Will jallikattu bulls roar in action?

Will jallikattu bulls roar in action?

The BJP, it appears, has not lost hope on reviving jallikattu, though a section in the party feel the party should not have issued a notification on an emotive issue without doing the adequate groundwork.

“The issue should have been tackled more astutely in an election year as this would have given us the mileage,” a senior leader said and regretted that the Supreme Court’s stay was a big embarrassment for the party, which could not deliver its promise on time. But state president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and Union minister of state for environment Prakash Javadekar have not lost hope totally. During the MoS’ visit to the city, Dr Tamilisai called on him and appealed him to work out a legal mechanism to facilitate jallikattu in the future. The minister, en route Andaman expressed that the Supreme Court stay was but transient. “All efforts will be made by the Centre along with the state government to conduct the event,” he assured.

Double whammy for EVKS
The New Year may not have begun as well as E.V.K.S. Elangovan would have wanted it. Twice in a month, the Congress national leadership had overturned his decisions and acted in favour of his inner party rival P. Chidambaram. After l’affaire Vasanthkumar, bifurcation of Tirupur district Congress unit was the latest in a short series of embarrassments the incumbent state PCC chief has had to put up with. Not only did the AICC annul the bifurcation and let A. Venkatachalam, a well-known Chidambaram supporter, to continue as Tirupur revenue (suburban) district president, the latter also issued a statement questioning the legitimacy of appointment made by Elangovan in the district. An emboldened Venkatachalam had even issued a daring statement advising cadre to snap ties with the election coordinator appointed by Elangovan.

Will MU maintain its autonomy?
A crucial special syndicate meeting of the Madras University has been called for on Monday to decide on the interim arrangement to be made in the absence of Vice-Chancellor.  The present Vice-Chancellor R. Thandavan is completing his term on January 17.  Conventionally, the syndicate will form a convenor committee to oversee the day-to-day administration of the university till a  new VC is appointed.  Meanwhile, there are attempts by various sections of University of Madras teachers union to make one of its representatives as a member of the convenor committee. The move, however, has raised questions over the appropriateness of having union members in the convenor committee.  Eight universities in Tamil Nadu are without Vice-Chancellors. Higher education secretary Apoorva is acting as a member of more than five of these universities.

Inspector threatens to return STF gifts
An inspector from Chennai city police, part of STF team that hunted down forest brigand Veerappan, had threatened to return his medal and land given to honour his bravery, if his further elevation is stalled. The official stand is that an accelerated promotee has to wait till all his or her batchmates catch up with him/her in seniority and his/her next elevation will happen along with them only. But what prompted P. Jawahar of Chintadripet police station seems to be the recent decision by the home department to promote 22 officers from DSP rank to ADSP, a senior police officer said.

(Contributed by J. V. Siva Prasanna Kumar, K.Karthikeyan, A.Ragu Raman and V.P. Raghu)