Sorry General
The judges of the Supreme Court may have accepted the apology of former Army Chief General VK Singh last week, but they were not ready to oblige him by accepting his autobiography as gift. When Singh’s counsel and legal icon Ram Jethmalani offered the book to the two judges on the bench, they bluntly refused. “We can ask library to purchase not one but two books,” Justice RM lodha said. The book narrates the General’s unpleasant brush with law on his age row that fetched him a contempt order.
Silent Sibal
Union Minister Kapil Sibal recently opened a Twitter account. Those who expected some fireworks from the Minister where shocked by the Minister’s silence. He has only around 100 followers, and he is not following anybody. People close to Sibal say he may start tweeting poems through Twitter. The problem Sibal may face is that Twitter allow maximum of 140 words in one tweet.
Sulking Uma
BJP leader Uma Bharti is sulking again. The Sadhvi flew to Nagpur recently to meet RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat, whom she complained about her ‘marginalisation’ in the party. Grapevine has it that the sarsanghchalak has requested her to keep a low profile for now and concentrate on contesting lok Sabha election from a seat in Uttar Pradesh. The sanyasin is smiling after an assurance about important role in future Government.
Strong message
A senior BJP leader ruffled many feathers at a marriage function in Nagpur on Friday. This extrovert BJP leader bumped into RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat every time any party colleague was seen discussing issues with the sarsanghchalak. Irritated at frequent interventions by him, a senior Sangh functionary gave him an earful. The BJP leader left the venue only after the message was delivered.
Jumbo Congress for Bihar
The Congress seems to be in a combative mood to bring back its lost glory in Bihar. It has prepared a ‘jumbo’ sized list of office-bearers for the BPCC following a meeting with vice-president Rahul Gandhi last week. The list has 97 Secretaries, 84 Organising Secretaries, 83 Executive Committee, 24 General Secretary, 17 Vice Presidents, 11 Spokespersons, 7 Special Invitees and one treasurer. What caught the eyes in the 324-member list was a name identical to AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmed as Madhubandi’s Executive Committee member.
New job
After serving a long stint of almost five-year in the Department of AIDS Control in Union Health Ministry, 1980 batch IAS officer and Additional Secretary Aradhana Johri is set to join as Secretary of the Department of Pharmaceuticals. Sources said that Johri, whose name has been cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, is likely to join the new post on Monday.
Goodbye Russia
As aircraft carrier Vikramaditya formally joined the Indian Navy last week with the Russian flag coming down, it left many Indian and Russian Defence personnel moist-eyed. They had worked together in Sevmash port for more than five years in harsh winter conditions to refurbish the carrier. There were many ups and downs during the process but the Indian team of more than 500 got along very well with their Russian counterparts. The Indians also opened a school for their children and taught Hindi and Bollywood and classical Indian dances to the Russians. When Defence Minister AK Antony formally inducted the ship info the Indian fleet, the Indian and Russians could be seen crying y as their association was coming to an end.
Jayanthi’s way
Known as a reticent Minister, Jayanthi Natarajan was minced no words at the just concluded Cop 19 UN Climate change negotiations at Warsaw. While she backed walkout of the activists and NGOs from the conference due to lack of progress on any of the issues related to developing countries, she also spoke vociferously in support of walk-out by G-77 countries again over certain issue of disagreement between developing and developed nations.