AARYAN SHARMA
JAMMU: On December 31, 2016, the world woke up to a big news of one second being added to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to synchronize clocks worldwide with the Earth’s ever slowing rotation. Leap seconds are added to realign clocks worldwide with the Earth’s rotation. But on 4th February, the Jammu and Kashmir Information Department, without any fuss or fanfare, added three days to otherwise normal month of February and two days to the February of leap year in a press release related to Governor N N Vohra under the title, ‘Governor lauds SVC functioning, CVC asked to meet Governor again’.
The third para of press release No: PR/DI/17/7518/ dated 4th of February 2017, while referring to the complaints received by the State Vigilance Commission, reads, “The number of complaints received by the Commission during 23.02.2013-31.02.2016, year-wise are: 985 (2013); 1168 (2014); 1200 (2015); 989 (2016).”
The press note stands released by the Department of Information on the next day of making Governor N N Vohra to greet the people on the World Cancer Day.
Mired in the controversy over invitation to the media persons, the Information Department is yet to submit the report to the Raj Bhavan over the criterion adopted in selecting the guests for the Governor’s At Home on this year’s Republic Day. The Information Department had left out several prominent accredited journalists for the reasons best known to its officers.
The invitation list had annoyed many as the auspicious occasion witnessed presence of some non-entities from among the political organizations though 1700 cards had been printed and issued. Accordingly arrangements too had been made for 1,700 guests at the expense of tax payers money but many of those invited did not turn up, forcing the Governor to convey his displeasure to the government.