Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 26 March 2018 | Page 12

IN & AROUND
THE SUBCONTINENTAL MENU
THE GREAT TRACK
ROBBERY
thieves would have had neither
the tools nor the funds. They also
wonder why anyone would do such
a thing; track-grade steel can’t be
used for much else, and melting
and recasting it for other purposes
would be more expensive. The
Railway Protection Force have
arrested eight people, but their
confusion remains. Nevertheless,
an RPF officer was reported as say-
ing that they had already recovered
60 per cent of the rail.
A
LLEGED criminal mastermind
Shamim Kabadi has baffled the
police by stealing more than 1.6 km
of rail, weighing over 100 tonnes
in total, and apparently fleeing to
Pakistan. The rail had been laid
alongside the main tracks between
Katni and Damoh stations in
Madhya Pradesh, and investigators
are puzzled by how such large-scale
robbery was pulled off—ordinary
DRY DAYS
I-PUNYAM!
T
HE Glenlivet. Johnnie Walker
Blue Label. Oban Single Malt.
These are some of the brands in
short supply as Bengal’s govern-
ment-run warehouses run out of
imp­orted stock. As the state’s hos-
pitality industry depends on buying
from the government monopoly
(which buys directly from manu-
facturers), it fears a loss of revenue
unless the administration replen-
ishes stock. “Currently, hotels,
restaurants and bars are almost out
of stock of beer. Even scotch, malt
whisky and a variety of wines are not
available...I am afraid the tourism
industry will take a hit if this con-
tinues,” Sudesh Poddar, president,
Hotel and Restaurant Association of
Eastern India, said. Some insiders
pointed to the government prefer-
ring domestic brands that cost it
less and move off the shelves
quickly. But
it’s probably
too early for
apocalyptic
prognostica-
tions.
L
SETTING THE TONE
B
IG sister is listening to you.
Sheetal Nanda, deputy
commissioner (ie, district
magistrate) of J&K’s
Samba district, recently
ordered all government employ-
ees, including schoolteachers,
to download a ‘Beti Bachao,
Beti Padhao’ ringtone for their
Jio numbers—and demanded
a compliance report within 24
hours. The ringtone is a song
performed by a folk singer in
Dogri, and the administration is
working to include it on other
networks. The move failed to
impress Samina Maqbool, a
women’s rights activist and
gyn­aecologist from Srinagar.
Pointing out issues like high
mortality and female foeticide,
she questioned how a ringtone
could help where substantial
intervention is required. “The
solution lies in working on
the causes leading to skewed
male-female ratio,” she said.
ORD Subrahmanya got an
iPhone 6S recently when a
devotee at a temple in Mopidevi in
Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna district
dropped the device into the hundi.
One official said, “We opened the
hundi on Friday after a little over
three months (108 days) as usual,
and as we were counting the collec-
tions, we found the iPhone with the
sealed pack. It had everything, from
a cover to the warranty card.” This
makes it clear that the phone was
an intentional donation rather than
dropped in accidentally. “A devotee
who might have recently started
a smartphone business must have
thought of pleasing the god this
way. We will write to the govern-
ment for directions to deal with
the gift,” temple superintendent A.
Madhusudhan said. Would a newer
model have been more pleasing to
the god? Who knows!
Illustrations by SAJITH KUMAR
12 OUTLOOK 26 March 2018