I was rather surprised to see Poorna Patel, the daughter of Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel at the IPL 4 Auctions in Bengaluru. The tall and sexy Poorna seems to have lost some weight. She, IPL’s Hospitality Manager appeared on the stage to handover winning bids to the celebrity auctioneer.
After all that brouhaha about a Delhi to Coimbatore Air India flight, IC 7603, scheduled to leave at 5.20 am on April 20, 2010 was aborted less than 12 hours before its departure to allow the aircraft to be deployed as a chartered flight for ferrying civil aviation minister Praful Patel’s daughter, Poorna Patel, and some IPL players from Chandigarh to Chennai, I presumed Paful would advise Poorna to quit IPL. Vijay Mallya’s daughter too worked closely with Lalit Modi for IPL but quit it post the ModiGate hit IPL. Praful Patel being a minister in the Cabinet, I thought he would ask Poorna to stay away from controversies.
Diverting an aircraft from a scheduled passenger flight for charter operations is forbidden under the law if the airline does not have another aircraft to operate the said passenger flight at the scheduled time. Yet the Bombardier CRJ 700 aircraft was pulled out of its scheduled flight allegedly on the demand of Poorna, the IPL’s hospitality manager. The aircraft (registration number VT-RJB), belonging to Alliance Air, was scheduled to fly the three-hour Delhi-Coimbatore route and return to the capital after leaving Coimbatore at 8.55am the same day. ”But Poorna Patel called the airline on Monday evening (19th April 2010) and asked for an aircraft to do a chartered flight to Chennai from Chandigarh. So the aircraft was pulled out of the fleet. IPL paid for the chartered flight but the violation here was getting an aircraft scheduled for a passenger flight pulled out at the last moment for a chartered flight,” said an Air India official then.
Guess in India the powerful can get away with anything!
JP Singh, the head-to-toe branded Surdy who is nowadays more famous, rather infamous for being incriminated in the notorious MCI scam is back to what he does best – showing off his moolah power with crass consumption.
But JP seems to have diluted his loyalty to Louis Vuitton and moved on to Armani. Reason though has got to do more with Armani’s sales girl, Lipika than the merchandise. Recently JP spent a whopping Rs. 15 lacs shopping at the Armani store at DLF Emporio and in return the outgoing salesgirl doesn’t mind being JP’s arm-kandy. In fact JP has got Armani a new customer, his friend Pawan Vora, who courtesy his Guthka money is also a big-spender. Atul Midha should really promote this girl Lipika for getting good sales. I don’t know if it is Armani’s new sales strategy – to lure in customers with a perk thrown in as a dinner date with the sales girl. I spotted JP and Lipika at 360 degrees at The Oberoi having a cozy dinner!
In fact Pawan Vora, JP’s pal had the luxury of celebrating his birthday, cutting cake and popping champagne within the Armani store at Emporio. I doubt if many have had this privilege at Armani stores worldwide. Way to Go, huh!
Even the desi designer duo did not lose the chance to make money out of CWG. For the opening and closing ceremony, the cultural committee had lined up a fashion show too to showcase India’s rich culture to the world. Hence bids were submitted. Sumit Nair proposed a Mega Show with Tarun Tahiliani and Rohit Bal, two of India’s best know designers. The proposal was an expensive one worth Rs. 1 Crore. But subsequently Nair brought down the figure to Rs. 38 Lacs.
FDCI presented a multi-designer show including top names like Sabyasachi, Manish Arora, Pratap, JJ Valaya and few more and quoted the expense figure at Rs. 18Lacs. But when OC of CWG cribbed about lack of funds, FDCI offered to do it free by bringing in a Corporate Sponsor.
But what happened finally? A designer duo got the show and a huge sanction of Rs. 55 Lakhs to do the show during opening ceremony as well as the Closing ceremony.
FDCI quoted ‘Free of Cost’ fashion show with multiple top designers of India. Sumit Nair’s Company proposed a show with top names – Gudda and Tahiliani for Rs.38Lakhs. A designer duo quoted Rs. 55Lakhs and got it. What kind of economics the Organising Committee of the Common Wealth Games follow? I truly believe that the Common Wealth Games is treated as Personal Wealth Accumulating Games by Kalmadi and his dubious cronies.