Category: This is India !

This post belongs to my This is India ! series (see here)

On December 14, Selva Doss (42), his wife and two children tried to self-immolate in front of the TNCC office demanding Jayanthi Natarajan return Rs 33 lakh collected by members of her personal staff after promising jobs in the department of Animal Special Police, a non-existent force under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.

 

Interestingly, Selva Doss had been arrested by the Chennai Police in January along with a gang which was led by OS Bavani Babu on charges of swindling job aspirants to the tune of Rs 30 crore. The racket promised young job seekers posts of Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors and Constables in the ASP. The post of Inspector was available to those who were ready to shell out Rs 6 lakh. The post of a Sub-Inspector cost Rs 5 lakh while the Constable’s post was offered at a price of Rs 4 lakh. The arrests were made following complaints from the Animal Welfare Board of India office-bearers.

Though the report was widely published across Tamil Nadu, the racket led by Babu continued their “dream run” all over the State. Kannan, brother-in-law of Selva Doss told The Pioneer that the gang was helped by some members of the personal staff of Gayatri Devi, officer on special duty to Natarajan. “Gayatri’s brother Yuvaraj and her secretary Dina were involved in this operation. They collected Rs 33 lakh from friends of Selva Doss on promising jobs in the ASP,” said Kannan.

Since the job seekers did not get any letters of appointment from the ASP, they started tormenting Selva Doss and his family. Doss had no other alternative but to take his family to the TNCC office and threatened that they would commit suicide if the party leaders do not help him in getting the money back. He submitted a petition to BS Gnanadesikan, the TNCC president who promised help. It is said that Gnanadesikan forwarded the complaint filed by Doss to the Congress high command.

Party insiders in TNCC laughed at reports that Jayanthi Natarajan is quitting the Council of Ministers to concentrate on party work. “The party leadership might have offered an easy way out for her before the Selva Doss issue snowballs into a major scam,” said a senior TNCC leader, who also said that there were many complaints about Gayatri Devi.-from DailyPioneer

This post is in continuation of my This is India ! series

Once while I was conducting a tour in Vasai fort and telling the group about how old the fort was, a man said he had seen older items in his village. This man was in his eighties and I thought he was simply bragging. But a few months later, I checked out his village on an impulse. He lived in a far-flung area called Kiravali village. To prove his point, he took me to the village temple, where a stone tablet was being used to break coconuts.

I, along with a team, began examining the tablet. It was about 126cm in length and 56cm in width. It was extremely old and seemed to have an image carved on it. The image was, however, faint and unclear so we began cleaning it with tamarind leaves and oil. Once we were done, we were shocked. The image carved was that of a donkey copulating with a woman. We later learnt that the tablet dates back to 1268 AD, the era of the Shilahara dynasty, which ruled a large part of Maharashtra. It was probably used as a warning sign to ward off intruders. The old man was amused to learn of it: “And all this while we thought the tablet was holy and were praying to it.”-from Open