It’s all in a name
Council meetings, though meant to be a serious forum for debates and discussions, also turn out to be a platform for smart-alecky remarks from members. During Thursday’s meeting of the Bangalore University council, the name of a college turned out to be the springboard for comic relief.
A B.Ed. college, with the word ‘Innovative’ in its name, came up for discussion for renewal of its affiliation. In the middle of a heated debate, one council member who was part of the local inquiry committee that inspected the college took pot-shots at its lack of infrastructure. “They call themselves ‘Innovative’, but there is nothing innovative about the college. The university should be careful the next time colleges apply for a name,” the member said.
The university’s law faculty was also dragged into the debate when members asked if there was provision for the varsity to have control over the names of colleges, leading to guffaws in the council hall.
- Tanu Kulkarni
Burnt fingers
Good moderators can make quite a difference to an event by livening up the atmosphere. Such skill sets are more in demand especially when the audience participation is not up to the desired level. At a panel discussion on stock market reforms here recently, this was evident. One of the speakers, a market maker, posed a pretty simple query, “how many of you in this hall have burnt your fingers in the market? Given the manner in which the market had performed, the expectation was many hands would go up.
But when only a handful did so, the moderator, also associated with the stock market, was quick to point out: “Since their fingers are burnt, they cannot raise them.”
- N. Ravi Kumar
