BJP’s renewed imprint
Buildings are wearing imprints of the new BJP Government at the Centre. The swanky National Media Centre on the Raisina Road, inaugurated in 2013 jointly by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, last week sported a plaque on its façade with details saying Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation of it on December 5, 2001. It also says Home Minister lK Advani presided over the function with I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj, Housing Minister Ananth Kumar and Minister of State for I&B Ramesh Bais performing ‘Bhoomi Puja’. A case of déjà vu.
Of deadlines and babus
With the Cabinet Secretariat shooting off a flurry of letters enlisting the do’s and don’ts and setting specific deadlines for different tasks, many Secretaries have directed their staff to maintain a list of all such instructions alongwith the timelines wherever it has been set. “Strict adherence to meeting the deadlines is no longer only a journo’s concern, we babus too now need to get used to it,” a Secretary quipped jocularly.
Ex-AG in CWG Village
After an eventful tenure as the Attorney General, Goolam E Vahanvati has no plans to shift base to Mumbai, his hometown. Contrary to speculation, Vahanvati, in fact, will settle in the Capital. One of his associates said, “He (Vahanvati) has his calendar booked for this year in Supreme Court.” Recovering from a heart operation, Vahanvati is likely to move out of his official residence in lutyens Delhi to a fully-furnished apartment in the Commonwealth Games Village which will also serve as his chamber for all official work. This would be the first time that an eminent lawyer would be working out from the CWG Village.
Tech-savvy Vardhan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have been asking his Ministers to open Twitter accounts and create Facebook page, but Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan is probably among a few of his tech-savvy Cabinet colleagues who is already active on the social media platform to reach out to the public. A look at his Facebook page and Twitter handle shows that the doctor-turned-politician is not only keeping his followers as well as public updated on his steps taken every moment but interacting with them.
FM ratings
A Press conference by Congress to give a point-by-point rebuttal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent remark over the “empty coffers” left behind by the UPA in fact turned out to be a comparison between former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and the incumbent Arun Jaitley. On a question whether the Government contacted him seeking his advice to improve the economic condition of the country, Chidambaram said, “I do not give unsolicited advice”. When asked further as how does he rate Jaitley as a Finance Minister, the former Finmin was quick to respond with a smile, “I am not a rating agency.”
Fauj maange more!
With the maiden Budget session of the new Government round the corner, the armed forces are eager to put forward their case for more money to buy weapons, ships and planes. While the Army last week gave a detailed presentation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Navy and IAF are waiting their turn to do so. Both these services are equipment intensive and are hoping Modi will give them a sympathetic hearing for more funds to sustain the modernisation drive.
Javadekar’s corner
Prakash Javadekar, who holds the twin charge of the Ministries of Environment and Information & Broadcasting, is trying to make himself as accessible to the ‘aam admi’ as possible. He has laid emphasis on devoting a special corner of his Ministry websites for the common man. The ‘Minister’s Corner’ in the websites of both his ministries will enable the masses to interact with him directly. Such a step is certainly a sea change especially when the websites were virtually left meaningless after Jairam Ramesh’s exit from the Ministry in the erstwhile UPA II. let alone communicating with common man, they were seldom updated.