Vuvuzelas selling like hot cakes (Games Sidelights)

NEW DELHI - Hate them or love them, you just can’t ignore them! Vuvuzelas, after taking the FIFA World Cup by storm, are selling like hot cakes at the Games Village here.

Priced at Rs.250, the bright yellow bugles adorn the shelves of souvenir shops in the international zone of the Games Village. Stickers of Shera the mascot, the CWG logo and safety instructions are pasted on them.

Even Sports Minister M.S. Gill could not resist the vuvuzela’s charm and started blowing one at a shop as photographers merrily clicked away.

One of the most enthusiastic proponents must be South African High Commissioner Harris Mbulelo Sithembile Majeke who was seen brandishing one when he visited the village recently.

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Smokin’ out mosquitoes at Games Village

Mosquitoes may be on the prowl in Delhi, but they are certainly not about to win the battle at the Games Village, thanks to intense fogging.

“Fogging and fumigation is done at least once a day in view of the rising dengue threat in Delhi. MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) people come and spray insecticides, pesticides and medicines at every nook and corner of the Village every day,” a volunteer told IANS.

“No one really minds the pungent smoke if it is for your benefit,” the volunteer added.

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Talking DTCs!

Delhiites may have got used to automated announcements in the Delhi Metro, but it’s sure taking them by surprise on state-run Delhi Transport Corporation’s (DTC) new low-floor buses.

An elderly man got a shock when he heard a husky accented female voice greeting him in English, just like in the Metro, as he boarded a DTC bus.

“Ab DTC bhi bolne lag gayi ke (now even DTCs started talking)?” asked the man leaving the other passengers in splits.

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Not from Delhi, but driving DTC

Thanks to the Commonwealth Games and the need to provide sleek buses, the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has been busy recruiting hundreds of drivers and conductors.

And many have been pushed on the roads of Delhi without adequate exposure to the city’s topography. The victims are commuters who now have to grapple with drivers and conductors from outside the capital, lacking minimum knowledge about Delhi.

The good news is there are plenty of new buses to ride!

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Whitewashing CP

Only three days to go for the Commonwealth Games and Connaught Place in central Delhi is still undergoing a facelift - only this time the effort is to camouflage the remaining areas with a whitewash.

Work is on by the hour in the Inner Circle to create a painted veil even as distorted arches, broken spaces and missing brick pieces in pillars stay the way they are. After all, tourists are expected to make a beeline for CP.

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No qualms in seeking alms

The capital’s beggars and destitute are being relocated, hidden or just locked away in the run up to the Games. But many of them are not about to let the event hamper their daily income, especially in Connaught Place.

The number of people begging in the CP area has supposedly increased in the past week.

“What can we do? So many times we have shooed them away from here but they always come bac”,” a policeman on duty in CP said.

-Idno-Asian News Service