The Hindu Business Line : Parting gift

The son and daughter-in-law of a top Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) official due for retirement and currently on a six-month extension have both recently been appointed as associate professors at the Central Agricultural University’s College of Post-Graduate Studies in Barapani, Meghalaya. Business Line has learnt that the two appointees do have PhDs, one of them having even worked as a post-doctoral fellow at an Ivy League institut ion. But to be inducted (‘fitted’, as the Krishi Bhawan grapevine has it) directly as associate professors in a Central University — something that ordinarily takes 10-12 years? Hmm… no wonder tongues are wagging.

Mummy is coming

Reliance officials are often asked by the media when the Chairman is going to be in town or visiting the facility. But they are never asked when his mother is likely to visit. The ongoing war between the two Ambani brothers and the prominence given to the mother as the main decision-maker inevitably led to the unasked question: “When is Kokilaben visiting the facility?” The response was “shortly”.

Reliance Industries Pvt Ltd?

When did RIL become Reliance Industries Pvt Ltd? Media persons invited by Reliance Industries for a trip to their east coast offshore fields as well as the organisers were surprised to see a board indicating the venue of the dinner say: ‘Dinner being hosted by Reliance Industries Pvt Ltd’.

Behave yourself

In her meetings with the Delhi media, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is usually polite in replying to questions. But when someone asked her a question which could be perceived as having been instigated by the Left parties, the journalist was given a prompt lashing. “You are here as a journalist, so do not behave as an agent,” she literally shouted back.

US poodle?

If more proof was needed of the growing “closeness” between India and the US, it was evident earlier this week. At a function organised by the US Embassy to showcase, of all the silly things, a shed in the visa section of the Embassy “to protect visa-seekers from ‘weather elements’”, several senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs who are inaccessible to everyone else were present. Clearly, when the US says “jump” ;, this government says “how high” — on the way up.

Artistic licence

The sorry state of the global aviation industry was all too apparent at a global aviation seminar organised here earlier this week. Behind the podium on which luminaries like the Minister for Civil Aviation sat was a painted a picture of an aircraft. Nothing wrong in that except the aircraft had three engines — two on one wing and one on the other. Was the painting showing cost-cutting measures in lopping off one engine or was it the imagination of the painter trying to rewrite flying technology?

Tailpiece

How much did the Government spend on Mr Austerity’s day trip to Ludhiana by train? Rs 18 lakh. Nice.

OUR DELHI BUREAU