Tuesday, April 6, 2010

'The Tribune-Chatterati' 29th.March.2010

I had been hearing about the Ice-bar opening up in the capital for sometime. As the temperature soared up we decided to visit this minus 10 degrees bar. It was an experience that one has to share. “Freeze”, as it is called had a small changing room before you enter the bar; it is stocked with thermal jackets, gloves, scarves, caps which you have to wear before you enter the bar. In short everybody looks the same. Seems like all of us were Eskimos. It’s not a very big bar but very interesting. There are ice walls, ice tables, ice sculptures, everything was ice. It was freezing but the atmosphere was happy and charged as the DJ has some foot tapping music on. Little fingers came out of the jackets to taste the snacks but difficult to locate your friend if missing because everybody looked just the same.
This is the new wannabe place in Delhi at the moment with the rising temperature, its practical too. Delhities will be queuing up to get an entry even though it is 1,000 Rs per head but worth an experience. Maximum time to stay in the ice bar is 45 minutes. At the moment there are two ice bars in the capital but “Freeze” has an upper hand as it is the only one who serves food inside the bar. So we no longer have to go Stockholm or London for this enthralling experience of walking in from 45 degrees to -10 degrees in a matter of minutes. So, and this has got nothing to do with Common Wealth Games or otherwise.

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The roll back on subsidies on to LPG in Delhi has provided some breath of life to the opposition. Having won her third consecutive victory the Sheila Dikshit Government is clearly keen to raise resources. The new budget raises the price of tea, milk and several other items of daily use. This helped the opposition in raising a ruckus over price rise. It claimed that the Delhi Government was unkindly breaking the backs of the public, given the overall inflation situation.
But it looks like Sheila will hold her ground – largely. The government believes that Delhi’s citizens are getting a brand new city almost. Even though its an account of the Common Wealth, several big infrastructure projects, new buses, new metro lines and new airports are suddenly changing the face of central Delhi atleast. The spirited defence of a better city aside Sheila has also taken defence behind the fact that even after the LPG price hike she is still providing it cheaper than the neighboring states. And unfortunately the Congress Government is stable in the centre and the Delhi State as elections are a long time away.
Those in the know believe that Sheila’s strategy of removing general subsidies and replacing them with individualized direct hand outs to the poor is a model that could provide others with inspiration. While these issues get debated the heat in Delhi just got notched up by a degree thanks to the opposition fury in the assembly.

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Puritans in India are upset over the Supreme Court’s judgment on living together. The three bench judge has dismissed plea to make pre-marital sex and live in relationship as criminal. Activist, usually of a certain age are unable to come to terms with their violation by the court of their sense of culture and national practice. Of course, they may not want to engage in a discussion with their own children on this subject lest they discover that if the court had not dismissed the notion of criminality, their children could pretty much be in hand cuffs. What is encouraging is that the government has stayed totally out of this emotional side show fuelled by some fundamentalist of the social variety. For a notoriously conservative supreme court this is a remarkably forward looking judgment Actress Kushboo who was the prime target of the original matter, is not going to be the only one relieved. Human rights actresses are also going to be thrilled that the apex court has defined that the right to live in is an integral part of the right to life.

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