Very unfortunate (This was published in The Statesman on 29/02/12)

Taking suo motu cognisance of the practice among politicians to overuse the word “unfortunate”, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre seeking a report containing detailed information on the number of times and the circumstances in which the term can be used. A Division Bench of the court issued a notice to the government asking it to reply within two weeks. The court has posted the matter for hearing in the second week of March. However, this has not gone down well with the ruling Congress party. Party spokesperson Mr Manish Tewari accused the SC of judicial overreach and termed the move “unfortunate”.

There were a series of unfortunate events preceding this Supreme Court intervention. After describing the Teesta deal failure, crackdown on Ramdev, Lokpal drama in the Rajya Sabha and many other issues as unfortunate, the Prime Minister recently included the practice of non-governmental organisations receiving support from abroad for stalling the use of genetic engineering in agriculture and leading protests against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu in the list of “unfortunate” events. The government has also revoked the licences of three NGOs in Tamil Nadu accusing them of misusing funds meant for social welfare to support an anti-nuclear agitation. The BJP has termed this government move “unfortunate”. The People's Movement against Nuclear Energy convener Mr SP Udayakumar even threatened legal action against the Prime Minister and Union minister of state in the PMO Mr V Narayanasamy for making unsubstantiated allegations. Congress leader Ms Renuka Chaudhuri was of the view that the move by the NGO to sue the PM was “unfortunate”.

Meanwhile, defence minister Mr AK Antony criticised China for raising objections to his visit to Arunachal Pradesh, describing Beijing's comments on the issue as “most unfortunate”. He also deemed “unfortunate“ Pakistan's objection to induction of nuclear submarines by India. Earlier, the external affairs minister had termed the incident where two young children were placed in foster care by the Norwegian childcare services as “unfortunate”. It is worth mentioning here that Mr Krishna had earlier tagged the Vienna rampage, killing of Indian students in Australia and many other events as unfortunate. Mr P Chidambaram has also done his bit. He had described as “unfortunate” the incidents involving some Border Security Force (BSF) personnel torturing a Bangladesh national and the arrest of Mr Anna Hazare.

Oxford University Press that publishes a wide and comprehensive range of dictionaries has come up with a list of most abused clichés in India and “unfortunate” has topped the list in the “political lexicon” category. In a completely-unrelated development, the West Bengal chief minister refused to eat a mango offered to her at a public function because the tree that bore the fruit had apparently been planted during the Left rule.