Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2011

Karnataka’s Judicial Hall of Infamy

These are testing times indeed for the office of the ombudsman, the Lokayukta, in Karnataka. Only recently, Justice Shivaraj V Patil was forced to step down as Lokayukta after a fine piece of journalism , by the Bangalore Mirror, revealed that he had obtained a plot of land in his wife’s name, which he had ought not to as a judicial officer. Another piece of investigative journalism, this time by the New Indian Express, reveals that former Lokayukta Justice N Venkatachala had converted a residential site allotted to him in Judicial Layout in Bangalore , into a tennis court, in full violation of land norms – a minor violation of course, compared to some scandals doing the rounds in the nation’s judiciary. It must be remembered that Venkatachala was N Santosh Hegde’s predecessor – the man behind the investigative report on illegal mining that felled a chief minister and jailed a powerful minister. In fact, many wondered whether Hegde would be able to emulate him, such was the aura

A chance encounter with a 'guerilla'

PS: Incidents, characters, references and descriptions in this blogpost are real and not imaginary “ Vanakkam sir , enge poganum (where do you want to go)?” asked an autorickshaw driver the moment he stopped in front of me after I hailed him. Being multi-lingual is something I pride myself about, hence, that this person could guess my ethnicity easily took me by surprise. You would have been better off as a diplomat, my friend, I thought as I said, “Indian Express Circle,” and boarded the rick. If rocket science is the most complex task to assimilate and implement, then striking a conversation with an auto driver, in my opinion, comes under a diametrically opposite end. Issues such as the Indo-Pak relations on and off the cricket pitch, the latest celebrity to land in controversy, price-rise – an issue that would strike a chord with anybody – serve as cue cards for such situations. Hence, I casually enquired, “Is this a four-stroke vehicle?” despite knowing very well it to be