Time for politics
Monday I was translating the daily news again. But as the current affair in Swiss politics was to enter a new phase, I waited with handing in my reports.
"The minister of defense has scheduled a press conference for 4:30pm. He is expected to sack the chief of army." I told my boss.
And as expected, at 5pm I could hand in everything with a little update (that the chief of army had surprisingly only been suspended). At the same time I found out that the Indian government crisis upon their nuclear deal with the USA had entered the showdown phase.
So the next day I handed in already in the morning a short summary on how the Swiss media thought about Prime Minister Singh's attempts to survive a confidence vote without his coalition partner. My boss took the article knowing that there was nothing written, what he would not know yet, while on his screen a live coverage from Delhi was running through the broadband.
"When is the vote sir? I am curious myself." I asked, hoping for getting to know the result before lunchtime.
He just looked at me and said: "Today!" wondering about me asking for the obvious.
So I went downstairs to give a copy of the report to another colleague, who was sitting with two others in his office, also watching life the parliament debate. I showed him the article and mentioned, that currently one vote was traded for 3.7 mio EUR among the members of parliament. He looked at me with wonder rather than outrage - he had not expected a price so cheap.
Being the ignorant gora I asked once more for the precise schedule of the election, that I had not dared to insist on in front of my boss.
"Today!" was still the answer. Actually it changed later to a "postponed" until one of a sudden in the afternoon the loud voice of the speaker of the Lok Sabha was going through the walls of the office. Mr Singh had won the vote.
"The minister of defense has scheduled a press conference for 4:30pm. He is expected to sack the chief of army." I told my boss.
And as expected, at 5pm I could hand in everything with a little update (that the chief of army had surprisingly only been suspended). At the same time I found out that the Indian government crisis upon their nuclear deal with the USA had entered the showdown phase.
So the next day I handed in already in the morning a short summary on how the Swiss media thought about Prime Minister Singh's attempts to survive a confidence vote without his coalition partner. My boss took the article knowing that there was nothing written, what he would not know yet, while on his screen a live coverage from Delhi was running through the broadband.
"When is the vote sir? I am curious myself." I asked, hoping for getting to know the result before lunchtime.
He just looked at me and said: "Today!" wondering about me asking for the obvious.
So I went downstairs to give a copy of the report to another colleague, who was sitting with two others in his office, also watching life the parliament debate. I showed him the article and mentioned, that currently one vote was traded for 3.7 mio EUR among the members of parliament. He looked at me with wonder rather than outrage - he had not expected a price so cheap.
Being the ignorant gora I asked once more for the precise schedule of the election, that I had not dared to insist on in front of my boss.
"Today!" was still the answer. Actually it changed later to a "postponed" until one of a sudden in the afternoon the loud voice of the speaker of the Lok Sabha was going through the walls of the office. Mr Singh had won the vote.
posted by Sabi at 10:43 PM
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