Say cheese! Madhya Pradesh likely to be first state to have happiness index

A survey will be launched in November and is expected to be completed by the end of the financial year

If things go according to plan, Madhya Pradesh will soon become the first state in the country to put together a happiness index. Madhya Pradesh Institute of Happiness CEO Akhilesh Argal said his institute was giving the final touches to the questionnaire for the upcoming government survey to measure happiness. The survey will be launched in November and is expected to be completed by the end of the financial year. IIT-Kharagpur's Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness is the state's knowledge partner for the project. About 15,000 people from various villages, towns and cities in the state are expected to be contacted and their views on a wide range of topics — such as lifestyle, income, education, health, safety, inter-personal relationships, attachment to environment, etc — would be taken into account to put together the index.  

Tharoor-bashing continues 

Congress Member of Parliament from Thiruvanant-hapuram Shashi Tharoor continues to face flak from his party colleagues for his alleged "Modi praise". Days after the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee directed party leaders to refrain from making public statements after a controversy broke out over Tharoor's statement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be praised for doing the "right things", K Muraleedharan, Kerala politician and son of the late Congress leader K Karunakaran, made a veiled attack on the three-time MP. It was not "Oxford English" but the "anti-Modi" stand that had helped the party-led front win the Thiruvananthapuram seat, he said. Continuing his tirade, he said, Congress leader and former MP, the late A Charles, who did not know “Oxford English”, had won the same Lok Sabha seat three times. Muraleedharan had earlier said those who wanted to praise Modi should join the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Package deal

Is former Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee already thinking of quitting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? Seems like it, if one were to go by what his close associate Baishakhi Banerjee had been telling journalists in Kolkata. At a gathering over the weekend, she claimed that Chatterjee was being "regularly humiliated and insulted without any reason" by his new party. She added that Chatterjee had taken a sabbatical from active politics and had agreed to join the BJP on her insistence. "We have expressed our desire to leave the party," she said. "If needed, we would send our resignation to the party leadership." Reacting to her allegations, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said he would most definitely look into the matter.