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FEBRUARY 2014

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POINT<br />

OUT<br />

» VIJAY GROVER<br />

DECCAN<br />

POINT<br />

Tamil Nadu<br />

Stalin want<br />

charge of DMK<br />

Karnataka<br />

Fitness of rail coaches<br />

E<br />

very vehicle be it bus / auto / car or truck which is run commercially, has to<br />

get a fitness certificate every year,. But what about a railway bogie? Have you<br />

ever thought about it. A lawyer with Karnataka high court is asking specifically<br />

the same question in an RTI application that he has filed on January 20, <strong>2014</strong><br />

following a spate of train accidents involving the air-conditioned bogies catching<br />

fire. Disturbed by the tragedies, advocate A Umesh has sought answer from Railway<br />

Board as why no fitness certificates are mandated for railway coaches like for<br />

commercial road vehicles. Well by the time Umesh Kumar gets his reply, there<br />

may be another minister at helm of the ministry, but an answer which every rail<br />

passenger will await eagerly.<br />

P<br />

ower struggle in the Karunanidhi<br />

family once again threatens to<br />

come to the fore. With Lok Sabha<br />

general elections round the cornor, M K<br />

Stalin, heir apparent to Dravida Munnetra<br />

Kazhagam (DMK) patriarch M<br />

Karunanidhi is trying to take charge.<br />

With an eye-northward on Delhi hoping<br />

to emerge a major bargainer with<br />

12-15 MPs in a hung Parliament, Stalin<br />

wants to position himself as the kingmaker.<br />

In the tussle he has trampled<br />

his elder brother M Alagiri, who has<br />

been suspended from the party for indiscipline<br />

and the party’s face in Delhi<br />

M Kanimozhi, in the dock over her involvement<br />

in 2G spectrum allocation<br />

scam.<br />

Stalin wants the nonagenarian<br />

leader to name him in charge and is<br />

planning to make frequent trips to New<br />

Delhi to tap the third front leaders. Like<br />

most of his supporters in the party, Stalin<br />

too feel Alagiri and Kanimozhi are<br />

liabilities to the DMK. The way things<br />

are shaping up in Tamil Nadu politics<br />

it will not be a surprise if Stalin starts<br />

frequenting Delhi from February mid.<br />

Kerala<br />

Smart Drinking<br />

Application<br />

T<br />

his app is in Malayalam. So “non-<br />

Malayalees, please don't install.” is<br />

a statutory warning on this new<br />

android mobile app called “Kuppi”<br />

which means bottle in Malyalam. The<br />

designers of the app probably are catering<br />

to the Malyalees in Kerala, who<br />

consume the highest amount of liquor<br />

per capita with 8 litres per year. The app<br />

helps the person know the price of foreign<br />

liquors in Kerala State Beverages<br />

Corporation outlets (BEVCO).<br />

An interesting feature of the app<br />

‘What u get?“. In this option, the user<br />

enters the available money in hand and<br />

makes his choice. By pressing the ‘Get<br />

List’, the app shows the choice of liquors<br />

which can be bought using the money<br />

user currently has. Kuppi also shows<br />

the number of “Dry Days” in the state.<br />

A user can search for the nearest Beverages<br />

Corporation outlets by choosing<br />

the Beverages outlet menu. The designers<br />

clarify “we created this app only for<br />

fun and we do not promote drinking”.<br />

Well maybe this is what is called Smart<br />

Drinking.<br />

Andhra Pradesh<br />

Hyderabad,<br />

most googled<br />

T<br />

he Telangana agitation and the<br />

proposal of the Centre to bifurcate<br />

the state into two has made<br />

Hyderabad , one of the most googled<br />

words on the google tool bar as<br />

per the Google Zeitgeist 2013 report.<br />

Google Zeitgeist is a google report for<br />

most popular online searches . The city<br />

raced past Mumbai and Delhi in the<br />

last quarter of 2013 when the interest<br />

in the news from the city peaked as the<br />

bifurcation of the state into Telangana<br />

and Seemandhara was seen not just in<br />

India but overseas as well.<br />

32<br />

<strong>FEBRUARY</strong> <strong>2014</strong>

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