Snippets / Mail Today, December 06, 2010

UPA plans to be cautious in appointments for a change

Several key appointments are due in the next few months including new chairmen for the State Bank of India and several public sector banks, a new chief for the securities and exchange board and deputy governors for the reserve bank. The current incumbent at SBI, O. P. Bhatt, retires on March 31 and the Centre hopes to complete the selection process by January.

With the government reeling under the Opposition onslaught over a slew of scams, caution seems to be the byword. That explains why the government has constituted a high- level committee under cabinet secretary K. M. Chandrasekhar to shortlist candidates for the SBI job.

Though the selection is the prerogative of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, he is keeping the prime minister updated on all developments. The selection process could not have come at a more inopportune time. The recently unearthed housing scam has hit many of the biggest players in the realty lending sector and many senior officers of housing finance companies like the LIC Housing Finance, the Bank of India, the Central Bank of India and the Punjab National Bank have been arrested. At the rate they have been surfacing these past few months, there is every likelihood of this government being buried under an avalanche of scams by the time the next elections are due.

A senior bureaucrat tells me that while the government has set in motion due processes to deal with the spectrum, CWG and housing loan scams, it is keen that no further scams crop. So far, the appointment of PSU banks chiefs has been marked by hectic lobbying and the government has more often than not caved in to pressure from industrial houses, bureaucracy, ministers and even MPs. With just the prime minister and the finance minister now involved in the process, the aim is to make it as transparent and least controversial as possible.

Govt seems to have learnt from Thomas episode

As with PSU banks, so with bureaucrats, the government is learning from experience. There are signs of a tacit admission of an error of judgement on P. J. Thomas's selection as CVC. Last week, the department of personnel and training began an exercise to review the records of all senior bureaucrats who could be in line for sensitive postings in the near future.

The Thomas case has been an eye opener. He had never served as a joint or additional secretary at the Centre. Sources in the DoPT say that whenever he was sought to be empanelled as JS or AS, vigilance clearance was refused because he continued to figure as an accused in the 1991 palmolein corruption case in Kerala.

Yet he was directly cleared as a secretary at the Centre, first in the parliamentary affairs and later in the telecom.

Now hints are being dropped that he will step down. But the question still persists: what took him so long? His appointment had raised eyebrows for the manner in which the UPA government virtually bulldozed it through. Until Friday, it appeared the government was determined to brazen it out. Railway minister Mamata Banerjee's assertion on Friday that she will leave it to the prime minister to take a call on Thomas was a clear indication that the government was determined to have its way.

Technically, the only way Thomas could have been seen off was if he willingly stepped down or twothirds of the members of Parliament voted for his removal. Thomas had said midweek last he had no plans to quit, while his removal by parliament is an unreal prospect given the legislative arithmetic.

If the government stuck by the CVC despite all the brouhaha, it was only because there was a belief in official circles that asking Thomas to step down would accelerate the Opposition onslaught on several other issues.

The government seems to have drawn the right lessons from the Thomas episode. Hopefully, the new DoPT exercise will help avoid a repeat. Hindsight, forethought.

Heads have rolled in the government over the spectrum scam, but now the DMK has also initiated a cleaning up operation. Both A. Raja and Kanimozhi, who figured prominently in the Nira Radia tape conversations, are being relieved from all organisational posts in the wake of allegations of corruption in 2G spectrum allocation and their damning conversations during which they are said to have made " unauthorised claims" on the DMK participation in the Union Cabinet in 2009.

Unless the family prevails, the party is formally expected to announce its decision early next week. Tamil Nadu is poised for assembly elections next year and with the Jayalalithaa propaganda machine blaring out the inconvenient tapes in every nook and cranny of the state, the DMK is on correction mode.

Despite his fragile health, Karunanidhi has suddenly turned active on party matters again and recently was closeted for long hours, first with sons M. K. Alagiri and M. K. Stalin and later with grandnephews Dayanidhi and Kalanidihi Maran. Raja, whose continuation in the cabinet was once made non- negotiable by Karunanidhi, is suddenly persona non grata in the patriarch's Gopalapuram residence.

Sources tell me that the sudden flurry of activity is aimed at sending across the message that the DMK also has a zero tolerance policy against wrongdoers. But the bigger message perhaps it to the AICC. After the purge, we can work together in alliance for the assembly elections due next April.

Snippets / Mail Today, November 29, 2010

Cong looks to star power to end southern discomfort

IF you can't beat them, at least join hands seems to be the new AICC motto, at least as far as two southern states are concerned. In Andhra, the Congress is in the midst of a fratricidal war and despite installing a new, young chief minister, it is trying to get all the help it can from anyone who is willing to help to stay afloat.

In Tamil nadu, its alliance with the DMK is uneasy at best and a search for a new partner will do no harm, senior leaders feel. In both states where filmdom dominates every sphere of public life, the Congress’s new game plan is to rope in political parties which are headed by cinema stars. With assembly elections due in Tamil Nadu next year, the party has now set its eyes on Vijayakant.

Efforts are now on from one section of the Tamil Nadu Congress to bring Vijayakant closer to 10 Janpath. Soon after the winter session of Parliament is over, there are plans to bring Vijayakant over to New Delhi to meet Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. The party has for sometime been actively wooing the Prajarajyam Chief and Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi and the AICC is encouraged by the response after a twohour meeting that Ahmed patel and Veerappa Moily had with the actor recently.

Obviously, Vijayakant has been acting pricey, because this is the fifth meeting that the Congress duo had with him in recent months.

Is the overt courting of the film star an indication that the Congress has decided to get rid of the baggage that is the DMK, particularly in the light of the 2G scam that has cost the party dearly? Vijayakant floated his party, the DMDK on the eve of the last assembly elections. It did not do as spectacularly as the film star expected but nevertheless with a 10 per cent vote share, has the potential to tilt the scales. Vijayakant recently said that his party was open to alliance with anyone except the DMK. Already, the AIADMK is actively wooing him. Having spurned the AIADMK’s offer of support, the Congress is also now actively wooing the actor. We will wait and see who gets the prize catch?

BJP must not undermine CMs in spite of Bihar result

I CAN understand Nitish Kumar wanting to flaunt his secular credentials by keeping all BJP chief ministers out of the campaign for the recent assembly elections. But I was surprised that none of them was invited for the swearing in of the first ever NDA government in a state to be reelected.
The BJP’s state icons such as Narendra Modi, P. K. Dhumal, Raman Singh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, B. S. Yeddyurappa and Ramesh Pokhriyal were all conspicuous by their absence last Friday when Nitish and his deputy, the BJP’s Sushil Modi took oath of office in Patna.

This is a departure from the past when all BJP chief ministers made it a point to be present when one of their own was taking office. Instead, the spotlight this time was, deservedly so on Nitish, and quite undeservedly, on the handful of central leaders from 11 Ashoka Road though their contribution to Nitish’s victory can be a point of debate. L. K. Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and a handful of lesser leaders were all there. So is the new line- up making a pitch for a “ secular” BJP in the light of the fact that even Muslims who otherwise keep an arm’s length from the party chose to vote in large numbers for the NDA. One school of thought within the BJP has it that this is the party of the future. As the leader of the NDA, it could attract many regional parties into its fold, as was the case during the Vajpayee regime. Many allies of that period have since found better sanctuary elsewhere, leaving the BJP a bit out in the cold, but Bihar has shown that there is still hope.

The next round of elections will show whether this is a sound strategy. My own hunch is that the Bihar experiment cannot be replicated elsewhere and in the next Lok Sabha elections, the party will have to fall back on its tried and tested leaders in the states to deliver the numbers.

THE political turmoil in our neighbourhood is taking its toll on the establishment at home. Going by the diplomatic buzz, the abject failure of our mission in Kathmandu is triggering off a major reshuffle in the Foreign Office and many missions in strategically important capitals around the world such as Moscow, Tokyo, Tehran and Kathmandu will soon have new ambassadors. I understand that Rakesh Sood, an otherwise brilliant officer who has had a rather ineffective tenure in the Nepalese capital is being recalled for posting as one of the Secretaries in the ministry of external affairs.

