The other day, while driving past Mayur Vihar Phase-II T-point on National Highway-24, a man got a call from his office. As he picked the phone and answered, a traffic policeman on a motorcycle emerged out of nowhere and waved at him to park the vehicle to a side.
Realising that a challan was coming, the motorist apologised to the traffic personnel, promising never to repeat the mistake, and urged him to let go with a warning. But the cop was extremely upright. “There is no question of issuing a warning and letting go. Educated people like you never learn. As for the media, it is the most corrupt of all the departments,” he said, making no bones about his feelings for members of the fourth estate.
The honesty of the cop and his no nonsense attitude were exceptional. He symbolised all that could be right with our forces.
While the cop was busy with the punching machine, processing the challan, his facial expression began changing. He was soon tapping at the instrument from all sides; its battery had given way. The motorist got away without a challan – but with a lesson he would never forget.
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Already struggling under an acute space crunch, cemeteries for Christians in Delhi are now facing another peculiar problem of the patrons planting flowers and shrubs which encroach on the walking space.
The Delhi Cemeteries Committee recently had to intervene and issue a notice against ‘patrons planting flowers, shrubs in the space between graves in cemeteries’.
Maintaining that “inter-space are meant for walking between the graves so that visitors may not step over graves, chairman of the Committee Fr. J. Rebello noted that plantations have been noticed in most burial grounds and that this is being done with connivance of the workers on duty at the cemeteries.
Taking strict recourse, the supervisors of the Delhi Cemeteries Committee said: “For such activities, workers at various cemeteries for Christians have been warned against entering into any such dealing.”
Instructions have also been issued to caretakers of all the cemeteries that such plantations have to be cleared with immediate effect and a report must be submitted to the concerned authorities.
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The Central Government’s ‘Swach Bharat Mission’ was in in full force on Sunday at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences which is preparing to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday for the 42 convocation of the Institute.
The entire campus is being swept clean, window panes washed and dried, notice board stripped of all old communications and announcements and even road separators are being painted again. With heavy police deployment at the Institute, all illegal parking and also relatives of patients and even outstation patients were seen missing from the complex. All the small makeshift shops of ice-cream and water bottle vendors have also been removed.
Visitors to the Institute on Sunday morning were surprised to see the clean wide open space in the campus which is the rarity on a normal working day. Clearly pleased with the result of the ‘mega cleanliness drive’, one of the officials at the campus said: “AIIMS will shine like a bright star tomorrow.”
