Delhi confidential: Margin Of Error

In an unusual turn of events, the Union government on Tuesday appointed a bureaucrat to serve as the acting Director General of the CPWD. Additional Secretary in the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry S P Singh, an IPS officer, has been given the additional charge of the post for six months, a move that is learnt to have led to disquiet among the CPWD’s engineers and architects. The appointment of a bureaucrat from outside the CPWD, instead of the engineers and architects who have risen through the ranks of the organisation, is rare and could have been a first in the over 170-year history of the department, it is learnt. The post had been vacant since October 31.

Old School

Justice K Hema committee report on alleged sexual exploitation of women in Kerala film industry has been seen as a landmark. After the release of the report, several female actors came out and narrated the harassment they faced while working in Malayalam cinema. But the three-member committee — retired High Court Judge K Hema, former IAS officer B Valsala Kumari and yesteryear actor Sarada — has remained silent about the report. Sources say Justice Hema is not keen on public discussions and interviews on the report as she thinks a judge’s work should speak for itself. She belongs to the “old-school judiciary” where judges refrain from talking to the media about their work, including reports and judgments, it is learnt.