US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker cancelled her meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week just a day before the scheduled appointment. But Pritzker kept her date with Pakistani Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan around the same time. Even top officials in the commerce ministry said they had no idea why Pritzker played hooky.
Was she unhappy with India’s refusal to fall in line on the issue of patents, and disappointed with its attitude towards import barriers on farm products? Or was it that she was just too tired after her meetings in Pakistan? Maybe Sitharaman could find out the real reason when she meets Pritzker next.
Last week in the Lok Sabha, Sugata Bose, Trinamool Congress MP and former history professor, rose to seek a reply on higher education content from the minister, Smriti Irani. Bose happened to mention that he had been a “teacher at higher educational institutions for over three decades” and probably touched a raw nerve (Irani’s educational qualification had stirred a public debate).
Irani, in her reply, spared no opportunity to shred Bose’s question into pieces, repeatedly referring to him as ‘learned’, with added stress and a somewhat derisive tone. Poor Bose was left gaping, not knowing what had hit him!
Some lightning advice
A top executive of a leading Belgian lighting firm had a word of advice for the Andhra Pradesh government which was seeking to install some six lakh LED street lights in three months. He said this amounts to four months of the country’s total production capacity and the State's demand could destabilise the market.
Responding to this, a senior minister asked ‘when the company could supply huge amounts when the State was hit by Hudhud cyclone, why not now’. To this, the executive said in an emergency situation, everyone rallies around to help. But one cannot implement lighting on such large scale in a State as was achieved in an emergency situation. This has two implications; it distorts market and the quality of fittings could suffer.
Sleepover in Kerala
Kerala Assembly made history when all MLAs stayed back within the massive complex on Thursday, on the eve of the State Budget. The Opposition was up in arms after the Oommen Chandy government turned down its demand not to allow ‘bribe-tainted’ Finance Minister KM Mani to present the 2015-16 budget.
The Finance Minister said he would stay back in the complex to ensure that he made it at the appointed time next morning.
The Opposition said its members would stay back. Late in the evening, the Chief Minister asked members of the ruling coalition to camp in the legislature complex.
13 times unlucky
It was a riot of 13 when Mani presented the budget on Friday. It was the 13th budget presented by the 82-year-old Mani. The day was March 13. The Budget session was the 13th session of the 13th Assembly. Mani remarked that he wanted to challenge the prejudices against 13.
Sat upon?
The court room of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in south Mumbai is where you sometimes find SEBI lawyers at the receiving end from the quasi-judicial body.
However, last Friday was unique because instead of rapping SEBI’s knuckles (as was expected), a difference of opinion was aired between two members of the SAT bench, one of whom partially sided with SEBI while the other didn’t. SEBI’s ruling in the case had been quashed but would SAT allow the regulator to appeal for a stay? The two members of the bench eventually delivered separate orders as a clutch of bemused lawyers, corporates and journalists looked on.