SC PROBES ADANI
THE Supreme Court in its judgement on the Hindenburg report has ordered the Securities Exchange Board of India to monitor its charges of manipulating stock prices and other malpractices. The probe will be carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court which will appoint a high-powered panel. The SC has accepted the charges made by the Hindenburg report.
NOW 5-DAY WEEK FOR BANKS!
NEVER have public banks had it so good! The Reserve Bank has decided to introduce a 5-day week for all nationalised banks. However, bank employees will have to work longer hours on working days to compensate. Employees will have to work 40 minutes more daily and the new working hours will be 9:45am to 5:30pm. Different banks might adopt alternate timings.
Also, in view of the steep increase in prime rate by the RBI, the rate for home loans has gone up to 8.7%. The EMIs on loans for commercial vehicles are also expected to go up from March 1, 2023.
RE-WRITING CLASSIC KIDS’ BOOKS
CLASSIC children’s story books of authors like Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Joanne Kornfeld (author of “The Chocolate Train”) and Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland, are being re-written or updated to bring them on par with the latest norms in the correct use of words. The old authors writing in a different time context often used gender-negative and race-negative words like “negro” in their books. The role of women and girls was limited to so-called feminine talent. In a world of gender equity, where women have even been admitted to the Indian Air Force, any anti-women and racist vocabulary is going to be barred or re-worded. Major publishers are revising books to conform to modern standards and we are not sure how readers who have grown up on Enid Blyton and Barbara Cartland or Charles Dickens, George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway, all the other great authors of our times…are going to react to this kind of sanitisation of the English language we are familiar with over a lifetime of reading to grow up.
MENTAL INTEREST COVER!
INSURANCE companies have been asked to include mental illnesses under their Mediclaim policies. Diseases like the dementia diseases of Alzheimer’s, also Parkinsons and other related conditions were not covered by health insurance companies to date. They will have to do it now with the growing incidence of the stressful dementia conditions of old age and geriatric medicine. This will impose a very big burden on families who have to care for mentally ill patients…on top of paying more for health insurance!
WORLD TABLE TENNIS
FOR the first time the world table tennis championship is taking place in Goa at the table tennis stadium attached to Dr Shyam Prasad Mukherjee Stadium. The top table tennis teams from China, South Korea and Japan are participating in the tournament. The Indian team has performed very well having beaten world champions like South Korea. In recent years Goan table tennis players have even been selected for the Olympics. Many prominent Panaji citizens including Kirit Maganlal of Magsons Supercentre were table tennis champs.
AAP MINISTER RESIGNED!
BOTH Manish Sisodia and Satyendra Jain, ministers in the New Delhi Aam Aadmi government have submitted their resignations. Both are under police custody for corruption and misuse of power. Manish Sisodia was holding 22 portfolios, including finance. However, his request for immediate bail on grounds that he has to present the Delhi budget, has been rejected by the Supreme Court. Sisodia has been directed to approach the High Court for relief.
SHIGMO SPONSORSHIP
AS in the case of the Carnival the Goa Tourism Department will be sponsoring the state wide Shigmo festival starting March 8, 2023. The Shigmo festival marks the beginning of the harvesting season and is primarily religious in character. The majority of the floats in the Shigmo parades are of gods and goddesses. We understand that the RSS karyakarta are playing important role in the organisation of Shigmo this year. The Tourism department has even asked for relaxation of time limit for their musical dramas and bhajan presentations during the Shigmo festival.
BAL RATH FOR PRIMARY
THE Bal Rath school bus service which traditionally has been used for students from 5th standard will now be used by aided primary schools. This will apply to aided private primary schools. But strangely enough government primary schools will not enjoy the benefit of these Bal Rath buses. This may encourage parents to transfer their children to primary aided schools offering the Bal Rath services.
KILLER ROAD ACCIDENTS
THE number of fatal road accidents continues to increase. There have been atleast one accident a day with Tuesday reported two accidents. In the first accident at Usgao loaded truck crashed into a car in the second accident a concrete truck fell on its side while trying to go around the circle. The drivers of both the vehicles and the residents of the car were seriously injured.