OFF THE RECORD review on some of the headlines…
***How come in the name of MIDC, anyone can travel to Davos? I know many companies/consultants who work in close coordination with the MIDC. But those company employees/consultants who are seated in the MIDC office at the World Trade Centre have started dictating terms to the CEO MIDC, it seems. I want to understand from Industries Minister Uday Samant and CEO Velarasu, why these employees/consultants of some other company are travelling with the Chief Minister and what is their role? It has been happening for years now. Like many other friends of the BJP-Shiv Sena travel solo (in the past) and on their own expense to Davos, why is this company sponsored by the MIDC? If not even sponsored and if they are self funded, what is the work such associated companies do at Davos, that they cannot do once the entourage is back in India? By the way, Fadnavis dislikes one of the employees a lot, just a feeder to you, Mr Samant and Velarasu!
***If gossip mills in the Bollywood says, affair between Amitabh and Rekha is the oldest one, you need to fact check that. There is one more Bollywood affair, if true, that is older than Amitabh-Rekha. Call me personally and shall reveal the same. Now if Bollywood is in talk, how can bureaucracy be left behind? There has been a lot of “mutual admiration” between a bureaucrat and a bureaucrat’s wife for years now. Everyone knows it but no one speaks about it. Both are at senior posts now and the man is like a pillar of support to the bureaucrats wife (a bureaucrat too), who is also known as a ‘backstabber’ in the political world.
***Hats off Mumbai Police for solving Saif and Salman Khan cases, but please stop this ‘extra’ love for Bollywood now. Same appeal to the media too. What’s with pages of articles on such incidents? I know the cases of Salman Khan and Saif Ali Khan are important and were of importance. But now the common public is not dumb anymore. If cases like that of Salman and Saif or as a matter of fact even that of Late Baba Siddique can be solved in days or months let there be the same enthusiasm for solving cases of common people too. I am sure the enthusiasm is there but then, why do so many faces drop on hearing police stations name? And I don’t know why Mumbai Police never gave so much importance to Bollywood till like last year, it was all normal? Star struck or what? There have been underworld attacks, robbery earlier too. But never it got that much publicity and importance in our day to day lives. I remember someone telling me, when a senior IPS officer had visited Salman Khan’s house after his home was fired upon, Salman was smoking in front of him while sitting with legs spread wide in his chair, while on the front sofa seated his papa Salim Khan Saab and the senior IPS bureaucrat. Talk about Bollywood giving respect to our cops. Very few like Rohit Shetty give them credit. Yes I understand, their cases are severe and not everyone’s the same, but not at the cost of self respect for any ranked officer in uniform. How much pressure is too much pressure, the bosses need to understand!
***Biggest challenge for CM Devendra Fadnavis in this Government is to bring funds now and make Maharashtra less dependent on “raising loans” which has already crossed Rs 7 lakh crores. Next challenge is infrastructure development. After that Fadnavis will have to develop a MODEL which he needs to highlight in front of the public and with this MODEL he will go in front of people in 2029 to ask for votes. Identifying this MODEL and making it a reality is a tough task. Then he needs to decongest Mumbai with utmost priority. Traffic issues are the first. Everywhere there are people and with entrants of such illegal Bangladeshis (Read Saif Ali Khan case) there is a lot of pressure on the present infrastructure of the city. Cracking illegal immigrants in our city is a tough challenge for Fadnavis and the cops! They are doing it but the number can be huge.
***Devendra Fadnavis should identify that a lot of bureaucrats are not taking any decision or are very late in signing files, sometimes they take months to clear even positive files. Such bureaucrats (IAS and IPS) need to be warned about and asked to pull up their socks if you need speed in development. Just sitting on files and making it an ego won’t let ‘corporations’ run smoothly and ultimately the Commissioner will be blamed. Being non-corrupt is OK but you are just warming the benches by not even signing positive and regular files. Send such bureaucrats to RTO or departments where there is a lot of corruption.
Vikrant Hemant Joshi.
