Yoga missions
On the International Yoga Day, not only the Indian missions abroad were highlighting how best they managed to celebrate the event on a foreign soil, but a lot of enthusiasm was visible from foreign embassies in India. While the Ministry of External Affairs collated pictures from all Indian embassies of the yoga performances, the foreign envoys present in India showcased their work through various social media forms posting pictures and videos of the yoga training prior to the event. The first to send a video was the Israeli embassy, which posted the picture of the entire embassy staff in yogic postures on Whattsup. On the D Day, US ambassador to India Richard Verma posted pictures of yoga performance by his team at Rajpath on Twitter. The Indian Diplomacy was busy posting pictures from Beijing to Bangkok, Yangon to Tashkent…and not to miss Islamabad.
Until Rahul returns
It is after a long time that the first family of Congress party will not be in the country for a week. Congress President Sonia Gandhi, her son and party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, and daughter Priyanka Gandhi have left for a short vacation abroad. The party stuck to its tradition not to reveal the destination of Gandhis , as it did in case of Sonia's earlier visits abroad or Rahul's sabbatical. The Congress leaders prefer to maintain a stoic silence on their whereabouts and say Rahul will return to hit the streets next week for a fiery Monsoon Session ahead.
Reticent Parrikar
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is avoiding media on the Army's successful cross-border raid into Myanmar against the North East insurgents a fortnight back. Asked for further developments in the Myanmar operations last week, Parrikar gestured to the media by placing a finger on the lips indicating he will not speak. Normally forthcoming, the minister, however, preferred to take some questions off the record and then left in a hurry saying." main aur nahin boloonga."
Eyebrows over award
The World Health Organisation' s prestigious HQ's World No Tobacco Day Award 2015 for South Asian region was conferred on Amal Pushp, director(Anti-tobacco division) in Union Health Ministry last month. But it went largely unnoticed in media as well as the Ministry itself. In fact, grapevine has it that even an Additional Secretary handling the division in the Ministry was surprised at the announcement as he had no clue about the official's name being sent for the nomination. Eyebrows are being raised at the credential of Pushp's claim to the award during his brief three-year stint with the department.
Et tu Thakur !
Yet another officer-Binita Thakur, IPS, in the HRD Ministry has sought to be relieved from serving the Minister, Smriti Irani, in the capacity of private secretary. In the past also, several senior level officers including Secretaries refused to work under the Minister. A. 1996 batch IPS officer of Rajasthan cadre Binita Thakur had had replacd Vinita Srivastava, who too had a brief tenure as Irani's PS. Others who sought early transfers include Additional Secretary Amarjit Sinha, Joint Secretaries Radha S Chauhan, Veena Ish, Jagmohan Raju and Praveen Prakash. Differences between Thakur and Irani came to the fore last month after Irani "occupied" the newly decorated office painstakingly designed by Thakur fort herself.
No takers
BJP veterans in 'Margdarshak Mandal' are drawing greater attention from the opposition camps than from within the party. Party patriarch lK Advani's comment on anti-democratic forces being "stronger" was appreciated by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Kejriwal even sought a meeting with Advani. locked in a high-stake battle of Bihar poll with the BJP, Kumar also reacted "positively" to another octogenarian BJP leader M M Joshi's comment that 'Namami Gange' programme would fizzle out unless more water flow is ensured in the river. "What is the use of 'Margdarshak Mandal' if the opinion of its members is not respected by the BJP itselfIJ" the Bihar Chief Minister asked.