OFF THE RECORD review on some of todays headlines/Vikrant Joshi/www.vikrantjoshi.com
1. Islamic State claims attack on Pak Police Academy, 59 dead, over 100 hurt
I don’t know about you people, but somewhere somehow I had a smile on my face and a sense of satisfaction when I read this! Jai Hind!!
2. BMC urged to reign in illegal pathology labs
Do you know the pathologies for example Suburban, PH Medicals, LifeCare, NM Medical etc…wherever you do your blood testing for various reasons ARE NOT UNDER ANY OBSERVATION by any governing agency. No one checks if the tests are done by trained staffs, no one knows if they use the right equipment for testings and also no one has checked how old the machines or labs are? Whatever the results are printed on the paper and given to you, your doctors advice your further. No one cares to do a double check. See the results for the same test at some other pathology. You will see the difference. Anyways, for the first time an NGO by the name Society for Awareness of Civil Rights headed by its President RPY Rao has initiated a dialogue with the FDA department in regards to keep a check on these labs. Present in the meeting were Minister Girish Bapat, RPY Rao, & FDA Commissioner Harshdeep Kamble. Bapat himself was shocked and said in the meeting that in Pune itself, where he hails from, has about 200 odd labs to conduct blood tests. No one has ever bothered to cross verify the findings and we go on paying thousands of rupees for the same. There is a desperate need to bring in control on these laboratories. Off the Record, Harshdeep Kamble was least interested in promoting the same. Reason: Unknown OR it looked as he dearly missed his ex boss Min Vidya Thakur. Don’t worry, Mr. Kamble, your name has cropped up in another scam. His name is there in the list of 87 ias officers who have illegally constructed a building at Santacruz East.
3. Cash strapped state approves Rs. 3600 cr Shivaji statue at sea.
Alright, so I can officially let the cat out of the bag. There were two firms which had participated in the consultation of this project. One was a French company (that has got the contract, Egis) and the other was a US based company. The US based company had quoted consultation amount of Rs. 100 cr and this French company had quoted approx Rs. 47 crore. Newly sworn in CM Fadnavis wanted to give this contract to the US company as against the French one, even it would have costed the ex-chequer Rs. 50 cr more. But end of the day the French company got the contract. You know why & how? Apparently the Indian partner of Egis is a company wherein a top Indian actor is a partner and is very close to PM Narendra Modi.
4. Mining racket busted, Rs. 3 cr sand seized
Everyone in Thane knows the names of KINGS AND SAMRAT’S of illegal mining in the Thane District. On one side is Shivsena’s Dasrath Patil and on the other side is BJP MP Kapil Patil. Sand mining is one small business of both of these mafia’s. The biggest is collecting “Varai” from each every godown in Bhiwandi. Varai is a local term coined for hafta. Collector Ashwini Joshi had the guts to go against them and she didn’t budge a bit to initiate any action on both of them. Result: Every meet of MP Kapil Patil with CM Devendra Fadnavis resulted only in “BEGGING” of transfer of Ashwini Joshi, which the former was obliged with. Now the Collector is Mahendra Kalyankar. haha…do i need to say more why Kapil Patil is extremely happy? By the way, if someone needs to be thanked for Kalyankar’s PROMOTION as collector in Thane is our dear “panchaap” Minister Prakash Mehta.
5. CM interview for Diwali
Out of all newspapers that covered CM’s ritual diwali Interview, only Mid-day’s Dharmendra Jore’s interview looked crisp, and worth reading. Rest other’s including Loksatta were boring and Lokmat’s Atul’s rather looked a paid interview as always.
