Varun Gandhi wins Lokpal award from Anna Hazare ‘linked’ NGO Avaaz

But the winner was a surprise — Varun Gandhi. Varun’s claim for the award: he introduced the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament as a private members’ Bill. The awardees were selected through online voting.

Showing the way

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has gone where the Health Ministry seemed afraid to go. The recent spate of infant deaths in West Bengal had elicited little reaction from the Ministry,which kept on insisting that there was nothing out of the ordinary. In doing so,Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was probably only being mindful of the idiosyncrasies of the government’s volatile coalition partner in the state. The NCPCR does not need to be so considerate though. Taking note of child deaths in Kolkata,Malda,Burdwan,Berhampore and other places,it has shot off a letter to the state government asking it to spell out in detail the steps taken to tackle the situation. It has also said it would intervene if the state government is unable to provide a satisfactory response.

Twitter Interrupted

Just five days after he joined Twitter,Press Council of India chairperson and former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju has logged off. While the man himself has not clarified — his blog continues to be active — why he deleted his Twitter account,it is learnt that a large number of ‘abusive’ reactions that he received on his account could have played a role in the decision. Seems his followers on the web took his statement welcoming criticism too seriously.

A Compliment,finally

It is rarely that Air India gets praised these days. Coming from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee,the appreciation was all the more sweet. At a Group of Ministers meeting on Tuesday,Mukherjee is understood to have complimented Air India CMD Rohit Nandan for improving the standard of services on the flights. He is said to have remarked that on two of his recent international trips,he was impressed with the improvement in the overall service standard. Only the other day,a few MPs had pulled up the organisation for poor choice of food on the flights. All part of the game.

Attracting Flak

Acting chairman of the UGC Ved Prakash — who is seeking the full-time job at the Commission — did not endear himself to many by getting former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to write a letter to the Prime Minister backing his candidature some time back. Now,he seems to have angered some more people. Prof J A K Tareen,V-C of Pondicherry University,has alleged that the UGC’s 12th plan paper is almost a reproduction of a report on ‘access and equity’ written by a committee headed by him. Tareen claims the plan paper is attributed to Prakash and others and no credit has been given to him either in the acknowledgment section or in the preface. In fact,Tareen has even complained to the Planning Commission in this regard. The opposition to Ved Prakash just seems to be getting stronger.