Five-star treatment

The infamous Ajmal Qasab was back on Twitter timelines, after a short hiatus, following reports that the state home department had spent Rs 16.17 crore on accommodating him. It prompted Genesia Alves to ask: 'What goes into a 5.29 crore cell for Qasab? Is it on Pali Hill?' Chandni Tolani tweeted: 'Don't be surprised if you witness Qasab standing for the next elections. After all, everyone deserves a second chance.' Someone using the handle TheBigDowg weighed in with this: 'Money spent on Qasab till date: Rs 16 crore; Atithi Devo Bhava indeed.' And from Madhuri Banerjee: 'State spends 16 crore on Qasab in three years. Bravo. You can't give an honest Indian food and housing, but you can give a terrorist a 5-star life!'

All work, no play
Prasad Deshpande had a suggestion to make: 'How about making [adult film star] Sunny Leone speaker of the Lok Sabha? That should guarantee full attendance and no adjournment.' His tweet followed reports of a stormy start to Parliament's winter session, after which both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned for the day. A certain Prince tweeted: 'A small town college somewhere in India probably has a much better attendance record than the Lok Sabha.' Suryanarayan Ganesh had a more serious take: 'The BJP blocking the Lok Sabha from working is akin to not allowing offices to function during a bandh.'

High five
For reasons known only to a few, a number of people decided to tweet using five words. Among the pithy examples that surfaced were 'I stand for animal rights!', 'you're my one and only', 'God is enough for me', 'stop worrying about my life', 'I deserve the absolute best' and, worryingly, 'proud to be a problem.'

The last word
From writer Shobhaa De: 'Jairam Ramesh for PM. Why him? Why not? Interesting track record. Smart. Articulate. International. Dynamic. Youth appeal. Bold and blow dried.'

--u00a0Lindsay Pereira is Editor, MiD DAY Online (twitter.com/lindsaypereira)