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OUT OF THE CLOSET
Actor Dushmant Panda hogged the headlines after Mahila police registered a case against him following complaints from journalism student and model Priti Mohanty. Priti alleged that Panda had married and ditched her after two years of cohabitation to tie the knot with actor Kajol Mishra. Dushmant had to skip his marriage reception as the model staged a dharna in front of the ceremony venue. He was later granted bail.
HOME TRUTHS
Law minister Bikram Kesari Arukh found himself in the thick of a controversy in November following allegations of having been allotted two houses — one in his name and the other in the name of his wife — under the government’s discretionary quota. As the Opposition bayed for his blood and the state’s political temperature rose over the issue, Arukh surrendered one of the two houses. The government later decided to abolish discretionary quota in such matters.
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PAST IMPERFECT
Bapi Sharkhel, a carpetbagger from western Odisha, was in the news in December. The chubby six-footer stirred the controversy cauldron as police got onto his trail in the wake of massive violence in the Posco project area. The shadowy fortune hunter from Birmitrapur was suddenly in the limelight with his past coming under scrutiny. The Sharkhel episode cost a high-profile bureaucrat his plum post as the chairman-cum-managing director of Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco).
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PUPPET ACT
Biju Janata Dal’s stormy petrel Debasish Nayak was suspended from the party in May following a vitriolic attack on chief minister, Naveen Patnaik whom he accused, among other things, of acting as a puppet in the hands of bureaucrat-turned-politician, Pyari Mohan Mohapatra. Nayak, who in the past had served as officer-on-special-duty to Naveen, also wanted the chief minister to come clean on the corruption charges against his government.
dowry damage
Former state Ranji captain Pravanjan Mallick landed in police custody in February for allegedly assaulting his estranged wife Cini Mohanty who had lodged a police complaint alleging dowry torture.
money stain
BJD’s Tirtol block unit president at Jagasinghpur, Aswani Kumar Das, was suspended from the party in November for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1.2 lakh from an executive engineer suppressing an inquiry against him. He was arrested from a government bungalow in Cuttack after he fled with the bribe.
wrong pitch
Odisha Cricket Association secretary Ashirbad Behera was called to the Raj Bhavan to explain the glitches during the presentation ceremony of the India-West Indies match at Barabati Stadium, Cuttack in November. Governor M.C. Bhandare was reported to be upset that ruling Biju Janata Dal leader Pyari Mohan Mohapatra appeared to take precedence over him by being asked to present a memento to the winning Indian captain, Virender Sehwag while Bhandare had to content himself with awarding a souvenir to the losing captain, Darren Sammy.
downward spiral
Odisha Ranji player Haladhar Das was stripped off captaincy and suspended from the team after he was found drunk in his hotel room on the eve of the Odisha-Punjab Ranji tie in Mohali in November. He was reinstated in the team as wicketkeeper after he tendered a written apology to the Odisha Cricket Association.
muscle flexing
A police case was registered against actor Tanmay Mohanty alias Babushaan for allegedly beating up a 19-year-old youth and stealing his mobile phone near a posh hotel in Nayapalli area in January. Seven months later, another actor, Debasis Patra, was detained by police for a night for roughing up a student following an incident of road rage.
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what a dope
A disciplinary panel of the National Anti-Doping Agency banned athlete Jauna Murmu, along with five other quartermilers, for a year for testing positive for a prohibited substance. With this, she and the others have been ruled out of the 2012 London Olympics, ending India’s hopes of a medal in the 4x400 women’s relay event.
NAMITA PANDA AND SANDIP BAL