Political return
When filmmaker Muzaffar Ali decided to join the Congress last week, the development raised as many questions as guffaws.
It is not as if Mr Ali is new to the party. He had joined the Congress during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, a fact that made journalists curious when he had left the party and why he was returning during polls.
In keeping with his Page 3 image — he stopped making films years ago — Mr Ali arrived at his own press conference half an hour behind schedule. As the scribes got restive, it was left to Digvijay Singh present at the presser to keep the journos in good humour.
Just before Mr Ali stepped in, one scribe wanted to know why the filmmaker was joining the Congress again after 2009.
“This time he is reiterating his support to the Congress,” Mr Singh said.
And then when Mr Ali stepped in, the same question was put to him. He responded, “At that time I had supported the Congress, this time I am joining it.”
Wonder what he’ll do in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

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Playacting medicos
In Tezpur, known to be the cultural capital of Assam, doctors have embarked upon an ambitious plan to educate the new generation, not on healthcare but about their cultural heritage, by enacting the Angkia Bhawna.
The Angkia Bhawna is a dramatic form created out of cantos from the Ramayana and the Bhagavat by 15th-century Vaishnava saint Sankardev and his disciple Madhabdev to spread Vaishnava teachings in Assam.
Child specialist Rupam Das, who is also the president of the Progressive Doctors’ Association, feels that this would also help change the image of doctors in society. Most of the leading physicians and surgeons acting in the religious drama finish their duty in the operation theatre early and rush to the other theatre for rehearsal. Clad in gorgeous robes to enact the various mythological characters, these medics have not left any stone unturned to publicise their new role. They even appear in interviews on local news channels to speak about their new endeavour.

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Didi at the helm
No one has any doubt that after dislodging the CPI(M) from power in West Bengal last May, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has indeed been in the driver’s seat. It was not clear whether she wanted to reaffirm this image of hers or it was just a display of characteristic “Mamata whim” when she took the driver’s seat, literally, on the second and final day of her much-hyped Sundarbans visit last week. While cruising on a launch to go to Sonakhali island, the chief minister suddenly went into the driver’s cabin and asked him to show her how to steer the launch. A fast learner, Ms Banerjee quickly grasped the ropes and then confidently steered the launch for over 10 minutes. “It was not all that difficult,” she later told some mediapersons who accompanied her on the trip to the largest mangrove forest in the world.
The Opposition, of course, would not concede her that score, as quick came a retort from the Left. “Didi must have realised by now that ruling a state as vast and as populated as West Bengal is, however, not as easy as driving a launch,” a CPI(M) leader observed on hearing about Didi’s watersport exploit.

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Doubly Blessed
The ruling Congress party workers in Shekhawati region of Rajasthan were hoping to find place on the panels of different government bodies in the state as well as Central government departments. But party workers were surprised when two BJP leaders — Sikar district BJP president Hariram Rinva and his predecessor Pawan Modi — were nominated to the divisional railway consumer advisory committee as members. Congress workers came to know that behind the nomination of saffron politicos was the hand of a Union minister from the Congress, Mahadev Singh, who is minister of state for tribal affairs and represents Sikar constituency in the Lok Sabha. While his adversaries in the Congress are panning him for helping saffron leaders, a section of the state BJP leaders are bemused, saying, “When we are in power Ram Lalla blesses us… but when we are out of power, Mahadev helps us.”

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Swaying to Khajuraho
The Madhya Pradesh government got brickbats at Khajuraho during the inaugural session of the tourism conclave organised jointly by the state tourism department and Ficci on February 1. Many potential investors who attended the conclave did not mince their words in criticising the state government mainly for the condition of roads linking Khajuraho — a world heritage site — with the rest of the world. This issue had cropped up even at the time of the Khajuraho Millennium celebrations in the year 2000. However, there has been little improvement in road connectivity to Khajuraho since. Prominent Ficci members slammed those in the government responsible for managing the tourism sector, which has failed to attract as many tourists as it can to the site and the state at large, given Madhya Pradesh’s rich heritage.
Inaugurating the Khajuraho conclave, state minister for culture Laxmikant Sharma had no other option but to admit that the roads were bad and iterated the state government’s resolve to improve them but not without pointing out in a lighter vein that earlier (obviously referring to the previous Congress regime) people used to describe Madhya Pradesh roads as “tan doley, mann doley roads (the roads that jolted both the body and the mind)”.