Regional Journal: Untold stories from the provinces
Jhanda uncha rahe...
A different kind of India-Pakistan match is currently on at the Sadiqi Joint Check Post (JCP) in Fazilka. It’s about flags. With Pakistan having already installed a 170-ft-high flag on its side, the Indian authorities too have started the process of erecting a 200-ft pole for the national flag here.
Indian visitors would often feel disappointed to see the Pakistani flag flying higher during the Retreat (flag lowering) ceremony, which is held jointly by the Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistan Rangers at the zero line every evening. The flag is being installed by the BSF with the help of Parm Dham Trust, Hisar (Haryana). Radhey Shayam of the Trust and KN Tripathi, Commandant of the 55 Battalion of the BSF, recently performed “bhoomi poojan” at Shaheed Wadhwa ground and laid the foundation stone.
Too many departments
Holding the charge of multiple departments has become a game of musical chairs for senior bureaucrats in Punjab. Faced with the frequent reshuffling of posts, the babus have hit upon a novel idea of letting others know about the departments they are heading. They have pasted a printout, listing their current departments, next to the name plates outside their offices at the mini-secretariat in Chandigarh. An official chuckled, “One does not know when more departments are given or the existing ones are taken away. So, the printouts come in handy.”
Spy drones
Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur dropped a bombshell in the Himachal Vidhan Sabha when he accused the state government of snooping on him through a drone. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu strongly denied the allegation and said his government would check with the ED and the CBI to ascertain if these agencies were involved. Later, it turned out the drone flying over his house belonged to a company mapping the city to provide 24x7 water supply to residents.
Fat list of DGPs
You may have heard of jumbo Cabinets, but in the Punjab Police, there is soon going to be a jumbo top brass. Currently, the police department has 15 officers in the rank of the Director General of Police (DGP). Another group of officers of the 1994 batch has become eligible for elevation to the top rank. These officers recently flagged the issue in a meeting with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. They maintained they were entitled to the rank after the completion of 30 years of service. An officer said with these promotions, there would be a DGP in every other room of the Punjab Police headquarters. It, however, remains to be seen how effective the high number of DGPs would be on the law and order situation in the state.
Heartbroken in Valley
The BJP’s announcement of candidates for Jammu and Kashmir has left several leaders heartbroken as many of them were confident of making the cut. Altaf Thakur, a senior BJP leader and party’s spokesperson, had kept all his no-objection certificates ready to file the nomination. Another leader had even collected forms from the election office hoping his name would figure on the list of candidates. However, the BJP, in its first list of candidates, named only a few for the Valley. Dejected, Thakur has stopped taking calls from journalists.
Contributed by Praful Chander Nagpal, Rajmeet Singh, Subhash Rajta, Jupinderjit Singh and Adil Akhzer
