EAVESDROPPER

Smoking Buddha

The Financial Express
Posted online: Thursday , February 28, 2008 at 2324 hrs IST

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PSSST, don’t tell Anbumani Ramadoss. The West Bengal environment department may have banned smoking in public places, but on Wednesday, CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee merrily forgot the order, walking in to a realty expo, where he exhorted realtors to go green, with a cigarette in hand. Guess it was a matter of creative freedom, to use a filmstar’s excuse. In any case, the CM does two double packs of 555 daily. In fact, when the PWD put up notices along the walls of Writers Building declaring the corridors a no-smoking zone, the ministers’ chambers, including the CM’s, were spared.

Amiable weed

After the railway budget on Tuesday, Rail Bhawan was thrown into a tizzy when Lalu Prasad ran out of chewing tobacco during his media interviews. His staff went helter-skelter for tobacco, even as his interviews suffered staggered delays. He was his amiable self again only after fresh supplies of the weed were procured.

Free expression

At a recent OECD symposium in Paris, delegates discussed the overlaps of consumer protection policy with competition law. There was consensus that both policies have consumer welfare as their goal, and so there was synergy. The prime example cited: a line of shoe shops along the street, all in collusion on prices and unbothered about pinched toes, with take-it-or-leave-it the sales attitude. This was a consumer problem compounded by an anti-competitive practice. But a possible clash, an Indian delegate pointed out, could arise. While competition law concerns justice from a legal standpoint, consumer welfare is often driven by ideologies of an anti-business hue. The debate will continue. It is often legal to say nasty things about people, for example, but flagrantly unjust.

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