He is likely to be replaced by Jayant Prasad, additional secretary at HQ. P. S. Raghavan, a Joint Secretary in the PMO during the Vajpayee regime will most likely be on his way soon as envoy to Moscow. The most significant of the many changes will be that of Alok Prasad, the former ambassador to Sri Lanka and current deputy national security adviser who was widely tipped to succeed Nirupama Rao as the next foreign secretary. His hopes were dashed once when last month the government gave Nirupama a seven- month extension. It now appears that Alok will be sent as envoy to Tokyo. In that case, a dark horse will emerge for the top foreign office job, or Nirupama will get yet another extension. That will be no surprise because, in the current dispensation, no Malayalee has ever retired or not got a sinecure.

Power & Politics/Snippets / Mail Today, July 12. 2010

The endless cycle of committees

LAW MINISTER Veerappa Moily has headed numerous commissions and submitted so many reports that I suspect even he may have lost count.

As chairman of the Administrative Commission, he has submitted 15 reports over the last five years on subjects ranging from good governance to ethics in government to conflict resolution and corruption in the bureaucracy.

Most of these are gathering dust as the government has neither the will nor inclination to tinker with the status quo. Sometime back, Moily handed a copy of the report on corruption in the bureaucracy to the Prime Minister.

After going through its contents, the PMO passed it on to the Committee of Secretaries who after due deliberations, suggested that a high- power committee be set up to further look into the matter. And so a committee of experts comprising P. C. Hota, former UPSC chairman, P. Shankar, former chief of the Vigilance Commission and A. K. Verma a retired UP cadre IAS officer was constituted in May.

Unlike most committees that sit on their jobs and seek extensions in order to continue enjoying the perks, this committee completed its work in two months flat. Though he was offered a secretariat and all other perks that go with such a job, Hota rejected these and opted to do the job himself, working out of his own house and keying in everything on his computer himself.

Last week, when Prithviraj Chavan, Union minister of state for personnel, called on Hota at his residence he was in for a surprise. Not only had Hota completed the task assigned to him well in time, he had put copies of his work on CD as well as on pen drives and sent these across to fellow members. He gave a copy to Chavan too, who needless to say was taken by surprise at the doggedness and tenacity of the 75 year- old retired officer. May his tribe increase. But on the flip side, I have the feeling that the government will set up another committee to study Hota’s report.

Abdullah father and son set to play musical chairs

NOT A day goes by without TV channels flashing visuals of the young and dapper Omar Abdullah in designer attire but you can see that the man is anything but relaxed. Kashmir is on the boil like never in recent times and last week, after 10 years, the army held flag marches.

There is a National Conference- Congress coalition government in place in Srinagar, but the deputy chief minister Tara Chand of the Congress is so busy inaugurating buildings and bridges that he hasn’t found time to form an opinion on the violence. Ditto for the state Congress president Saifudin Soz and former CM Ghulam Nabi Azad. But what really raised eyebrows was the absolute silence of Dr Farooq Abdullah. When his beloved Kashmir was burning, Farooq saab was much of the time in London. And when he surfaced last Sunday in Srinagar, Omar added another twist to the burning tale by saying that Papa Doc was “ here to advise me and not to intervene”.

It is worth recalling that Farooq was projected as chief minister last year, but an overnight coup by Delhi’s babalog saw son take over and father settling for Union ministership. Omar’s problem is that he understands the peer crowd in Delhi but not in Srinagar and has scant regard for the political and bureaucratic set up in Kashmir which his Papa nurtured and respected.

With every brief respite from violence resembling the lull before the storm and Omar feeling totally isolated and helpless but since he was the choice of the Congress Gen Next, senior leaders are in a bind. But a whisper campaign is now on within sections of the Congress and the NC leadership that the father- son duo be persuaded to swap jobs.

No one will be hurt, Omar who is clearly uncomfortable in Srinagar’s hot seat, may welcome a return to Delhi. As junior external affairs minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, he did an excellent job. For the sake of Kashmir, it is to be hoped the father and son duo comes to an agreement on a job trade off.

THERE are few who are not genuinely impressed by the way Home Minister P Chidambaram goes about his job. His dogged pursuit of terrorists, Naxals and other extremists has impressed even the BJP that the main opposition party demanded that PC be given a free hand to do his job. The trouble with PC is that he is as irritating as he is honest and well intentioned. That puts most of his colleagues off.

Much of what he does are unilateral decisions, the Khap bill aimed at tackling honour killings being the latest. He came up with the idea without consulting his colleagues or the state governments in the North where the Khap Panchayats are very powerful.

Predictably, he met with stiff opposition. Ministers from the North ganged up against him and the cabinet meeting last Thursday witnessed frayed tempers as PC was accused of ignoring regional sensitivities and pursuing a legislation that could be an emotional minefield for the Congress, particularly in Haryana, which apart from Delhi is the only Northern state where the party is in power. Though PC would settle for nothing less than a free hand as long as he is North Block and prime minister will gladly grant him his wish, the majority opinion in the Cabinet was that the issue needed further discussions at multiple levels. So they have constituted another Group of Ministers and its back to the red tape brigade.

Snippets / Mail Today, July 05, 2010

Politicians’ race to the Big Apple

THERE is something about New York that fires the traveller’s instinct among our MPs and once again it is that time of the year when our honourable representatives get the itch to travel to the Big Apple for the annual sojourn at the United Nations. The UN General Assembly meets only in September but the Prime Minister’s Office is already under immense political pressure from Congressmen as well as UPA allies to have their members included in the delegation. A bureaucrat friend said in jest that the lobbying was somewhat like what is witnessed on the eve of a cabinet session.

It’s easy to see why they are all clamouring to fly to New York. The Indian delegation normally consists of of 30 to 35 people. Sixteen of them are MPs who join the delegation in two batches of eight each and the rest are ministers and diplomats. For 45 days, all of them get to hole up in one of the best Manhattan hotels at the taxpayers’ expense. The stay is long enough for those afflicted with minor and major health problems to hold consultations with some of the best physicians in the world.

In normal circumstances, the selection is entirely the prerogative of the Prime Minister, but in a coalition like the UPA, as we have so often seen, the unusual is the rule rather than the exception.

So the final choice may not be Manmohan Singh’s alone. In a few days, we will know who have made the grade, but there is a record that will be hard to beat and it belongs to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

He first attended the UNGA in 1977 as foreign minister in the Morarji Desai government when he famously addressed the assembly in Hindi.

Between 1988 and 1994, India had four prime ministers.

That all of them chose the BJP veteran is perhaps a measure of the deep admiration they shared for a political adversary.

Absentee ministers make cabinet meetings a no- show

CONSIDERING all the praise that heads of states and governments lavish upon him, it’s easy to see why Manmohan Singh needs only the slightest of excuses to take to the skies. “ When the prime minister of India speaks, the world listens” or something to that effect, US President Barack Obama said in Toronto last week.

How Manmohan would wish his own ministers also listen to him with similar earnestness. Kashmir was in flames even as Manmohan was rubbing shoulders with the G- 20 leaders, so it was understandable that as soon as he returned, he wanted to take stock. So he decided to hold an emergency meeting of his cabinet on his return to the Capital on Thursday, which coincided with the day of the weekly cabinet meeting.

Incidentally, during the Vajpayee days, the cabinet used to meet on Tuesdays but this was shifted in the UPA era to Thursday, following requests from some of the powerful alliance ministers from the South. They said they wished to be home with their families during the weekend.

A five- item agenda paper was drawn up for circulation among all cabinet ministers and, as is procedure, the deputy secretary in the cabinet secretariat in charge of cabinet meetings rang up the private secretaries of all ministers to find out the “ availability” of their masters.
Only 15 of the 33 full fledged ministers were available in the Capital.

Among the notable absentees were the three DMK ministers, who were enjoying a wellearned rest after the exertion at the highly publicised World Tamil Congress in Coimbatore.

Sharad Pawar was in Singapore getting himself embroiled in yet another cricket- related controversy, while other worthies cited prior commitments to excuse themselves from the emergency meeting.

Finally, the scheduled cabinet meeting was converted into a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security, with the PM chairing the session attended by four of his senior- most colleagues — the ministers of defence, home, finance and external affairs.

STRANGE things are happening in Jharkhand.

Barely 10 years into its inception, the state has already seen six changes of chief ministers and two spells of president’s rule, including the current one which began on June 1 after chief minister Shibu Soren resigned on the eve of a trust vote.

The assembly is under suspended animation since then and with no party in a position to form the government, the BJP has demanded fresh elections. But the Centre seems in no mood to oblige. Usually, immediately after President’s rule is imposed, the Centre appoints advisers to assist the governor, but even this has not been done though a month has gone by.

