Fingers crossed
All top bureaucrats are eagerly waiting for the Prime Minister’s choice for the next Cabinet Secretary. The current Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha is retiring in June, and his successor is expected to be selected by June first week. Amid realisation that their track records alone will count and any lobbying could be counter-productive, the babus are keeping their fingers crossed.
Changing hue
Keeping in view the aesthetics of Raisina Hill, the Delhi Police last week changed the colour of its barricades. The bright yellow of the past has given way to sandstone hue that jells with the façade of Parliament House besides South and North Blocks. The Delhi Police now plans to have sandstone color barricades all along the Rajpath and other parts of lutyens zone, too.
Restless lalu
Bihar Chief Minister (CM) Nitish Kumar’s meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi last week has left RJD supremo lalu Prasad wary. lalu has been told that among other issues Nitish also discussed the alleged involvement of lalu’s Deputy Chief Minister son Tej Pratap Yadav in the soil-and-land scam. lalu has now sought an appointment from 10, Janpath with which he still enjoys an excellent rapport. On a day Nitish called on Sonia, lalu praised the Congress saying it played a crucial role in independence struggle.
App Down
Argue on law, and one can hardly beat the legal acumen of one of the greatest legal brains in the country — Fali Nariman. But talk of using technology tools like WhatsApp and Facebook, and the veteran lawyer is clueless. This was evident last week when Nariman made his submission on the need of protecting citizen’s privacy on social media platform before a Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra. Nariman argued that the issue of privacy of citizens was under threat with the WhatsApp’s latest policy to share information with Facebook. But when senior advocate Harish Salve commented on how popular these apps have become, Nariman, who was assisting the Court as amicus kept quipped, “keep me out of this.”
Modi’s mantra
In the recent BJP National Executive meeting at Bhubaneswar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned party leaders against getting distracted by poll victories and asked them to be ready to take a “long jump” in history. “Vijay ke baad unmad nahin hona chahiye aur jeet ko vinmrata se sweekar karna hain”, he said. Asked whether Modi named leaders who were supposedly in “unmad” (frenzy/delirium), former BJP President Nitin Gadkari smiled saying these are internal discussions and need not to be disclosed before the media.
Too many claimants
May 11 is the last date for submitting entries for the Prime Minister’s awards for outstanding contribution towards promotion of yoga at national and international levels, but Ayush Ministry is already flooded with the claimants. The awards are to be given on International Day of Yoga on June 21. On the second international Day of Yoga last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the two Yoga awards to be given to individual(s)/organisation(s) that make significant impact on the society by the promotion and development of Yoga. Sources in the Ministry said it’s going to be a tough task to select the recipients.