BOMBAY, 29 August 2006 - For the first time in the history of India, dogs will have the honor of adhore uniforms and be given ranks. Madan, Maya, Pinky and Sony, the four dogs in the investigative wing of the Bombay customs, will get uniforms and ranks and will patrol around the two Bombay airports in brand new uniform, a move to make them look distinct at night.
G. Ravindranath, the Joint Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs confirmed that he had sent a proposal to make uniforms as allot ranks to the dogs and said that the uniform could be a jacket with gold colored letter specifying Customs.This Ravindranath said would not only give the dogs a distinct identity, but would also act as a deterrent for the passengers dealing with drugs and smugglers could get jittery when they see these uniformed dogs around.
These four Customs dogs, Ravindranath said are handled by officials of the ranks of sub-inspectors and are on duty in two twelve hours shift and are trained to catch peddles dealing with drugs like hashish and cocaine, but can't do multi-tasking jobs. In the last one year, these dogs have helped the Customs officials to detect 19 cases of drug pedaling, Ravindranath said.
In another development, the regional Marathi daily Lokmat newspaper which had criticized Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray for his silver throne, returned the throne sent to it back to Bal Thackeray, who gracefully accepted it from Vijay Darda, the executive editor of the newspaper. Speaking to reporters, Darda said that the throne was in their possession for some days, and that he had come to the residence of Thackeray to return the same to its rightful owner.
In a sort of apology, Darda told Thackeray that by publishing the news and photograph of the Sena chief sitting on a throne, it was not the intention of the newspaper to hurt his sentiments. Thackeray then told Darda about his close ties with his late father Jawarharlal Darda, a industrialist and senior Congress cabinet minister, and that he did expect such sarcastic report from Darda's newspaper.
Responding to reporters question as to whether he would use the returned throne, Thackeray said " I have another throne, and wherever I sit becomes my throne. I don't care for any throne, nor I have any interest in them". A Shiv Sena official said that a carpenter had been called to remove the silver foil from the throne.
Meanwhile, Rahul Mahajan, the son of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan wed Jet Airways pilot Shweta Singh at a simple ceremony at a hotel in Bombay. Those who attended the wedding ceremony included BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Kalraj Mishra, Venkiah Naidu, Anant Kumar, Gopinath Munde and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, NCP leaders and federal ministers Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, Maharshtra Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray, actress Smriti Irani and industrialists Anil Ambani and Rahul Bajaj.
Family sources said that no elaborate arrangements were made for the wedding in the wake of the recent death of Pramod Mahajan, the subsequent arrest of Pravin, the brother of the slain leader, and the arrest of Rahul in a drug abuse case.