Worse, governor MOH Farooq, who is the de facto chief minister, is hardly ever in Ranchi. The 73- year- old former Pondicherry chief minister is said to be not in the best of health and spends half his time in Chennai for medical treatment.

But the UPA’s proxy rule in Ranchi is unlikely to last long since it has to get the presidential proclamation ratified by Parliament, which is not an easy task since the UPA is woefully short of the majority in the Rajya Sabha.

Last heard, the Centre is contemplating withdrawal of president’s rule before Parliament’s monsoon session begins later this month.

For whose benefit and under what conditions remains to be seen.

Snippets / Mail Today, June 28, 2010

These babus neither tire nor retire

LIKE old soldiers, retired bureaucrats don’t pass on, but unlike them, former babus don’t fade away. Many are getting resurrected as MPs, ministers or in some cases political advisers, cosying up to the powers that be, at the Centre or the states. Quite a few of them are turning out to be the cause of friction in the parties which adopted them and none more so than Pyari Mohan Mahapatra, the former IAS officer and now Rajya Sabha MP of the Biju Janata Dal ( BJD), and N. K. Singh , the former finance secretary whom Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar sent to the Upper House as a JD( U) MP.

Last year, Mahapatra, who is said to be Naveen Patnaik’s chief strategist, played a key role in pulling the BJD out of the NDA and, if the grapevine is to be believed, Singh is doing the same in Bihar. Reports suggest that Singh is the cause of the rift in the JD( U)- BJP tie up which is almost a decade- and- a- half old.

It is said that Singh, a networker par excellence who counts the Ambani brothers, Sunil Mittal, Praful Patel and the like among his close friends, is acting at the behest of a senior Congress minister who wants to bring the Congress and the JD( U) closer before the state assembly elections later this year.

If true, Mahapatra and Singh are merely following in the footsteps of their predecessors, some of whom have caused immense embarrassment to the parties that inducted them into politics.
Nitish Sengupta, a former revenue secretary, joined the Trinamool Congress in 1999 and successfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from Contai in West Bengal, but Mamata Banerjee had to show him the door after he tried to sabotage TC- BJP ties.

Among JD( U) and BJD cadres in Bihar and Orissa, there is immense resentment over the disruptive tendencies of these retirees and it will come as no surprise if both find their wings clipped in the not too distant future.

Get ready for Alagiri’s yankee- style makeover

HE WAS seen as someone who was in the cabinet only because his father, M. Karunanidhi’s clout in the UPA is second only to its chairperson Sonia Gandhi. He was mocked as an ignoramus who knew nothing about the important portfolios that he handled, fertilisers and chemicals, and for his inability to connect with anybody outside his Madurai constituency because he could understand no language other than his native Tamil.

His record of truancy in office and in cabinet meetings rivalled that of the temperamental Mamata Banerjee. But M. K. Alagiri, the eldest of the Tamil patriarch’s politically ambitious children is undergoing a sudden and rapid transformation that would make his critics blush if they had any shame.

He skipped the inauguration of the World Tamil Conference in Coimbatore last week, where he was to have inaugurated the book fair, and was the only DMK minister who attended the Empowered Group of Ministers meeting on Bhopal.

Papa Kalaignar has apparently told him that he must either take his duties as a minister seriously or stay away from politics altogether. The underlying message to Alagiri is that he will no more dabble in politics at the state level which is the domain of his younger brother, M. K. Stalin.

Last week, Alagiri sought and got permission from the Prime Minister’s Office for a fortnight’s leave to take his mother, Dayalu Ammal, to the US for medical treatment. Alagiri will be off in the first week of July and will return well before the Parliament’s monsoon session begins.
That will give him enough time to brush up on Rapid English Speaking lessons that he is said to be taking. When the session starts on July 26, we may be in a for a surprise: a dapper Alagiri, shedding his trademark mundu- shirt for a safari suit and replying to questions in Queen’s English.

THE second extension that K. M. Chandrashekhar got as cabinet secretary last month was said to be due to the need for continuity in view of the Commonwealth Games that Delhi is to host in October. But with tales of shady deals going on at the Organising Committee( OC), he is said to be having second thoughts on the extension. There is nothing that happens in the OC without someone being on the take and if a few upright ones decide to spill the beans, it would take nothing less than a joint parliamentary committee to unearth the magnitude of the plunder.

Recently, the CabSec himself had to intervene after the secretary in the ministry of sports accused the Delhi Police of forcibly taking away food packets meant for officials at the test events in archery, wrestling, boxing and tennis.

Special commissioner of the Delhi Police Neeraj Kumar was incensed. He refuted the charges saying the police had organised food for its force on duty at Rs 25 per packet and threw the ball right back at the OC by offering to pay the shortfall if the OC produced bills to show exactly how much it had paid the caterers.

This is just loose change. My hunch is that the gigantic scale of this ConWealth Games will emerge only after the event is over. A. Raja will then look like a saint.

Snippets/ Mail Today, June 21, 2010

The UPA’s southern discomfort

RELATIONS between the Congress and the DMK have always been tenuous despite the leaders of both sides going to great lengths to send out signals of unparalleled solidarity.

The latest display of this was a fortnight ago, when Sonia Gandhi sent a handwritten message to DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi on his 87th birthday. But the bonhomie is not shared down the line and DMK leaders feel that a section of Congress leaders are as vociferous in demanding communications minister A. Raja’s resignation as the opposition is.

The fissures are now out in the open and at the DMK headquarters in Chennai, party leaders speak of a conspiracy by a section of the state Congress to cut the DMK to size. If reports are to be believed, this group wants the high command to put pressure on the DMK leadership for a 50- 50 share of the 234 assembly seats when the state goes to the polls next year.

However, the DMK wants to contest at least 140 seats and at best is ready to leave 70 to 80 seats for the Congress. The differences are not irreconcilable as yet, but could turn out to be if the group led by G. K. Vasan, Union minister and son of the late Congress heavyweight G. K. Moopanar, chooses to be unrelenting.

Yet another twist was added to the tale recently when a powerful group within the Congress, led by former minister K. V. Thangkabalu, floated the idea of aligning with Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK once again.

Thangkabalu has already sounded out the high command about this and is believed to have told them that Jayalalithaa was ready to give the Congress 120 seats.

The Congress and the BJP have been in the habit of swapping partners every few years and it would be no surprise if the Congress once again joins hands with the Iron Lady of Poes Garden, leaving the DMK to embrace the BJP- led NDA once again.

The jostle for the third EC slot begins

CHIEF Election Commissioner Naveen Chawla is due to retire next month and the UPA government has a tough task filling the vacancy, considering that there is a torrent of names being forwarded to the powers that be. Until T. N. Seshan came along in 1990 and started a badly needed clean- up of the electoral system, the office of the CEC was just like any other constitutional office. Since then, it has acquired a higher profile and is now among the most coveted jobs.

While S. Y. Quraishi, the Haryana cadre IAS officer who joined as a commissioner in 2006, will take over as the new CEC, V. S. Sampath, a 1973- batch IAS officer of the Andhra cadre, will remain commissioner.

There is much speculation about who will fill the third slot and regional and gender pressures are being mounted on the Congress leadership, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and law minister Veerappa Moily.

Among the front- runners are finance secretary Ashok Chawla and agriculture secretary T. Nanda Kumar, while an officer from the North East is said to be a dark horse. But there is an influential section in the UPA which feels that it is time for a woman to be appointed to the high constitutional office.

If this opinion prevails, the choice could be between Shanta Sheela Nair, a former home secretary of Tamil Nadu and currently secretary in the ministry of mines, and Sushma Nath, expenditure secretary.

As UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi has helped smash several glass ceilings by giving the country its first woman president as well as the first woman speaker of the Lok Sabha. If Sonia puts her might behind either Nair or Nath, the Election Commission, considered to be the last of the male bastions, may fall and get its first woman commissioner. If that happens, in about four years time, the country will have its first woman CEC.

I AM NO football fan. But for the past week and the next three, I am one. Like millions around the world, I have been glued to the TV. There are countries out there participating that a lot of us can’t locate on a map. Others have suspended their fratricidal wars and united, if only for a month.

