Delhi Confidential: Busy Schedule

Ladakh MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal appears to be the busiest MP in the region.

WITH PRIME Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership urging party leaders in Jammu and Kashmir to focus on development activities, Ladakh MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal appears to be the busiest MP in the region. He has brought several local leaders from different parties to the BJP and has also taken a number of senior party leaders to the region to infuse confidence among the youngsters — he also got ministers who visited Ladakh to make announcements for the new Union Territory. As infrastructure in the region has not developed much, he has now launched a pilot project in four government schools — a distance learning programme for students in Classes IX and X. According to the MP, he wants to help the Union Territory to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 4 — quality education — at the earliest.

The Interpreters

The Indian diplomats who worked as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interpreters during the informal summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan and Mahabalipuram are R Madhusudan and Priyanka Sohoni. While Madhusudan, a 2007-batch IFS officer, was the interpreter during the Wuhan summit, Sohoni, an officer of the 2012 batch, was in the role this time. These two fluent Mandarin speakers are the only people from the Indian side aware of the conversations between Xi and Modi. While Madhusudan is currently director in Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale’s office, Sohoni is First Secretary (political) at the Indian Embassy in Beijing and special assistant to Indian ambassador Vikram Misri. Interestingly, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale was the interpreter during PM Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 China visit.

Star Employee

Diwali seems to have come early for a railway employee. The senior engineer of a wagon workshop in Adra in South Eastern Railway has become the toast of the organisation after winning Rs 7 crore on the TV game show Kaun Banega Crorepati. While his participation did not receive much attention, the news of him winning the huge sum has drawn the attention of senior officials in Delhi. The episode will be aired next week.