The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Mistaken identity

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007
ePaper

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Mistaken identity

It was a case of mistaken identity that provided a few lighter moments to people in the vicinity. As part of its efforts to improve educational standards in schools across the district, the Krishna district administration organised a workshop for English subject teachers at a school recently.

A woman journalist rushing towards the classroom where the workshop was in progress was confronted by one of the organising officials. Even as she tried to enquire from him about the room number, the official flared up pointing to his watch: “Is this the time you should be coming for the class? We had announced that the classes will begin sharp at 10 in the morning,” he chided.

The journalist, for a while, allowed him to vent his anger and disclosed her identity only after he finished talking. The red-faced official apologised profusely and personally accompanied the journalist to the venue of the workshop.

Climax a damp squib

If you thought there are no permanent friends or foes only in politics, you are mistaken. The adage applies equally well to sports. A telling example was the recently-concluded elections to the Andhra Cricket Association. After a series of allegations, counter allegations, charges and counter charges, the warring groups came to a truce and ‘players’ from both the groups emerged from the room with smiling faces, leaving mediapersons completely stupefied.

Reams of stories, analyses and predictions by the scribes about the outcome of the elections went for a ‘six’ with one group sensing imminent defeat and settling down for a face-saving formula of ‘consensus’.

So much so, some of the members of the ‘withdrawn group’ found a couple prestigious places in the new body captured by the rival panel.

Loud and noisy

Krishna Zilla Parishad Chairman K. Nageswara Rao organised an ostentatious and colourful function at Machilipatnam on Sunday evening on the occasion of his completion of one year in office, which also saw the ZP getting the ISO 9001:2000 certificate from the prestigious BIS Management Systems. Crackers were burnt incessantly when BIS Management Systems representative Ch.V. Vasudeva Murthy handed over the certificate to Panchayat Raj Minister J.C. Diwakar Reddy. It continued for so long that Mr. Rao had a laugh when it disrupted his own speech.

He kept smiling and spoke at the top of his voice to air his message.

The episode didn’t end there. The crackers were burst even when a magazine was released and a website was launched.

Irked by the noise, Mr. Diwakar Reddy finally asked his security men to put off the crackers.

(P. Sujatha Varma, J. R. Shridharan and G.V.R. Subba Rao)