Immensely gifted players who seemingly make the ball talk and whose names I did not know until last week now dominate the front pages. After a week of this new addiction, I realise now why they call it a beautiful game. It is truly a world- class game played for a worldwide audience where Cinderella nations take on the mighty — and win. When you watch Serbia ( population 7 million, half of Delhi) defeat three time world champions Germany, it makes you sit up and wonder: Why can’t India with a billion- plus population produce 11 players who have the hunger and passion to, if not dazzle, at least play on the world stage.

The bane, I am told, is again the politician. In the 1950s and 60s, India were on top of Asia, routinely beat the Koreans and the Japanese, won several Asian Games golds and were even an Olympic semifinalist once. The downhill slide began with politicians taking over the game’s administration in the mid 80s. It has been a downhill slide since. Sports minister M. S. Gill should take that extra step and tell the politicos: stay away from sport altogether.

Snippets / Mail Today, June 14, 2010

Modi not welcome in Bihar

THE BJP, which tried to score a point by holding its national executive ( NE) in Patna last weekend, seems to have ended up scoring a self- goal. The battle of political wits that began in Patna last weekend between chief minister Nitish Kumar and his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi triggered events that could end up in a messy divorce between the JD( U) and the BJP, who are in coalition in the state that is up for polls.

So far, Nitish has done a fine balancing act as a secularist who finds nothing wrong in sharing power with the BJP. It may be recalled that during the last Lok Sabha elections, he campaigned for BJP candidates but made sure the minorities weren’t lost by keeping Modi away from poll platforms.

With Modi arriving in Patna for the NE, the expected and much worse has happened.

A public rally scheduled under the NDA banner with senior leaders such as L. K. Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Narendra Modi along with the fiery Varun participating ultimately became a BJP rally after Nitish refused to share the stage with Modi.

A dinner that Nitish had planned at his residence for all NE members was cancelled after Nitish made known his distaste for supping with Modi.

But the unseemly row touched a new low when Nitish objected to ads that the Gujarat government had taken out in Patna papers which had pictures of Modi and Nitish together and extolled the generous grants the Gujarat government had provided to Bihar after the 2008 Kosi floods. So offended was Nitish that he called it “ uncivilised” and threatened legal action against those behind the ad. He also said Bihar would return the money the Modi government had given.
The JD( U)- BJP alliance has been under strain for long.

And my instinct tells me it will not last long. Sooner or later, the BJP will decide to go on its own, knowing that in a polarised polity, Nitish will have to vie with Lalu Prasad and the Congress for the minority and backward votes while hoping to cash in on the rest.

Congress ambiguity on the caste census

EVEN four weeks after the Prime Minister announced the decision to appoint an Empowered Group of Ministers to discuss and resolve the conflicts stemming from the decision to hold the controversial caste- based census, Manmohan Singh seems to be in no particular hurry to honour his pledge. Ever since he said in Parliament that his government will give the idea serious thought, he has been under immense pressure from civil society leaders as well as large numbers of young MPs to keep the decision on hold. Even during the past few cabinet meetings, the idea was opposed by few senior ministers.

The opposition within the council of ministers, however, came into the open only when minister of state for home affairs Ajay Maken wrote a letter to all young MPs cutting across party divisions, asking them to oppose the move. It was his contention that a caste- based headcount will trigger another aggressive and divisive agitation for enhancing reservations in government jobs and educational institutions, leaving the upper castes and even the meritorious among the poor with nothing but crumbs. The Prime Minister’s promise to take a serious look at the demand for a caste- based census was made merely to placate the powerful Yadav duo in return for their support to get cut motions moved by the BJP and the CPI( M) on the finance bill defeated.

Bizarrely, he did so just a few hours after home minister P. Chidambaram told Parliament about the inherent difficulties and dangers of holding such a census. It now appears that with the cut motion now out of the way, the government is having second thoughts and there are rumours that it was the party leadership that encouraged its Gen Next MPs to speak up. Now, with the massive divisions within the BJP also coming into the open, Gen Next seems to have won round one in dictating the political agenda.

GOPALKRISHNA Gandhi’s C. V. could make anyone turn green with envy. An IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, he served as secretary to the President, director of the Nehru Centre in London and as India’s envoy to Norway, Iceland, Sri Lanka, South Africa and other countries, and also had a five- year stint as governor. He is also the grandson of C. Rajagopalachari and Mahatma Gandhi.

At the age of 65, you’d expect him to look back in satisfaction at a long and distinguished innings and spend a quiet life in Chennai. But is the former governor — among the most activist that any Raj Bhavan has seen — missing the trappings of the gubernatorial mansion? His backers are doing the rounds in Delhi seeking another stint as governor for him, preferably in the Raj Bhavan in Panaji, Goa.

Gandhi has enough powerful backers in the government, yet there are hurdles.

The current incumbent in Goa is S. S. Sidhu, who is known to be close to the Gandhi family from the mid 1980s when he was the secretary in the civil aviation ministry and pilot- turnedpolitician Rajiv was the Prime Minister.

Snippets / Mail Today, June 07, 2010

An unlikely saviour for Jharkhand

THERE are governors and governors. Some are like N. D. Tiwari, the former occupant of the Hyderabad Raj Bhavan. Like moths drawn to light, they are drawn to controversy and meet with an unceremonious end. In Tiwari’s case, he was caught by hidden cameras having a romp in the gubernatorial bed with two masseuses and was shown the exit door.

Then there are others like MOH Farook. Of the 30 governors across the country, the Jharkhand governor is the least controversial although he presides over a state which has had a surfeit of political controversies in recent times. Two of his predecessors, Prabhat Kumar and Syed Sibtey Razi were summarily sacked after they got embroiled in the state’s murky politics. Farook took over as governor just after Shibu Soren became chief minister last December and politics in the state has slipped from the gutter to the sewer level since then. Farook must count his blessings for having lasted so long without a smear to his name.

It was bad enough working with a maverick like Shibu Soren. But now that the state is under president’s rule, Farook is the de facto chief and considering the mess that Soren and his team have left behind, he has got his hands full. As a three term chief minister of Pondicherry— the first as early as 1967— he won’t be found wanting in experience. He is determined to use his time as administrator to order a clean up. His first move is to hold Panchayat elections, which have never been held since the state’s formation ten years ago, this September. He has also made the Ranchi Raj Bhavan open house on Mondays for people to bring their grievances directly to him while Wednesdays are reserved for meetings with state secretaries.

Last week, he did the rounds of Delhi, meeting Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and home minister P. Chidambaram and armed with their thumbs up, is getting down to business. For the sake of that blighted state, more power to his elbows.

Election jackpot for automobile companies

IN THE old days, India’s only jeep manufacturer and the handful of light motor vehicle makers used to dread elections. That is when political parties flexed their muscles and virtually hijacked hundreds of brand new vehicles from their yards for use in the campaign. These were of course returned to the companies after the polls, but in a condition that no buyer would want to risk buying it.

Times have changed and with all political parties now flush with funds, vehicle manufacturers actually look forward to elections these days. Sales are brisk and with supply unable to keep up with demand, they are even charging premiums for early delivery.

Assembly elections are due in Bihar later this year and a windfall awaits the handful of SUV manufacturers in the country. More than a hundred candidates — independents and those from mainline parties — have ordered bullet proof SUVs that cost anything between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 40 lakh each from the manufacturers.

Many more have purchased the vehicles and handed them over to enterprising tin- shed entrepreneurs who flourish in parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh to customise the vehicles according to individual needs. Admitted, several districts in Bihar are Maoist affected and candidates need all the protection that they can afford. But the irony here is that most of the candidates are buying the fortified vehicles not out of fear of threats from extremists but from their own political opponents.

Until now, only the chief minister, some members of his cabinet and senior secretaries were accorded bullet proof convoys, but at the rate at which orders are going out for these vehicles, I reckon that up to 300 candidates will be going around campaigning in bullet proof vehicles with security cover being given by their own private armies. It’s a sad comment on the level of politics being practised in the world’s largest democracy.

IN OVER three decades that I have covered politics and government, I have found K. M. Chandrashekhar to be the most proactive cabinet secretary. I have in the past written about and lauded the many initiatives that he had taken to make the bureaucracy more responsive and in tune with the changing times. Last week, his term was extended by another year and you will be wrong if you think it was done for the good job he has been doing. In one stroke, the government has effectively put an end to all hopes that at least three senior secretaries— Ashok Chawla of finance, urban development secretary M. Ramachandran and P. J. Thomas of telecom — had of becoming the chief of the country’s civil services. For long, rumours had been swirling that the government would go to any extent to appoint Pulok Chatterjee, a 1974 batch officer currently with the World Bank in Washington, as the CabSec. Chatterjee, for the uninitiated, is a 10 Janpath loyalist who worked in the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and in the early years of the UPA was in the Prime Minister’s Office, serving as a link between the PMO and 10 Janpath. His elevation now would have involved the supersession of half a dozen officers of the 1973 batch.

