Poll fever grips MPs
The last few days of hectic political parleys over the Indo-US nuclear deal with the spectre of elections looming large, have their impact on the people’s representatives.
Most of the discussions in the corridor of Parliament were on elections, how the Left parties will pull the plug, when the polls will be held, on what issues the leaders will face the electorate so on and so forth.
Even in the Central Hall the MPs were quite tense as they kept on discussing which party would stand to lose or gain in case general election was called earlier than the scheduled time.
The concern of the MPs came out clear as a couple of them expressed their surprise when a CPI-M MP in Lok Sabha was having a hearty laugh in Central Hall while reading an sms joke.
“Arre bhai! Are you from Rajya Sabha? We are all worried about elections and you are having fun! Aren’t you scared about elections?” they asked him.
Shruba Mukherjee

Scramble for seats
The instantaneous benefit one gets out of reservation is so tempting that nobody would like to part with it. This is not unique for Indians only. It seems to be universal. At least so is the case with the Japanese scribes.
A large number of Japanese journalists, who recently accompanied the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to cover his high-profile visit, seemed to make best use of reservation tag to occupy the vantage point to discharge their professional duties.
When Indian scribes arrived at the venue where Abe was scheduled to address the India Japan Business Leaders Summit, they had to virtually hunt for seats.
The conference hall was jam packed. When Indian scribes managed to reach the seats reserved for ‘Media’ , they found every chair occupied by the Japanese guests. One Indian scribe politely asked a Japanese gentleman occupying seats reserved for media “Sir! These seats are reserved for media”. Prompt came the reply. “You are right. We are all from media. These seats are reserved for the Japanese media only”.
Immediately Indian scribes made a retreat and without wasting any time hurriedly looked for any possible vantage points so that at least they could take note of the deliberations.       
Thereafer,  Abe was scheduled to address the luncheon meeting with captains of Indian as well as Japanese industries at another venue organized jointly by FICCI, CII and ASSOCHAM.
When the Indian scribes arrived at the second venue the scene was no different. As the scribes virtually raced to occupy the seats reserved for media, they  found that every seat being occupied by the Japanese.
Only one seat was lying vacant. One Indian scribe quietly slipped into the chair. Minutes later one Japanese scribe arrived. He placed his laptop on the table and stood quietly next to the chair occupied by the Indian scribe.
The silence of the Japanese scribe ultimately worked as the Indian scribe started feeling uncomfortable. After a few minutes  the Indian scribe just got up making way for his Japanese counterpart. 
Getting the benefit of reservation the Japanese slipped into the comfort of the chair saying  “Thank you Sir”.
 Aditya Raj Das