Congress social media chief Divya Spandana may be miffed with the party

Keeping a low profile

Congress social media team chief Divya Spandana (pictured) was perceived to have single-handedly turned around her party's social media footprint. But over the past few weeks, Spandana has not been her feisty self on the social network. Instead of sharp repartees to journalists and politicians, she has mostly restricted herself to retweeting Congress social media memes and tweets of Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi and other leaders. Party sources say Spandana is miffed over not being kept in the loop during the Karnataka Assembly Elections by the state social media team. She was one of the top actors in the Kannada film industry before she entered politics by winning the Lok Sabha seat from Mandya in 2013. She lost in 2014 to Janata Dal (Secular) candidate C S Puttaraju, who has now quit Lok Sabha after getting elected to the state legislature. The Congress-JD(S) alliance after the Karnataka polls, however, means that the Congress will not field a candidate against the JD(S) in the by-poll.

Seasoned growth

M Venkaiah Naidu's election as the vice-president of India 10 months ago is having an unlikely effect on Rajya Sabha Television (RSTV). By virtue of being the vice-president, Naidu is also the Rajya Sabha Chairman and heads the RSTV. The channel is now seeing a rating bump not seen in years. According to a statement by RS secretariat, “RSTV's growth in last 10 months has been more than that of the previous six years.” It further claims that half of all the YouTube views of RSTV since its inception have come in the last 10 months and is way ahead of DD News and Lok Sabha TV. Incidentally, the latter is managed by the lower house Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Look before you speak

At the Health Ministers Conclave in Delhi, the health minister of one state found loopholes in the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS). Union Health Minister JP Nadda was quick to respond and said, instead of nitpicking, the minister should be thankful to the Prime Minister for providing him the opportunity to be part of world's largest health scheme. Nadda further said that the minister will remember this moment 10 years down the line even if he is not a minister in future. Meanwhile, the committee that is working on the NHPS is wondering how to get in touch with Delhi’s health minister, who is busy protesting at the LG house.