When the bell tolls...

At the 55th meeting of the National Development Council (NDC), Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s task was to make chief ministers stick to their time limits. Amid peals of laughter in the Vigyan Bhavan hall, Ahluwalia said: “There is a red and a green light on two corners. The red light will be on when just one minute of the scheduled time is left. Even then, if there is a necessity, I will ring a bell to alert the speakers to stop their speech.” For almost every speaker, Ahluwalia had to ring the bell as no chief minister was in a mood to relent before speaking at length about his achievements.