Just a few pegs & death wheels roll

Brakes often don’t slam in Hyderabad. Not with shaky legs, at least.

Accidents have zoomed in the IT boomtown, helped by a government policy that allows free-flowing liquor all around.

The casualties have peaked at 1,000 in the past five months in the cyber city, the high-spending IT corridor. The spate of crashes has fuelled concerns that the nouveau rich who drive the tech firms are living life too fast.

Police officers speak ominously of the rising number of drink-driving cases, most of them involving youngsters. “We are booking over 100 cases every night using breath analysers,” says additional police commissioner (traffic) V.S.K. Kaumudi. Unlike in the past, when people mixed drinking and driving at night, such offences have been recently noticed during the day.

To ensure victims are attended to promptly, the government and Satyam have launched Arogyasree-II, a mobile emergency medicare service that responds in minutes.

Hyderabad has around 22 lakh vehicles — 1.5 lakh three-wheeler autos, 16.8 lakh two-wheelers and 1.67 lakh cars.

Court glare on coaching

Coaching classes in Mumbai and in the rest of Maharashtra are back under the scanner of the judiciary.

Bombay High Court last week appointed a four-member committee to monitor these institutes after an NGO’s petition that they weaned teachers off regular classes.

Justices Bilal Nazki and S.S. Shinde asked the panel to study the trend of coaching across the state and submit a report within six months. This follows complaints teachers were making extra money in these institutes at the expense of schools and colleges that employed them.

Earlier, the government had pleaded helplessness, saying it couldn’t enact a law to regulate these institutes. The NGO, Forum for Fairness in Higher Education, argued that teaching standards in government schools and colleges had deteriorated, suggesting teachers devoted more time and attention to coaching.

Stray chasers hunted down

Catching strays in the capital? Beware, you could be hunted down, instead.

Civic staff and police on a drive against stray cattle, said to belong to an illegal dairy on government land, were allegedly beaten up in a west Delhi neighbourhood recently.

According to an MCD official, 50 people, led by the dairy owner Pratap, assaulted the officials who had gone to catch the cattle in the fast-growing Pitampura area.

Some of the officials were injured, the spokesperson said, and claimed that a few cows were chased out of the reach of civic authorities by the dairy owner and his staff.

he seven policemen accompanying the team “could not do much” as the attackers outnumbered them. A larger contingent was rushed to prevent the fracas from snowballing into a larger confrontation affecting the residents. A case was registered against the dairy owner for manhandling officials. But MCD sources said this wasn’t the first such occurrence: at least 11 incidents of attack on MCD employees have been reported over the past month. (PTI)

‘Plot’ sniffed

A yet-to-be-built memorial has cast a shadow on a government plot.

The Supreme Court last week asked the Centre and the Delhi government to ensure land acquired in the city’s south for a sports school is used for it and nothing else.

The order follows a petition that alleged supporters of former chief minister Sahib Singh Verma were trying to make his “samadhi” (memorial) there. The petitioners had earlier challenged acquisition for the school.

MUMBAI: Spice up this Sunday evening with Abhi To Main Jawan Hoon, a Gujrati play whose popularity has been breaking language barriers. The venue is Bhaidas Sabhagriha in Vile Parle (West). It is near Mithibhai/N.M. College. Time: 7.45pm. Call 26140669 for more information.