By giving Chandrashekhar another extension, the government has got around this little inconvenience.

Snippets/ Mail Today, May 31, 2010

Trouble in store for YSR’s son

HELL hath no fury like a politician scorned…. by fellow politicians. YS Jaganmohan Reddy, the Congress MP who thought the chief minister ship of Andhra Pradesh was his birthright after the unfortunate death of his father YSR in a chopper crash last September, and his party are on a collision course which could end up with the state Congress splitting and the rise of another regional party in the next few months. Jagan believes that he has been handed the wrong end of the deal every time: no chief minister ship, no cabinet berth at the Centre, not even a job at AICC. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that his impending padayatra onslaught is aimed at the party leadership. During his state wide padayatra, he is to visit the families of the hundreds— the numbers seem vastly exaggerated— who had committed suicide on hearing of YSR’s death. But he does not have 24 Akbar Road’s sanction and the AICC wants Jagan to call off the padayatra. That Jagan has already hit the road, disregarding veiled threats from the AICC, is indication that he doesn’t see a place for himself in the Congress set up and has made up his mind to set out on his own.

The padayatra may seem a masterstroke, considering that it was a sustained and highly popular mass contact programme that enabled his late father to oust the Telugu Desam’s Chandrababu Naidu in the assembly elections in 2004. He is counting on the support of the Reddys who, though only a little over ten percent of the state population, form about 40 percent of the MLAs.
But trouble lies in store for Jagan. Supporters of the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti that is spearheading the cause of a separate state do not want him to enter the Telangana region.

Last heard, the Congress is tapping Praja Rajyam Party leader and actor Chiranjeevi to come to its aid. He will arrive in Delhi this week to meet both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. There is never a dull moment in Andhra politics.

Cheats with money abroad feel the heat

THE WHEELS of justice grind exceedingly slow, but grind they do. Last week brought bad news for unscrupulous rich Indians who stash away black money abroad after the IT department served notice on fifty Indians whose names the German authorities passed on to the Indian government as having accounts in that country. During the last election campaign, BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani had raised the issue and demanded that the money, which he claimed was about US$ 1.2 trillion, or the equivalent of India’s annual GDP, be brought back.

Advani’s argument was that, the money was enough to fund hundreds of hospitals, thousands of schools and lakhs of primary health centres across the country.

In the heat of the election campaign, Manmohan Singh scoffed at Advani’s charges but found the matter serious enough to ask finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to take a closer look. He did. Well begun, but will the job be left half done? My hunch is that. Because the tax cheats consisting mostly of politicians, businessmen, powerful bureaucrats, real estate sharks and others form a cosy club where everyone takes care of everyone else. Already, many rich Indians have got wind of the crackdown and are queuing up to pull their money out. Governments in the past too have tried and failed, but mostly because of a lack of will.

The UPA government would do well to borrow a leaf from the Obama administration which ordered a crackdown on American tax dodgers late last year. Within a fortnight after President Obama asked them to come clean, 7500 such cheats who had kept amounts varying from as little as $ 10,000 to as much as $ 100 million applied for amnesty. The amounts appear puny compared to the booty that Indians have hidden away. It’s time the UPA government shows the same resolve.

IT’S THAT time of the year when the heat wave takes its toll on the toughest of men, but the worst affected seem to be our ministers: the heat simply scares them away from Delhi. That many union ministers fix long official tours during the summer months is well known. Many of them take their families along, all of whom are looked after by the Indian embassy in the concerned country, though technically, ministers are supposed to pay for the expenses of relatives. While the government sometimes looks the other way on minor transgressions, ministers are strictly forbidden from accepting hospitality from private individuals or firms on such tours. But recently, a senior diplomat wrote to the Foreign Office about a conflict of interest involving a senior Union Cabinet minister.

The minister who was travelling with his family members flew in a private aircraft within the US and accepted the hospitality of several American hosts. The deputy chief of mission brought this to the notice of the Foreign Office as well as the joint secretary in the PMO who is the coordinating officer for foreign office. It is not the first time ministers are blatantly flouting rules. I am told that in the UPA’s six years rule, the government has reports of about 25 to 30 ministers transgressing rules, but this one was so blatant, the PMO has decided to soon crack the whip.

Snippets / Mail Today, May 24, 2010

Cleaning up the civil services

WITH CORRUPTION rising and babudom showing scant regard for ethics, the government has decided to crack the whip. Earlier this year, the cabinet secretary had sent notes to secretaries of all ministries at the Centre and chief secretaries in the states to take strict action against officers charged with corruption, indiscipline or actions that tarnished the image of the civil services. The CabSec’s missive was timely. Vigilance cases were registered against 54 all- India service officers in 2009, of whom 35 were from the IAS, 10 from the IPS and nine from the IFS. The corresponding figures for the previous year was 38, eight and four respectively.

Now the government plans to get tougher. Last week, the government set up a committee headed by P. C. Hota, former chairman of the UPSC, to suggest measures to expedite punishment in cases involving corruption and disciplinary proceedings.

One of the recommendations that will be considered is dropping compulsory retirement as a major penalty for errant civil servants and instead handing down the penalty of demotion or dismissal from service. The Department of Personnel and Training ( DoPT) feels that an officer who is penalised with compulsory retirement will continue to get all his retirement benefits.

Noting that compulsory retirement does not actually work as a deterrent, the DoPT says: “ In this way, such government servants may feel a sense of comfort even while indulging in wrongdoings because they know that even if they are compulsorily retired from service, they would get full pension benefits.” Instead, demotion or dismissal from service would send a clear message to all government servants of the severe consequence of wrongdoing, the note said. The DoPT has sought comments from all secretaries and state chief secretaries by June 5 after which the Hota Committee will review and fix new and tougher punishments.

Kashmir’s date with a high- profile visitor

KASHMIR has always occupied a special place in Sonia Gandhi’s heart and the Congress President will keep her date with the Valley later this month. Though it's a purely private visit, she is expected to check on efforts being made by the state government to clean up the Dal Lake on seeing which she is reported to have been “ shocked” when she took a shikhara ride last October while on an official visit.

The lake cleansing plan, being personally looked after by deputy chief minister Tara Chand, includes shifting some 11,000 families living around the lake and rehabilitating them on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Sonia Gandhi will lay the foundation stone of the new colony for the Dal dwellers. The Centre has been quite liberal in funding the clean- up operations and last year, at Sonia’s request, the Prime Minister sanctioned Rs 356 crore for the project. Only last month, Priyanka Gandhi, Robert Vadra and their two children flew away from the dirt and grime of New Delhi to celebrate the birthday of her husband at a five star hotel that overlooks the world famous lake. It was a private visit and even state Congress leaders were not given access to the family whose only social engagement was a lunch hosted by chief minister Omar Abdullah at the Dachigam National Park.

Priyanka’s was the first private visit by a Gandhi family member in almost a quarter century. Indira Gandhi was a frequent visitor to Kashmir as was Jawaharlal Nehru, a Kashmiri, who grew up in Allahabad, but went back as often as he could. Rajiv had made a couple of visits in an official capacity or to campaign during elections as has Rahul who campaigned during the last elections. Now that Sonia is on her way, Omar Abdullah should take a leaf out of Narendra Modi’s book. If Amitabh Bachchan can be persuaded to become brand ambassador for Gujarat Tourism, why not Sonia for Kashmir?

AS A community, Sindhis account for less than 0.3 per cent of India’s population. It is, thus, surprising to see everyone from President Pratibha Patil to the UPA chairperson lining up to woo such a negligible vote bank. Late April, Patil released a postal stamp to honour Kanwar Ram Sahiba, a leader of the Sindhi community, at a function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan where L. K. Advani was also present.

