Tiger population up, but who will care for the bulls of Dalal street

The Indian government is earning bouquets for doing well in growing the country's tiger population. However, one set of animals appears unhappy — the bulls, those seen on Dalal Street, to be precise. Many stockbrokers and investors attempted to trend #savethebull amid a continuous downward slide in the equities market. “India is now home to 2,967 tigers, 33 per cent more than the last count. India is now home to just a few bulls, 20.5 million less than the last count,” tweeted one broker. To add insult to injury, Discovery TV released a promo of an episode of Man Vs Wild, featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi with adventurer Bear Grylls, in which they are seen making what appears to be a wooden spear or rafting oar. This prompted another set of memes such as “PM and Bear hunting for any remaining bulls in the market".

Naidu cracks the whip

As the Rajya Sabha prepared to vote on whether the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill is to be referred to a select committee of the House, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu instructed members to remain seated during the voting process. His reference was to last week's vote on the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill when CM Ramesh, who has recently quit the Telugu Desam Party to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, was seen instructing colleagues on how to vote and collected their voting slips. Naidu quipped that everyone — be it C M Ramesh or Jairam Ramesh — should be in his or her assigned seat. Borrowing a word made famous by his former party colleague and actor Shatrughan Sinha, Naidu declared, “khamosh, khamosh, khamosh (silence, silence, silence)”. While CM Ramesh looked sheepish at the scolding and remained in his seat, Jairam Ramesh of the Congress, one of the most disciplined MPs, gave Naidu an informal salute.

Seat sharing 

As Congress Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Gowda on Monday waited for a vacant chair at the MPs’ canteen on the Parliament premises to have his lunch, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Alphons Kannanthanam, who was having his food, told Gowda — albeit good-humouredly — that he would vacate his chair if his Congress friend would agree to support the Triple Talaq Bill. Elsewhere, a Union minister met a bunch of journalists for an off-the-record chat. The room was short of chairs. The minister suggested to his staff that they procure chairs on loan from the neighbouring room of a Congress leader because he would not need them, given that his party had only a few MPs.