Flight aborted

Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahays travel plans have just been spiked.

Flight aborted

Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahays travel plans have just been spiked. The PMO is learnt to have suddenly denied sanction for Sahays extensive US trip planned next week. Sahay,however,is not the only one whose foreign jaunt has come under the PMs radar. HRD & Telecom Minister Kapil Sibals plans for an Australia trip in the first week of October have been canceled as well with the PMO arguing that Sibal also a government spokesperson is needed very much in India at a time of high turbulence for the UPA government.

SMOKING GUN

THE government of India may have been red-faced over pictures of John Terry on cigarette packets but it evidently made cigarette companies happy. With the Health Ministry all set to issue a notification on a replacement image,ITC reportedly approached it with a request that it should be given a two-year window to phase out the packs containing the blurred picture which resembled the just retired England football star. The ministry is said to be looking at legal provisions to decide whether the request can be granted.

CUTTING EDGE

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PLANNING Commission officials dealing with rural development seem to have set the less is more tone of the 12th five year plan. At least when it comes to volume of chapters in the plan document. The Rural Development chapter a sweet and very short 30 pages was reportedly shown as an example for others,resulting in drastic cuts in the final version. The Women and Child Development chapter for one was hacked from 120 pages to 60,leaving its authors wondering how Rural Development managed such economy of words with a scheme as important as MNREGA to talk about.

MESSAGE LOST

REMINDING partymen of his progress from a committed party worker to the party president,BJP chief Nitin Gadkari asked BJP workers at the partys national executive to do away with the practice of touching feet of senior leaders. He,however,urged them to make an exception for party patriarch LK Advani. His message,however,appeared to have made little difference as Amit Shah,former Gujarat minister who got bail from Supreme Court on Thursday,almost prostrated before Narendra Modi to seek his blessings after the relief granted by court.

Mamata proposal on regional front too early

Bhubaneswar: A day after Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee pushed for a front of regional parties,her Orissa counterpart Naveen Patnaik Thursday described the proposal as too early. About Mamata Banerjees proposal,it is still early days for the third front in our country… its early days, he said when asked about the Trinamool Congress chiefs proposal.