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Eavesdropper
Get your mail the Silk Route way
This newspaper recently wrote an editorial which observed in passing how efficient the Indian postal system is given the overwhelming scale of its operations and the constraints under which it operates. Well, the postal department has obviously seen fit to make us eat our silly words by choosing the world traveller route for its mail. A letter mailed from Secunderabad to Hyderabad did arrive at its destination, partly verifying our claim of efficiency, albeit by apparently taking the Silk Route: it first found its way, of all places, to Beijing and eventually landed, a few months later, at its intended address in Hyderabad, the envelope duly marked with a Chinese character. Eavesdropper is amused to imagine the tizzy this apparent piece of postal subversion by India must have sent Beijing's mail censors into. Yet they did nevertheless have the decency to redirect the letter, which is more than what their Indian counterparts would likely have done under similar circumstances. Wrong platform Trust a privatesector power developer to rake up issues of government guarantees and the failure of the Tamil Nadu government to honour commitments. The developer lost no time in dragging the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to international arbitration. Still fuming, he chose the wrong forum to express his ire as he made some heated comments on the project at the pre-budget meeting of industry captains called by the Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. Mr Sinha too didn't lose his cool while gently reminding the private power developer that the meeting was called to discuss more important issues like the state of the economy and how to step up the rate of growth, not to discuss status of individual projects. People do dream about mega power projects but clearly they don't seem to know which issues to raise at what forums. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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