That's all, Your Honour!:Mar.28-Apr.3

1. Believe it or not, 25 police stations under the old city of Hyderabad are STILL under curfew. That's right - one week after the riots started, 5 days after curfew was first imposed, after more than 300 people were arrested - the curfew is still on! It was relaxed for a couple of hours on thursday, saturday and sunday. Day time curfew will be lifted on Monday. Please note however that the entire curfew is not being relaxed. Are the Hyderabad Police being over cautious? Or is there real danger lurking around? This report in The Hindu is the best summary of how and why these riots started. Sakshi had a banner headline talking about the possible role of ISI ! Ordinarily wouldn't take Sakshi seriously, but then given that both the Home Minister and also the advisor to government on security are both very close to Jagan, story might have some credence. 3 people were killed during the riots. 2 died during the curfew, because they were not able to get medical care. All 5 of them had NOTHING to do with the riots. When curfew was relaxed, one litre of milk was sold at Rs.50-100! One Kg of vegetables were sold at Rs.50/-! And if you reside outside and have no clue about these facts - that's because the national media decided to concentrate and prioritize the other "most important" thing happening in Hyderabad - Sania Mirza's wedding with Shoiab Mallik (former captain of Pak Cricket Team). That's right - national media gave top priority to the wedding news over the riots and curfew situation in 1/3rd of the city of Hyderabad. And guess what - 3 days into the news, the media asks "us" why "we" want to intrude so much in personal lives. Dudes - go look in the mirror, will you? :D

2. 8 years after the bill was first passed by Parliament, the Right to Education bill became law this week. Now if you are wondering why it took 8 years, according to learned friends on twitter, it is because all states have to come on board and also finance commission has to work with all states to decide on how to split the funding between the centre and the state. According to this act now, all children aged 6-14 years have a fundamental right to free and compulsory education. Governments will have to take all steps to ensure that no child in this age group is deprived of education. The law also talks about infrastructure, teacher-student ratio etc too. However, the most worrying factor is this: Private schools have to reserve 25% of seats to "poor" students in the neighbourhood. These kids will have to be taken into class 1 without any entrance test. The government's concentration should have been on developing infrastructure, and recruiting more teachers. Or maybe a better model of Public-Private pratnership. Teachers need special training to deal with poor students. The students require special training keeping in view their upbringing etc. It still beats me why this government is so hell bent on reservations as such. The good aspect so far is that this bill has not yet been tom-tomed as Sonia/Rahul's vision. Well, it's just a matter of time before that happens!


3. Like most of us predicted last week, Sonia Gandhi emerged unscathed from the Amitabh Bachchan controversy. Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari compared Modi to Dawood. Tiwari questioned Amitabh what his stance on Modi's role is. After spewing venom from the very dias he addresses press conferences as the spokesperson of Congress, one day we hear Prannoy Roy telling us that his sources say "Sonia doesn't know about this". hahaha, true Didn't we all see it coming. The next day, we are told that Sonia Gandhi has asked spokespersons not to speak about Amitabh anymore. The media lapped it up, saying Sonia has basically asked the likes ot Tiwari to keep quiet and she disapproved of their methods to display their loyalty towards "the family". The second part of the previous statement was the ultimate analysis of some of the "intellectuals" in the media. Sonia Gandhi did not know. We sooo believe it! By the way, later in the week, Abhishek Singhvi says this - "Mr Amitabh Bachchan has not been elected by the people of Gujarat to be the brand ambassador of tourism". I heard it and then fainted :D!. I rest my case!

4. Your honour, this has got to be THE news of the week. Pakistan has asked for a red corner notice on Ajmal Kasab. A red corner noticed is issued to a fugituve, one who has not been caught and is at large. Ajmal Kasab is caught, and safe in an Indian jail. And Pakistan has "issued a notice" for a captured terrorist. That's all, your honour!