The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Reporter's Diary

Indiscipline

It appears that the Forest department should necessarily post a guard for every animal enclosure at Vandalur zoo. How else, can one control some of the indisciplined visitors? On Sunday last, there was a big crowd near the tiger and lion enclosures. A visitor wanted to prove smarter. As a lion was lying down and partially visible, he threw a big stone in the direction of the beast. Quick to follow him was a child. Fortunately, the unruly act ended there.

Though there is a board asking visitors not to feed the animals, the instruction is followed more in the breach. Thanks to the slackness of the officials, a couple of visitors were seen carrying food items in plastic sachets, though it is also banned inside the zoo.

Of computerised banking

Is computerisation a boon or bane? Transactions ought to be over in a minute or two. However, on Saturday last, customers entering a nationalised bank branch at Alandur, were welcomed by a notice that said passbook printing cannot be taken up due to connectivity problems. A customer politely approached one counter to remit cash in his PPF account. The counter staff surprised him by saying "if the computer accepts the transaction then I will take cash from you." The reason: lack of connectivity again. After several attempts , he accepted the cash and passbook printing was also done after much struggle. By the time the crowd had swelled before all counters. This single transaction took 43 minutes. A representative of a women's self-help group was heard saying that ever since the branch went in for computerisation the "problem of connectivity" had increased.

Intimidating air horns

The Metropolitan Transport Corporation has decided to switch to air horns from the people-friendly bulb horns. Many new buses have been fitted with them, which are really frightening road-users and motorists. The drivers use the horn whenever they close in on a two-wheeler or car.

Last week, the driver of an MTC bus 6A, bearing registration number TN 01N 2935 (TDA 627), was found driving with a cigarette in one hand. A notice board in the bus strictly warns passengers to abstain from smoking. Probably, the driver could have thought that it is for the commuters only.

(Contributions:

K.T. Sangameswaran, T. Madhavan and P. Oppili)

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