Marchers and placard-holding traffic-stoppers can flex their muscles on Bangalore roads for 10 minutes. Not more.

If the road revolutionaries stay on longer, they will face criminal cases and prosecution under a plan being considered by the traffic police to slam the brakes on street chaos.

“We are contemplating filing criminal cases against those who disrupt traffic for more than 10 minutes in the city,” Bangalore police chief Shankar Bidari said recently, seeming to offer a remedy more suited to protest-choked Calcutta.

The violators will be warned first. A case will be filed if they do not pay heed and continue with their obstructions.

Bidari said the plan was part of a wider strategy aimed at ensuring smooth vehicle flow and addressing other traffic travails people face every day.

Already, it seems some success has been achieved in curbing the number of violations, in large part because of cameras at key intersections. Nearly 70 per cent of the cases where rules were broken had been captured on the cameras, Bidari said. (PTI)

Calls are growing to weed out Tamil Nadu’s fast-sprouting tech colleges after a spate of duping allegations.

The push this time has come from the state council for higher education, which wants a system to regulate these institutions.

“We will ask the government to bring in a system to monitor the activities of small institutes, which impart training in various soft and technical skills,” council vice-chairman A. Ramasamy said recently.

Complaints have swirled in recent weeks that more and more students are duped by these institutions by promising placements. Ramasamy felt students needed to be cautious about these institutions, saying they should conduct thorough background checks before joining them.                             (PTI)

Terror brooks no delay, especially when it is a chief minister.

Officials in Sheila Dikshit’s office have been spending sleepless nights because a proposed high-tech security system is taking longer than usual to install. The recent explosions have only heightened their anxieties.

Only 10 per cent of the Rs 20-crore project has been completed in the past four months after PSU Electronic Corporation of India was assigned the job, the officials said.

The system will ensure 24-hour electronic video monitoring on all floors of the office where the state cabinet is located, in ministers’ rooms and outside the building at ITO.

The government has now asked Electronic Corp to set a time frame for the project. Displeasure over the delay was clear.

“After giving the work order to ECIL in May, there has been a lull. The PSU has been asked to set a definite time frame within which the system will be commissioned and made functional at the secretariat. Progress in supply, installation and commissioning of gadgets has been tardy,” an official said. (PTI)

The Hyderabad grapevine is abuzz with student sop stories.

The new talking point is N. Chandrababu Naidu’s promise of free bus rides and cycles for students if Telugu Desam is voted to power.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to scan the DMK’s TV scheme in Tamil Nadu doesn’t seem to have stemmed the flow of poll freebies.

aidu, eyes set on next year’s elections, didn’t stop at cycles and buses: he also offered more scholarships for poor students.                      (UNI)

BANGALORE: If you are interested in history, head to Shivaji, a Hero for Modern India, an exhibition of Mughal miniatures. The venue is Gallery G, Maini Sadan, No. 38, Lavelle Road, 7th Cross. The exhibition is on till October 5, from 10am to 6pm. Call 22219275 for more information.