Revelations

As I glanced through today's TOI, I found several articles worth sharing with the people who do not take the TOI (or who take but don't read it).

The subject of this article has been going for a while at Esplanade. (Of course TOI reached about a year late and is now claiming credits.) The Grand hotel blocked off a stretch of the road for the vehicles of it's guests only. As it is, the footpath along the stretch is at the blessed mercy of the hawkers. So, the pedestrians often have to get on to the road. And if the pedestrians happen to venture into the Grand Hotel's cordoned off area, they are summarily shoved off by the security personnel. Serves them right that the KMC is imposing a fine on them.

This article substantiates my last post. It is only a matter of time before the government gives in to the demands of the transport operators and increases the fares. (All ironies intended in the italicised 'gives in' in both posts).

This is a follow up of this. (Note the wrong spelling of Fr. Siby in both articles. The print media has a knack for getting the spellings of places and people wrong, while the audio visual media almost always gets the pronunciation wrong. And they are arrogant enough not to correct them. Of course way back when I was in class 7 I thought it was Fr. C.B., short for some unpronounceable south Indian name. But then I was 12 years old and was surely not a journalist). The students of DBL who were oppressed under the rule of Fr. Siby Joseph Vadakel (he was vice-principal there for some time) will be the happiest if the haughty and arrogant brat of a priest is brought to book and taught a lesson for once. But, I feel sorry for those students of DBL who became a victim of Fr. Siby's whims and whose lives were shattered forever. But the media do not consider DBL worthy of news space as it is unlikely to increase circulation/TRP (why! one had called it Don Bosco Bally!) It is only when the sons of influential people get affected that it becomes worth a mention. (The students of DBL love to believe that Fr. Siby was packed off to a centre at Azimganj, where there was no toilet and he had had to poo in the open, after his unpopular stint at DBL)

This has caused great delight to me. Perhaps now BCCI will stop over-commercialisation of cricket and let the game be at peace and be enjoyed for just the incidents on field.

Note this. And I quote: '(PM) Says Reforms Need Of The Hour As Govt Can't Resort To Populist Steps'. Excellent Mr. Prime Minister, you have come to terms with reality (conveniently forgetting the socialist principles of the nation). But, I must say you are being a ruddy two faced son of a she-dog (the word starts with b and rhymes with rich) in saying so. You forget all about reforms and not taking populist steps when you woo the minorities, SCs, STs, and OBCs, don't you Mr. Prime Minister? They must be doled out sops regularly and their quotas increased so that they suck up to you (and your Madam) during the elections, must they not be Mr. Prime Minister?

And finally this. Jug Suraiya writes sense more often than not. He correctly highlights the importance of the knowledge of English from a global perspective. The opposition of English by the likes of Mulayam Singh accusing it of being a colonial hangover reeks of political self-centralism. I was impressed to learn that Mayawati supports the knowledge of English. (Jug Suraiya is a more reliable source for such information than the other blessed people who write in the TOI). Whether the support is to counter Mulayam Singh, I do not know. Whatever be the reasons, the end justifies the means (in this case at least).