The function was held at the Durbar Hall, usually reserved for major events such as cabinet swearing in. In a break from protocol, the President also asked Advani to speak. Advani sought hard to make some connection between Ram Sahiba and the Lotus, which of course is the symbol of the BJP. Today, Sonia Gandhi is being felicitated by a delegation of Sindhis after which she will host a dinner for them. Sonia is, of course, a politician and needs to keep everyone on her side. But what explains President Patil’s overdrive to woo the community? Someone in the know tells me that in Maharashtra’s Amravati constituency which Patil once represented and is now held by her son Rajendra Shekhawat, Sindhis account for over 60,000 voters.

Considering that Shekhawat won the last election only after a recount, the President’s eagerness to keep Sindhis happy is understandable.

Snippets / Mail Today, May 17, 2010

Ministers’ scramble for the RS

WITH THE Election Commission announcing June 11 as the date for elections to fill 57 Rajya Sabha seats, time is running out for some high profile ministers who may start to feel the employment pinch. Anand Sharma’s term in the Rajya Sabha has already ended and those of Ambika Soni and Jairam Ramesh are ending by July.

Accommodating three Union ministers is a huge task for the Congress. Last week, when a senior Union minister from Tamil Nadu met Sonia Gandhi, she gave a clear hint that only loyal workers will be sent to the Rajya Sabha." You can suggest, and I welcome it, but please do not insist that A, B or C should be accommodated or X, Y and Z should be kept out" was Sonia’s blunt reply to the minister.

It’s almost certain that Soni will get one of the two seats that are up for grabs in Punjab but ensuring seats for Jairam and Anand is going be to a tough task for the Congress leadership. The two are as different as chalk and cheese. Jairam talks and talks and talks, while Anand maintains a low profile while quietly going about his job. In the latter's case, the Congress is now said to be exploring options in Rajasthan since in Haryana, which was also looked at as an option, Congress MLAs don’t seem to be very eager. It is after a long time that state legislators are openly defying the authority of the high command to make known their preferences for the Rajya Sabha.

These are the first signs that the AICC is losing its grip over the state units. The Andhra Congress is dead set against renominating Jairam and one of the reasons is said to be that he showed disrespect by not turning up for the funeral of the late chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. All Reddy MLAs, it is being said, will skip the voting on June 11.

Chief minister K. Rosaiah, who is just about settling in office after months of initial turmoil may find himself running into turbulence again.

Who is afraid of the big bad press conference?

SO MANMOHAN Singh has finally decided to go public, even if it means getting damned. Next Monday, the Prime Minister will address what is only his second formal press conference is six years. Normally, the news would have followed his press conference, but the very fact that the announcement of the event itself was considered breaking news by TV channels says a lot about our democracy. We elect our politicians to work for us and they cannot claim to be private citizens and ask to be left alone, however unpopular a government may be.

And Manmohan is not an unpopular ruler like, say, George W. Bush. Yet, even as his ratings plummeted after Iraq, Bush did not avoid the press and kept his monthly date with the media. Contrast this with our prime ministers. All of them, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was among the most popular prime ministers, kept the press at arm’s length. Ironically, it was Indira Gandhi whose contempt for the press was legendary, who regularly met the press.

Like millions of Indians, the media too rejoiced when she was voted out in the 1977 elections and after her triumphant return in 1980, she was widely expected to shun the press. But she chose to settle scores not by avoiding the press, but by inviting and then humiliating them. I had a taste of this once when I once accompanied Suman Dubey, then India Today managing editor and Sumit Mitra, Special Correspondent to attend one of her news conferences. Mitra asked her: " Madam, how do you assess the performance of your ( Congress) general secretaries?" She assumed that the question was specifically about Rajiv Gandhi who had just completed a year as a party GenSec.

You could see the rage in her eyes as she ordered us out of the hall. Manmohan is too gentle a soul to act in a similar fashion. But considering the smoke shrouding several controversial decisions of his government, the Prime Minister should seize the opportunity and try to clear the air.

THERE was a time when the only portraits hung in ministerial chambers in Lutyens’ Delhi were those of the President and the Prime Minister. But times have changed and where once a minister served in the cabinet at the pleasure of the prime minister, in today's coalition set up, it is no more the PM's prerogative to pick his cabinet colleagues. They are imposed on the prime minister chosen by regional chieftains whose support is necessary to prop up the government. The changed power equations are reflected on the walls of ministerial rooms. The rooms of DMK ministers have photographs of poet saint Thiruvalluvar and Karunanidhi. In the office room of S. S. Palanimanickam, there is a huge photo of Murasoli Maran with the words Ennude Gurunathan ( My Guru) inscribed and I am told that on entering his office, the minister actually stands in front of the portrait with folded hands for two minutes before taking his seat. The whole of Bengal may be celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of the state's most famous son Rabindranath Tagore, but for the Trinamool Congress ministers, the presiding deity is Didi. G. K. Vasan has one huge picture of Sonia Gandhi and one of his late father, G. K. Moopanar. Jairam Ramesh’s theme is his portfolio, Environment, so there are lots of pictures of animals, mountains — and even a volcano.

Snippets / Mail Today, May 10, 2010

Curious ‘ illness’ of absent MPs

MORE ON Parliament. There is much that is going wrong and MPs absenteeism is only one of them. There are some who get elected and haven’t seen the inside of the House, others don’t attend sessions for weeks together. Technically, any member who remains absent for 60 days or more without permission forfeits his seat, but it is seldom that the Parliamentary Committee on Absence resorts to the harsh step. A cursory glance at the report submitted to the Lok Sabha speaker by the Committee on Absence makes for interesting reading. While applying for leave, MPs have to detail the number of days for which leave is being sought and the reasons. Shibu Soren who never attended a sitting said he was ill while seeking leave from November 19, 2009 to December 12, 2009 and again from Feb 22, 2010 to March 23, 2010.

But he continued with his duties as the Jharkand chief minister in Ranchi and turned up in the Lok Sabha to bail out the government on the finance bill cut motion. As with most things about Soren, this too was bizarre as he was an ally of the BJP in Jharkand. He was granted leave for a total of 56 days. K Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti applied for leave from Nov 19,2009 to Dec 21, 2009 and then again from Feb 22, 2010 to March 16,2010, a total of 56 days.

His application clearly stated that he was on a hunger strike for a separate state of Telengana and the CoA agreed to give him leave. Soren’s party colleague Kameshwar Baitha was in jail for 33 days, leave granted. Kabir Suman ( Trinamool) claimed illness to take 20 days off but during the period, newspapers reported extensively on the Maoist sympathiser’s public activities. Neither sarkari babus nor even school children would have had it so easy.

The return of the prodigal minister

IS THE irrepressible Alagiri turning over a new leaf? It’s not just the DMK leaders, but even other MPs seem to think so and the evidence is plenty. It now transpires that after Alagiri raised the banner of revolt by vowing to contest for the post of Chief Minister and president of the DMK once his father calls it a day, M Karunanidhi decided to crack the whip and a disciplinary notice was even drafted.

Alagiri got wind of this and knew that if the party suspended him, DMK MPs and MLAs who swore by him would desert him, making younger brother MK Stalin, the undisputed successor. Big brother was convinced that the succession battle would be fought on a level playing field only if stayed within the party.

Besides, the booty from the highly lucrative ministries that are in his charge would also come in handy to fight the cash rich Stalin. Once his aides tipped him off on disciplinary action, Alagiri flew into Delhi from Madurai, attended a cabinet meeting, sat through an entire day's proceedings in the Lok Sabha and even began attending office for three hours every day.
He also seems to be taking rapid English lessons because the man who spoke nothing but his native Tamil is suddenly talking, even if in monosyllables sometimes, in English. But what surely takes the vada is this: in front of many MPs in Central Hall last week, he called to one of the canteen bearers and asked him " Aaj Kya Kya Hein Menu Mein?" Even as those around him wondered how he had overnight managed to master the national language, Alagiri pulled out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and held it aloft for everyone to see the question in Hindi written in the Tamil script.
There were chuckles all around which turned into loud laughter when one of the MPs remarked that even national leaders routinely read out Hindi speeches written in the Roman script.

LATE last year, Cabinet Sectretary KM Chandrashekhar who is quite net savvy and an ardent votary of e- governance sent memos to secretaries of all departments about the pathetic quality of the government websites. They were pathetic in terms of design, accessibility, quality and currency of content, all of which were compounded by the obsolete technology that was used. “ Today, websites are considered the virtual face of the Department in cyber space… and must accurately reflect the Department's activities and initiatives in the real world as well as offer more and more services online” his note said and asked all department Secretaries to nominate senior officers at Additional Secretary or Joint Secretary level who would ensure up- to- date and high quality content on the websites as well as ensure timely response on queries received through websites.

