation and how you are dealing with it, the answer was that all other crime were like short stories but terrorism was like mega serial! And when some one asked about why surveillance on students, the answer was that terrorism was like Jalebi where you cant figure out the starting or ending point. But the icing on the cake was the query about Anti-Terrorist Cell which the DG replied that it was now 'Antique' Terrorist Cell and the journalist took it as 'Aunty' Terrorist Cell which triggered a bout of extended laughter before the 'Press Briefing' came to a tickling end.
- Anantha Subramanyam K
Good teachers, poor admins
A friend of Sir M Visvesvaraya was a professor in a college. He was promoted as the VC of Madras University. After hearing the news, he met Visvesvaraya and told the same, expecting Visvesvaraya would congratulate him.
“What a tragedy! This shouldn’t have happened!” exclaimed Vishveshwaraiah. The stunned professor asked him, “Instead of congratulating me, you are terming the decision as tragic.” “Yes, it’s the biggest tragedy. Because, the college lost an excellent teacher and the university got a bad administrator.,” Visvesvaraya added. This incident was narrated by Educationist Dr Gururaj Karajagi when he was differentiating between the roles of a teacher and a principal at a function recently.
He noted that some people are excellent teachers, but poor administrators, while some others are best administrators and poor teachers.
