Poliglot

Laloo Prasad’s son Tej Pratap Yadav celebrates Holi with RJD workers at his Patna residence

As jailed RJD chief Laloo Prasad recuperated in a Ranchi hospital, elder son Tej Pratap Yadav celebrated Holi...Laloo-style. Tej pedalled down the streets with hordes of supporters who broke into Phagwa songs and smeared each other with gulaal. He played a dholak, his supporters tore each other’s clothes, reminding of the kapdaa phaad Holi that used to be a Laloo trademark, before marching into 10, Circular Road, where mom Rabri Devi had discontinued the celebrations over the past couple of years, upset over her husband being away in Ranchi—ailing and serving sentences in fodder scam cases.

Diamonds are not the only gems Nirav and Amita Modi had an appetite for. The fugitive businessman and his wife had a rich collection of paintings, sculptures, cars, luxury watches and bags, which the Enforcement Directorate auctioned recen­tly. In fact, 112 items were auctioned for Rs 53.4 crore over two days in Mumbai. Amrita Sher-Gil’s Boys with Lemons, 1935, was sold for Rs 15.68 crore. M.F. Husain’s Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12 fetched Rs 13.44 crore. Manjit Bawa’s Untitled, 1992, sold at Rs 6.16 crore. Modi’s Rolls-Royce Ghost was sold for Rs 1.68 crore. Luxury watches dominated the auction with a Girard-Perregaux wristwatch fetching Rs 95.2 lakh.

Dogs Aren’t Cattle

Despite Swedish naturalist Linnaeus developing an ext­ensive taxonomy of all living beings in the 18th century, it took until 2020 for the Mizo­ram government to realise that dogs are not cattle. The state assembly recently passed the Mizoram Animal Slaughter (Amendment) Bill, 2020, which declared that taxonomic truism. It was the Mizoram Animal Slaughter Act, 2013, that had legislated the curious classification in a region where dog meat is as much a delicacy as a rare steak or juicy drumstick.

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