Delhi monkeys target bureaucrat’s computer; Japanese monkeys hog limelight too

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Rakesh Mehta, a 1975 batch AGMU cadre IAS and Delhi state election commissioner, has hogged the limelight all for wrong reasons. Hold your breath. It has nothing to do with any reports by Comptroller and Auditor General or Central Vigilance Commission. The attack has come from an unusual quarter: a few smart monkeys which have continuously ambushed Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s Nigam Bhawan that houses Mehta’s office. The monkeys have chewed the wires connected to his personal computer leaving him handicapped in the run-up to the municipal polls slated for 2012.

Mehta, a veteran bureaucrat managing a number of complex administrative issues during 36 years of his public life, has found no easy exit to this problem. After all, monkey catchers who are paid Rs 600 for catching one monkey each, have themselves become a rare breed. As is reported in a section of media, Mehta’s men are now trying hard to woo monkey catchers to fix this unusual problem. Most monkey catchers are based out of Delhi and hence they cannot be put into action with immediate effect!

Mehta had earlier served as chief secretary of Delhi and headed Delhi Transport Corporation and Municipal Corporation of Delhi too.

While Delhi monkeys have turned news-makers all for wrong reasons, international press including prestigious Wall Street Journal have been closely following the story of Japanese monkeys being used to track fallout at Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant which witnessed the worst nuclear accident in Japan’s history last March. Till now, the radiation monitoring was conducted by using helicopters equipped with testing devices. But now, researchers from Fukushima University are enlisting over 1000 monkeys to obtain detailed readings of radiation levels in forests near Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.