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>