Chief Minister of Karnataka

The Chief Minister of Karnataka B S Yeddyurappa is on his way out. The decision to this effect was made at the meeting held at the residence of NDA Working Chairman L K Advani on Monday itself, where Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj, BJP president Nitin Gadkari and Karnataka BJP president K S Eswarappa were present. At the meeting, all the leaders were of the view that given the seriousness of the indictment of Yeddyurappa by Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde, his position has become untenable and he can no longer continue in office.

Actually Yeddyurappa’s ouster came up for discussion at the NDA meeting on Tuesday, where BJP allies, including NDA convenor Sharad Yadav, was assured that an appropriate decision would be taken against Yeddyurappa. Ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament, the NDA leaders’ meeting decided on their strategy to take the Congress-led UPA government head-on, particularly when former telecom minister A Raja has named both the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for being in the loop on the irregularities committed by him in the 2G scam.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) first chief minister in south India is known to be a dogged fighter and has come up the hard way from the ranks. But all those battles would pale in comparison in the face of hurdles he now faces. Those were battles against other parties and critics within.

Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's options to stay on in power are dwindling, with the Lokayukta naming him in the report on illegal mining and police beginning to probe corruption cases against him.His staunch supporters in the party will egg him on to stay on, pointing out weaknesses in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining.

The report is to be submitted to the government Monday by the Lokayukta, N. Santosh Hegde, a retired judge of the Supreme Court whose term as ombudsman ends Aug 2.

When Twitter Met Facebook -- Awkwardly

You would think that a meeting between the founders of the world’s most popular social networks would be a fun affair, with conversation revolving around funding, investments and who has the bigger userbase. In reality, it appears it is a much more dour experience, at least if Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is to be believed.
In November 2008, Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams jumped into a car and ventured over to Facebook to meet Mark Zuckerberg, in a meeting which we recognise as the time when Facebook tried to buy Twitter.
Talking in an interview with NPR’s Peter Sagal, Stone reveals the awkward meeting with Zuckerberg, thanks largely to the Facebook founder’s apparent lack of humour.

When asked whether Twitter’s founders were members of “incredibly luxurious club “you and Zuckerberg and the guys from Google all get together and you sit in these, like, solid gold armchairs and you all just stare at your smartphones and never talk to each other,”  Stone admits it wasn’t far from the truth:

    Stone: I had a meeting once with Zuckerberg, and every joke I said landed like a dead fish on the ground.

    Sagal: Really?

    Stone: So I said…

    Sagal: He just stared at you like a Vulcan.

    Stone: Yeah.

The Twitter boss also recalls the uncomfortable moment when they initially entered the meeting room:

    Stone: Evan and I walked into the room. He walked in first, sat in a chair. There was a loveseat left. It was a small room. I walked in next, sat on one side of the loveseat. Ev walked in third and Ev said, oh, do you want me to close the door or leave it open? And Zuckerberg said, “yes.”

   "So Ev said, 'Oh, well I guess I'll just close it this much.'" This probably loses some humour in the telling but it was greeted with much laughter by the audience, who presumably were fans of door-related humour.

How well the gang get along might be moot, as according to Stone Twitter is not courting a suitor. When they met Zuckerberg asked the Twitter founders for a price and Stone said $500m as it was a "ridiculous" figure.

Things seemed to get worse after that as Stone apparently does not like queuing for food, something that is apparently part of the culture at Facebook.

"The worst moment was he was like 'Hey, do you guys want to go have lunch at our cafeteria?' So we had to wait on this huge line for lunch. Evan (Williams) was like, 'Aren't you the boss? Can't you like kind of cut the line a little bit here?,'" he added. "And he's like 'That's not how we do things here.'"

After this Stone "bailed", because, he said, "We don't like to be queued up."