He has now gone a step further and has decided to give incentives to the ministries/ departments than maintain the best websites. The National Informatics Centre maintains more than 450 websites relating to virtually any government department or organisation and a new software developed by NIC translates all contents into about 85 foreign languages. Prizes will be given away in November this year and the winner stands to gain a prize of one lakh rupees. As the prime minister very graciously put in recently, " e- tarakki" is a major achievement of both the NDA and UPA governments.

Snippets / Mail Today, April 26, 2010

The case of the missing ministers

THERE are some people whose actions — or lack of it — never cease to amaze. M. K. Alagiri, the Union fertilisers’ minister and the DMK supremo M. Karunaidhi’s son is one such. He is an embarrassment to the UPA government, but since he has a doting father, there is nothing Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi can do but grin and bear the nuisance. Last week, he again caused red faces in the government by failing to turn up in Parliament for the question hour.
That he doesn’t attend cabinet meetings, even when matters concerning his department are up for discussion, is well known. Alagiri of course is not the only one. Mamata’s truancy is legendary as is A. Raja’s and so many other ministers, all belonging to alliance parties.

Some months ago, the India Today magazine had invoked the RTI to find out the attendance record at cabinet meetings after we learnt that at some sittings, it was less than 50 per cent. Our request was thrown out, almost as if we were seeking a state secret. In December, Sonia Gandhi had sent a missive to Congress MPs after the question hour in the Lok Sabha fell through one morning because of lack of quorum. Delinquency among ministers and MPs is nothing new but is rising alarmingly by the day. The latter can be dealt with by their respective party chief whips, but who is to rein in delinquent ministers? In the current coalition setup, the Prime Minister does not have the power to change even a junior level assistant to a minister from an alliance partner.

What is worrying in all this is that in a parliamentary democracy, collective responsibility reigns. What happens to the concept of collective responsibility if half the cabinet is on perpetual leave? The people have a right to know what their ministers are up to. The cabinet secretary would do the country a great favour if, after every cabinet meeting, his secretariat issues a circular that tells us who attended and who did not. The people will then know about the rotten apples.

Lotus fails to bloom in the Delhi heat

SINCE its ouster from power six years ago, the BJP has been bumbling from one blunder to another. The election of its youngest president hasn’t changed its fortunes and the litany of disasters continues. Last week’s anti- inflation rally in the Capital was the latest. It was to have been the party’s biggest rally in the Capital in more than a decade and was meant to signal the main opposition party’s new found vigour and a fresh offensive against the government.

That it turned out to be a damp squib was partly because it was ill- timed and partly because the well- planned but badly executed event was overtaken by other events. The party had threatened to unleash one million protesters on the Capital’s streets, but on the day, less than two lakh turned up. The reason was that in its catchment areas of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the party faithful were too busy harvesting. The oppressive heat in Delhi ensured that barring the hardcore, its substantial middle class supporters in the Capital stayed indoors. The party had hoped that the rally will monopolise TV airtime and print space, but thanks to Lalit Modi, the only pictures that newspapers carried and the only clips news channels showed were that of the party chief Nitin Gadkari, unable to bear the scorching sun, fainting towards the end of his speech and being helped to his feet by party colleagues who put wet towels on his overheated head.

The Delhi summer could take its toll on the fittest of men. But the sight of the man, who was brought in to inject fresh life into the party, collapsing, while others around him including 83- year- old Advani braved it out, has done no good to the morale of the party.

IN NORMAL times, the visit could have been dubbed as just one more foreign jaunt by another bunch of babus. But next week’s tour to Australia by a team led by Arun Mathur, director ( Enforcement) at the department of revenue, has attracted unusual attention from both the top echelons of the government and the corporate world. For the record, they will be participating in a meeting organised by the Financial Actions Task Group ( FATG) to monitor real- time money laundering by suspected terror outfits and drug smugglers.

India is just an observer for such meetings and has been lobbying hard for formal membership of the FATG. For the past week, the ministry of finance has been in a tizzy over Mathur’s agenda at the FATG. The government is already under attack for not making serious efforts to track the black money which is stashed in Swiss banks. The goings on in the IPL has added another dimension to the visit. The government is mulling over whether IPL should be added to Mathur’s agenda. It fears that if it does and gets a negative report, the entire investigative process will collapse. Thus, there is a suggestion for detailed but informal discussions with the top brass of the FATG before proceeding further. The government wants to be cautious now rather than regret later.

Snippets/ Mail Today, April 19, 2010

Now tatkal clearance for Games

IN THE old days when a telephone was a luxury and owning one involved a waiting period that often took years, you could opt for a Tatkal scheme and acquire a connection. Ditto for the railways where if you had to travel and didn’t have a reservation, you could opt for a ticket under the tatkal scheme. But ever heard of a tatkal clearance for the cause of sport? With the 19th Commonwealth Games now less than 200 days away, among the many things that cause headaches to cabinet secretary K. M. Chandrasekhar is the woeful shortage of accommodation for the thousands of visitors who are expected to visit the Capital for the 11- day event.

Delhi, rising India’s shining Capital, has fewer hotel rooms than many small cities in the US or Europe. The government came up with a scheme to bridge this shortage by offering fully furnished DDA flats at reasonable rates for visitors. Plans were afoot to offer about 2,700 such flats, but there were hitches. Green activists planned to petition the environment ministry against clearance for the flats. In Jairam Ramesh, they saw a friend who would sympathise with their cause and give the government a thumbs down.

Last week, the matter came up for discussion during a meeting of the standing committee of the CWG, chaired by the cabinet secretary. Faced with several imponderables, Chandrasekhar called Ramesh who promised to get back later in the day. The minister promptly reviewed the situation with the mandarins of his ministry and within hours called back the CabSec to assure him that clearance for the project had been okayed and the necessary notifications would soon be issued. Like everyone else, Chandrasekhar knows that Ramesh is a very efficient minister, but the minister’s lightning reflexes have now prompted the CabSec to rechristen Ramesh “ the Tatkal Minister”.

Nitish could mar prospects of BJP, Cong in Bihar

NITISH Kumar may have failed to get special status for his state from the Planning Commission, but during his tenure, the socialistturned- free- marketer chief minister has himself acquired a special political status in the state that goes to polls in a few months’ time. In the once lawless state, now there is more than a semblance of law and order. Yet, Nitish’s political arrogance and highly individualistic rule has not only created mayhem in his own party, the JD( U), but has paralysed the BJP, its ally.

On the eve of elections, the divide between the two is widening by the day and there is no clear agenda or chain of command to steer the NDA. While Nitish cocks a snook at his “ high command” in Delhi, the local BJP appears to be a house of cards which could collapse any moment. Five months after his appointment, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari has not chosen a state party president nor named a central leader to oversee the party’s election strategy. This is crucial, because the Bihar polls will be the first after Gadkari’s elevation and therefore could make or mar his own career.

The state BJP is being managed and manipulated by Friends Of Nitish Kumar ( FONK) based in Delhi and Patna. The Congress seems to be in a deeper crisis as state chief Anil Sharma is unable to carry the cadres with him. Jagdish Tytler, the AICC’s point man for Bihar, is spending sleepless nights in the heat and dust of the backward state, but his efforts may come to nought because the caste and community- ridden party consists of many invisible Nitish admirers.

Rahul Gandhi's resolve to revive the party in the state is unlikely to yield dividends unless he takes direct command. The only beneficiaries of the confusion are the regional satraps such as Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. The fate of the two national parties will depend on how quickly their central leadership rids their respective parties of the virus called FONK.

THE CURRENT BJP leadership may believe that there is no matter of national importance more pressing than the shenanigans of Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor, but the parent RSS obviously thinks otherwise. A resolution passed by the Akhil Bharatiya Prathinidhi Sabha of the RSS, which met last fortnight, was as much an indictment of the Centre and the state government in Jammu & Kashmir for the drift in the state as of the BJP leaders for nitpicking over trivial issues. The resolution was passed just a few days before Manmohan Singh left for the United States where he had a scheduled meeting with his Pak counterpart.

