Peace for now

Hoodannit? We?re not quite sure, but the truce worked out by Honda Motors with its workers may give the Haryana police a breather. Not so the state?s politicians, who are currently engaged in fever-pitch activity. With the Haryana CM, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, on the backfoot, it is difficult to contain the celebrations in the rival camps. Gurgaon is being seen as the beginning of Hooda?s unhappy end. Naturally, no effort is being spared to corner the quarry. The hard work started even while blood flowed on Gurgaon?s streets. The contenders to Hooda?s kursi ? Bhajan Lal and Choudhary Virendra Singh ? were in the capital to press matters with madam, who acted swiftly by giving a dressing down to Hooda and asking him to expand his cabinet. The good work continues. Meanwhile, however, Hooda hasn?t rested idle. Apart from reaching matters to a hasty end, Hooda has got busy with something equally important ? image management. There has apparently been hefty donations to the Press Club of India from Haryana and invitations to scribes. Will that be enough to save the truce?

Ideas galore

Hero to zero! Well almost. Amit Jogi is languishing in the Raipur jail he had once thought of converting into a state-of-the-art shopping mall. Jogi junior had even invited bids when Papa Jogi was running the state. The plan was shelved when Ajit thought of another ? a Tughlaq-like feat of building a new capital. Sonia Gandhi had even performed the bhoomipujan for the new city to be named after Rajiv Gandhi. But before Malaysian companies could bag multi-crore projects, Jogi lost the polls. The rest is history. Amit, however, is doing his bit by writing his diary in jail. But one wonders what sort of ideas are being put down in it for future reference.

And the winner is...

A war in babudom. A top-level job in the railways is about to fall vacant and babus of the railway board are trying their best to humour the power couple in Bihar to bag the coveted post. One organized an evening of ghazals for Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi. But the wife of another aspirant stole the show by singing Bhojpuri songs, a favourite of the Yadavs. Need we wait for the results?

What friends are for

The rains did not merely disrupt the plans of the Mumbaikars. They also threw haywire the plans of a higher mortal ? the president of India. APJ Abdul Kalam was looking forward to visit his old friend, Mahadeva Iyer at Alappuzha, on the last day of his three-day trip to Kerala, when the clouds burst. The host had made elaborate arrangements for Kalam (he had summoned his three children from different parts of the country). But so had the locals. They made long queues before the Iyer house to look at the president, and hand him their memoranda. Alas! The gods once again played spoilsport.

Return gift

Hats off to Indian ingenuity. A new method of harassing NRIs have been found. Several visitors to India have discovered that their passports are tampered with while they are entering the country. On their return journey, they invariably face a lot of flak from the immigration department for the ?missing? pages of their passports (the details of which are always found preserved in the computer). The ?anomaly? is set right by the ?helpful? officials themselves, quite obviously at the payment of a tidy sum. Complaints have been made repeatedly to higher authorities, who, expectedly, turn the other way.

Holding out

There are some ideas about why the much-talked-about reshuffle in the cabinet is not happening. Some feel it is because of the PM himself, and his objection to replace the bright and unbending finance minister with a more pliant Pranab Mukherjee. What Pranabda? Has anyone talked to him about whether he wishes to take on anymore on his shoulders?

Work wonders

Why does Laloo Yadav want PM Sayeed as the Bihar governor? For two things. One, he can punish the nosy Buta Singh for throwing a spanner in his works. And two, with a Muslim guv, he can stall any demands for a Muslim CM. Full marks, Lalooji!

Changing loyalties

Is Paanchjanya still the mouthpiece of the RSS? The saffronites, for one, seem to be no longer sure where its heart lies. For when the RSS was busy lambasting LK Advani for his pious pronouncements in Pakistan, the Paanchjanya in its July 24 issue had announced, ?Na parha, na samjha, aur bas daurh pare log.? But it is not so much its defence of Advani that the saffronwallahs are concerned about, it is Paanchjanya?s take on Manmohan Singh that is proving more worrisome. While the RSS came down heavily on the PM for his Oxford speech recently, the weekly newspaper was all praise for him. Worse, this wasn?t a one-off thing either. Paanchjanya seems to have taken a benign approach to the Manmohan Singh government from day one. In fact, its editor was one of the first people to have got an exclusive interview with the PM, leaving the secular forces aghast. Has Paanchjanya then adopted Singh or is it arranging its own funeral?