BIKRAM RAI

Dr BRB's first ten days in office were accompanied by major national crises, as indicated by the following award-winning headlines from the daily press this week, only one of which is made up:
• NAC Rats Out After Air Crew Rats on Rat
• Valley Sweet Shops Have Sour Experience
• Garbage and Politics Turns Capital Stinky
• Phora Fries Suck: Wikileaks

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With the prime minister fully engaged in fire-fighting mode from Day One, it's no wonder he is now getting to Singha Darbar as early as 7:30 AM with his tiffin box and returning to Balu Water only at midnight. But as the crises pile up, even this may not be enough and he may have to start sleeping over at the office. He may as well bring along his kitchen cabinet to Singha Darbar, too.

Despite BRB's strict orders not to have sycophants put expensive ads in the papers congratulating him on his prime ministership, there are still some who can't resist the temptation to be noticed and are coming out of the woodworks. Meanwhile, taking his cue from his boss, Hridesh Tripathi has refused the official limo and residence and has decided to stay on at his private residence and drive around in his own car. What happened to the bullock cart?

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The show of unity between the three factions of the Baddies in Sindhuli the other day seems to have gone down well, and brought the party back from the brink of a split. But we hear Com Kiran has amassed 40 per cent of the central committee votes and hopes to have a showdown this weekend. He wants to stage a coup in the party by out-voting Com Pukada. In this, he has the backing of Com Cloud, Com Hitman, Com God, Com CP and a long tail of other comrades. The irony of it all, of course, is that if PKD and BRB stick together MBK has little chance to get the required numbers. Alert readers will recall that it was MBK, Cloudy and BRB who themselves got together not so long ago at the Siddharth Cottage in Dhobi Ghaut to clip PKD's wings. Just goes to prove the axiom that there are no permanent enemies or permanent friends in politics, only back-stabbers.

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Gachhu the Godfather was so nervous about taking over as Homely Minister that he got the astrologers to find the time of the exact alignment of the planets when to enter his office. But it really ticked him off that no one was there when he arrived. How is a guy who has been publicly seen hobnobbing with K-town's prominent gangstas ever going to curb organised crime? But the minister has other more pressing headaches: to get his nominee for defence minister, comrade-in-arms Sarat Sing, to be sowrn in. Sarat got a call an hour before last week's swearing in from Gachhu himself saying there was a hitch and "we'll do it some other time". There are conflicting reports about what happened. Some have it that the army brass put pressure on Gachhedar to drop Sarat because they didn't want Madesi leaders to lead both home and defence (even though neither are technically Madesis). But others say Gachhedar came under enormous pressure from purer Madesis who felt it was their right to lead both the army and police.

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BRB has been busy splitting ministries in order to accommodate all those who want portfolios. After cutting in half Forests and Soil Conservation, Water and Sewage it looks like he may have to even split the Ministry of Foreign Affairs into the Ministry of Foreign and Ministry of Affairs.