In the past, before any such meeting, the BJP president or the Leader of the Opposition called on the Prime Minister to convey the Opposition’s mood on important bilateral issues. No such meeting was sought this time, which the RSS feels, is an indication that the BJP had got its priorities all wrong. The new party president who hasn’t allocated work responsibilities to his office bearers despite being at the helm for nearly six months now, is busy hiring second grade management doctors to cure the party’s ills. Nitin Gadkari came to office promising to take the BJP back to its roots. So far, he has nothing to show and time may not be on his side for long.

Snippets/ Mail Today, April 12, 2010

MPs ready to get more salary, perks

NOT many outside the privileged group share the feeling, but our honourable MPs believe they are a very hardworking lot and therefore should be paid a lot more than they now earn. Sometime later this month, the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha will witness rare unanimity when MPs cutting across party lines join hands to pass a resolution— moved by a committee comprising their own— that recommends a substantial hike in their salary and perks.

Currently, an MP’s salary and perks add up to about Rs 65,000 a month. Besides, he/ she gets free travel on both Indian Railways and business class by air, constituency allowance, daily allowance for signing the Parliament roster, free electricity and phone, office and secretarial allowances, etc.

All these add up to an amount that could make many whiz kids working in top MNCs green with envy. It is customary for MPs to vote themselves higher pay and attractive perks. This time, they have done one better. They are demanding a better standard of living not only for themselves but for their children and even their servants.

While MPs are now entitled to 40 trips a year to New Delhi from their constituencies with their wives or personal assistants, there is a move to extend 12 free trips by air ( six two- way tickets to New Delhi and back) for dependent children.

What’s more, they are even seeking allowances for the domestic help that most of them bring along to Delhi. There are minor differences within the committee on the last one. I am told that Punjab and Haryana assemblies have already shown the way and I have no doubt that before the current session ends, the MPs would have voted for themselves another round of freebies.

Advani sees in BJP’s history an echo of Christian events

THE brilliant ideas that L. K. Advani hatches in his mind never cease to amaze. Now that there is a new and younger team at the party’s helm, the writer in him— remember he began his career as a film critic— seems to have resurfaced.

While the party that he once headed pursues issues that belong to an era long bygone, the tech savvy leader used the worldwide web to reach his thoughts to the world. It is not the medium he uses, but the message that he seeks to convey that is pushing eyebrows northwards.

Last Easter weekend ( April 2- 4), Advani was at the Kumbh in Haridwar where he joined the Dalai Lama and thousands of sadhus, sants and assorted scholars on the banks of the Ganges and took a pledge to make the holy river pollution- free. On his return to the capital, he sat down on his comp and pounded out a few stray thoughts on his blog titled “ sthapana divas” ( Foundation Day). “ The party is exactly thirty years old today. In 1980, the party was launched in Mumbai on April 6, Easter Sunday. This year Easter Sunday fell on April 4. I happened to be at the Kumbh in Haridwar where one of the speakers was Father Dominic Emanuel. He casually mentioned that this function was being held on the eve of Easter. That gave me an opening to recall how both the Christian festivals of the week, Good Friday and Easter, had significance even for the BJP’s history. Good Friday is the day on which Jesus Christ was crucified. Easter Sunday is the day of Christ’s resurrection.

And the launching of the BJP on Easter Sunday was certainly our ‘ resurrection’.” I spoke with many senior BJP leaders, none of whom could figure out the import of Advani ji ’s jottings. Is he turning over a new leaf? Or is it that he wants to end his career just the way he had begun it— as a writer?

THE Prime Minister is off to Washington and among the many knotty issues that will accompany him is this one: Who will take over from K. M. Chandrashekhar as the new cabinet secretary two months from now? The options: Sudha Pillai or M. Ramachandran, both from the 1972 batch.

Sudha from the Kerala cadre is the senior most and her elevation means another glass ceiling broken as she will become the first woman head of the civil services.

But there is a hitch. Sudha is due to retire at the end of the month and in case she has to be accommodated as the first woman cabinet secretary, the government will have to appoint her as officer on special duty in the cabinet secretariat with an extension of her tenure in the cadre beyond May 1, 2010. But since this contravenes rules, the only option is to grant her an extension of two years. The other option is to make her a member secretary of the Planning Commission which gives her the status of minister of state, but I gather she is not keen to accept this. A more attractive option for her seems to be the Union Public Service Commission. Sudha is one of those who doesn’t have to chase post- retirement jobs. The jobs chase her.

Snippets/ Mail Today, April 05, 2010

Governance agenda back on track

SO, AFTER a long gap of four years, the National Advisory Council is back with Sonia Gandhi once again heading it as the Chairperson. When set up shortly after the UPA had come to power in May 2004, it was often criticised as being a parallel power centre as Sonia enjoyed the rank of a cabinet minister and the NAC was given unrestricted access to all government documents, including cabinet files.

The NAC attracted further attention when, in 2006, Sonia got embroiled in the office of profit controversy and quit as its chief as well as a Lok Sabha member. She easily won reelection to Parliament but she did not return to the NAC which remained a defunct body. Even its website hosted by the National Informatics Centre simply said, “ This site is temporarily unavailable”. I am not surprised at the sudden decision to revive the NAC. The feathers in the crown of the UPA — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Rural Health Mission and the Right to Information Act, among others— were thanks in large measure to the vital role that the Council played in pushing these through in the UPA’s early years.

Since then, there is widespread feeling that the government has lost its way, particularly on the UPA’s social agenda where implementing policies and programmes that ensure delivery to the aam aadmi is first priority. Sonia is busy picking the members for the newly resurrected council which once constituted will meet once every month as in the past.

I believe that just as the government has decided to go in for a broad political consensus on programmes and legislation concerning national interest, the NAC under Sonia will interface with the civil leadership and provide feedback to the government to ensure that good governance is back on track. For first signs of that, I will keep checking the NAC website to see if it springs back to life.

Ministers learn that PM runs a tight ship indeed

MANMOHAN Singh is known as a prime minister who gives his ministers a free hand in running their departments. What is less known however is Manmohan’s habit of keeping a close watch on the departments, in particular, the financial health of units under the public sector. This was evident once again last week on the occasion of the inauguration of 47th National Maritime Week when Manmohan had a quiet tete- a- tete with the Minister of Shipping Shri G. K. Vasan where I understand he was busy quizzing the minister on matters like turnover and profits at our ports.
Normally, these are the kind of functions where the prime minister, or any other dignitary, pretends to be a keen listener but is actually very bored and can’t wait for it to be over. But Manmohan was different. What caught his attention was the theme for this year’s Maritime Week celebrations : “ Sea Faring: A Career of Opportunities”. Apparently, one of the speakers noted that there are about 50,000 ships sailing around the world at any point of time and the demand for new crew was estimated to be around 2 lakh sailors in the next five years alone. According to sources who attended the meeting, that’s when Manmohan smelt opportunity.

Remember, he is the man who unleashed the liberalisation process that now enables Indians and Indian companies to compete with the best anywhere in the world. He was all ears as the Shipping Secretary K Mohandas explained in detail about the immense potential in the sector and later as the Chairman of the Shipping Corporation of India gave a detailed account of the PSU. Don’t be surprised if the prime minister now keeps a close watch on the maritime sector. As long as there are jobs waiting to be filled and profits to be made, he believes Indians will be up there challenging the finest in the world for every job and every dollar.

FOR months now, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of External Affairs, the National Security Council Secretariat, Home Ministry and many other ministries and departments have been on guard against cyber attacks originating in China aimed at destabilising the establishment. Now here is something to prove the existence of the menace within. Last week, the government issued a curious circular. It was curious because the government went to great lengths to clarify that it had not revised rates of overtime allowance for central government employees. The circular issued by the Ministry of Personnel said: “ It has been confirmed from the ministry of finance that OM NO 1( 4) 2010 E- II dated 27/ 3/ 2010 signed by M Rajan Chandranaydu, Under Secretary to the Government of India, purportedly issued by the Ministry of Finance is a fake.

It is clarified that no such instruction has been issued by this Department or Ministry of Finance.
Ministries/ Departments are advised not to take cognisance of the fake instructions being circulated in Central Government Offices”. It remains a mystery how such a fake order was issued on the letterhead of an Officer of the rank of deputy secretary and even more, how it came to be pasted on the walls of central government offices across the capital. An inquiry has now been ordered and it is hoped that the culprit, possibly someone at the lower level, will soon be caught.

But pity the poor babus who went on a splurge in anticipation of a largesse.