Venkaiah Naidu’s poser

Fed up with answering the oft-asked question on who was instrumental behind BJP’s victory in Gujarat - the party or Narenda Modi -  BJP National Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu has found a way to snub such enquiries.
During an interaction with the media recently, Mr Naidu said he would bluntly ask whoever asked him such questions with this poser - “Tell me, who do you credit your birth to - your father or mother ?”. As his ‘victims’ recoiled, Mr Naidu would tell them, “Similarly both the party and Mr Modi are behind the victory in Gujarat”.
-Vijesh Kamath

Terrorising the accused

What’s the difference between Karnataka police and Maharashtra police when it comes to illegal detention?
Karnataka police took into custody one of the relatives of Imran Bilal, arrested on charges of terrorist activities, for investigation. Advocate B T Venkatesh was pleading Bilal’s relatives case in the court. He told Venkatesh : “Sir I am fortunate and consider myself lucky as I have been taken into custody by the Karnataka police. If the Maharashtra police had detained me, I would have been no more. Thank God, Karnataka police took me into custody, but not the Maharashtra police,” he said and heaved a sigh of relief.

This incident was narrated by Venkatesh while delivering a lecture on terrorism at Institute of Social and Economic Change recently.

- Jagadish Angadi

No photocopymodel

Answering a query at a seminar on Global Economy, National Convenor of Swadeshi Jagarana Manch, Prof B M Kumaraswamy he stressed on the need for a development model tailored for the needs and problems of India. Blindly following the American or European economies or the globalisation policy does not help much. This is because the circumstances in each country is different, he said. And to explain this he quoted Rabindranath Tagore: “God has distributed different question papers to different countries. So, copying is of no use.”
- Rashmi R Hebbur

‘Off’ the record

Upset with the criticism that he is seeking publicity by giving out the names of the ‘corrupt’ officers during his police raids, Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde refused to give the names of the 10 officers who were recently raided, to the media. He was livid that the media did not take a stand on the issue of corruption and gave just the bare details of the raids held under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The reporters reasoned with him but Justice Hegde stuck to his guns.
He was about to leave when one of the reporters said: “Sir, can you give us some details off the record?”
-Bala Chauhan