A night of    one-liners
The venue was one of the posh five star hotels in the Capital, and the occasion was the launch of several state-specific news channels by a private group called STV. The promoter of the group, J K Jain, is related to RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s trusted lieutenant and Union Minister, Prem Gupta (their children are married to each other).

Quite naturally, the launch ceremony was attended by the inimitable Lalu, apart from a host of politicians from across the political spectrum. But for once, the Lalu magic was subdued and the scene stealer was former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, who knows how to work the magic on people through his one liners, though in a far more sophisticated manner.

When called up to speak, Abdullah was really in the mood, urging the channel promoter to make sure that his channels do not end up as dry experiments with news. “Please remember us oldies too in your programming. Show some fun, occasionally bring in Lata Mangeshkar and Helen, and also that (Mallika) Sherawat girl to break the monotony, so that we can remember the days of our ‘jawani’,” he said to big applause.

Jain, incidentally, has already launched state specific channels for Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, and plans to launch another 33 channels to focus on all states and Union Territories apart from a national channel, in the next one-and-a-half years.

Surely, he would have to do a lot of programming jugglery if he takes Abdullah seriously.
Incidentally, Jain has had close relations with Abdullah for several decades now.

Utpal Borpujari

N-pause and ‘other issues’
When the Left leaders say, that ongoing debate on Indo-US nuclear deal should not hijack other “people’s issues,” one should take them seriously.

The last three weeks witnessed a series of meetings as the comrades met over breakfast, continued their huddle at lunch, raised storm in their afternoon tea cups and ultimately retired after dinner, literally burning midnight oil for finding a way out to save our country from falling prey to American imperialism.

There is a common saying that it takes 1,000 meetings to negotiate a marriage. How many meetings one need to negotiate a “mechanism” is now anybody’s guess.

But true to the Marxists’ claim that they do what they actually say in the public, the Leftists did not allow the nuclear deal issue to “hijack” other issues of “people’s interest”.

So it happened that while interacting with a senior minister to raise the concerns of the Left parties on the nuclear deal in one of the many such meetings, a senior Left leader requested him to include a couple of his “associates” in the Haj Committee.

The minister got very upset at the request and said the committee has already been finalised and he could not do anything.

The leader reportedly asked whether the UPA-Left committee on nuclear deal would serve any purpose and also told him that his party might refuse to accept the mechanism.

A people’s leader indeed!

Shruba Mukherjee