Artful Amar
That Amar Singh can criticise and has been criticised in political circles is well known. However, Singh proved recently that he could turn into an art critic as well. At an art do of an Egyptian diplomat his remarks read, “Nowadays artist don’t portray figures and indulge in an art form which is called modern but not understandable. For a change this artist is traditional and very good.” By the way, the “understandable art” was a portrait of his confidant Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Bachchan. Not surprising, is it?

Missing link
Recently at a training programme about Domestic Violence Act for judges and Protection Officers, legal experts averred that the government was required to publicise the use of this Act to bring it into public ken. However, one the participating High Court judges pointed out that while the Delhi government has put the contents of the Act on its website, the names and addresses of the Protection Officers cannot be seen. We would think it was the right of the public not only to know of its rights but also to know whom to contact in case those rights are violated.

Taken for a trip
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is literally flying high these days. In order to study models for rehabilitating street vendors and hawkers, a rather bloated team of about 25 people—including 22 councillors of the agency’s ad hoc Licensing And Tehbazari Committee, an additional commissioner and an Accounts Officer—has gone to Mumbai and Kolkata by air, sources say. The team is reportedly led by panel chairman and BJP councillor Shyam Sharma. Such trips are the one meeting ground among parties perpetually at war, it would seem. The tour— two days each at Kolkata and Mumbai— comes to a close on Tuesday, when the team returns to the capital. Besides being a luxury trip for the members, what else comes out of the grand journey is, of course, to be seen.

Wary health minister
After the very public tiff between former AIIMS director Dr P Venugopal and Union Health Minister A Ramadoss, the institute it seems is taking all care to see nothing is overly publicised this time, not even for public good. After the kidney scam was unearthed, the authorities at AIIMS were at their best to ensure that journalists had no easy access to information. Sample this: Sharing details about patients about to get a kidney transplant at the hospital was declared “unethical” by the head of the nephrology department. While other hospitals were at their cooperative best, the prestigious autonomous institute had a staple reply: “We are AIIMS, not Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.”