Prisoners swing to jailhouse salsa

This would have perhaps got Elvis Presley to change the words of his Jailhouse Rock.

Prisoners in Karnataka are swinging to salsa.

In jail reforms, the state is known to borrow liberally from the West, and this time it has gone Latino.

A qualified salsa teacher had approached the prisons department and was allowed to teach the inmates how to shake a leg.

But it’s not all song and dance, say officials. This is a serious move to help bring prisoners into the mainstream.

The officials have also bought 100 colour TV sets, which will be distributed across prisons in the state. Satellite radios are already in place in jails.

The government’s efforts have led more and more prisoners to take up education and learn vocational skills.

That they welcome the winds of change behind bars is evident in the letters they write to officials. The drop-box for grievances is overflowing with gratitude.

Hard work pays for TRS boss

K. Chandrasekhara Rao, the Telengana Rashtra Samiti president, is out to raise funds by doing hard work.

Rao lifted cement bags, mixed concrete and also packed toothpaste boxes to raise Rs 10 lakh on a single day for the party. He was raising money for the TRS’s big meeting to mark the party’s seventh foundation day at the Gymkhana grounds on April 27.

Rao worked in a toothpaste company, a cement plant, a paddy field and a tar mixing plant to collect the “donations” as wages from the company chiefs.

He had tried a different kind of fundraising in the last elections — the American style. He had organised “dinner meetings”, where each seat was priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000, like US presidential candidates do.

Healthcare on wheels

Healthcare will come to the doorsteps of the capital’s residents.

A 32-seater bus that is a multipurpose mobile healthcare facility will criss-cross the city.

Some diagnostic tests can be done on the Smile-on-Wheels bus where women can also get advice on pre-natal and post-natal care. Children will get immunisation. Basic diagnostic tests for blood pressure as well as X-ray and ECG analysis will also be done.

The bus will run about 24 days a month along a fixed route, moving to a new area each day.

The bus, with a full-time doctor and paramedics, will also be equipped with oxygen cylinders, nebulisers and resuscitation equipment.

“A fixed weekly route will allow repeat consultations for those patients who need them,” said Manju Singh, the manager, special projects, Smile Foundation.

The NGO is supporting the mobile healthcare project.

Delhi is the seventh city to get its bus after Bhilai, Calcutta, Cuttack, Kanpur, Roorkee, and Talegaon.

Pack your bags

Thomas Cook India has launched summer packages for budget travellers.

Starting at Rs 7,999 for each person, the travel services provider will take tourists to places in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Uttarakhand.

“With the launch of summer packages, we introduce certain exotic and unexplored destinations across the country and tap a large Indian traveller base,” the company’s managing director Madhavan Menon said. Booking is open till April 30.

bangalore: PERCH, a Chennai-based group, is staging Sangathi Arinhya (Have you Heard?), a play written by Muhammad Basheer, at Ranga Shankara from April 22-27. An exhibition of rare photographs of the writer will also be on display. For tickets, contact 09945108610.