Delhi Confidential: South Indian meals missed as Naidu holds virtual meet with leaders

Missing perks: Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday held a virtual meeting with leaders of various parties in the House on agenda for the Budget session, the first of its kind. While everyone appreciated that the meeting was taking place, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi lamented that it also meant certain losses. In a lighter vein, he said although technology allowed Naidu to conduct the meeting, the leaders missed out on the delicious south Indian meals that are served on such occasions. Naidu assured the leaders he will make up for it at an appropriate occasion. TMC leader Derek O’Brien complimented Naidu for the first virtual interaction and urged him to consider the same for standing committee meetings as well.

Running late: Already battling a controversy over recruitment drives, the Railways Ministry is lagging in filling up even its internal/routine vacancies at top levels. Three zonal railways are running without a full-time General Manager while the in-house process to appoint GMs is inordinately late. The post of Director General-Human Resource has also been vacant for a long time. Worse is the case of Divisional Railway Managers. Around 20 of them have completed their tenures and are simply waiting for next assignments since the past few months. Added to that is the mess over proposed Indian Railway Management Service, which never took off, but thanks to that Railways has not recruited Group A officers in the past two years and has no plans to recruit even this year.

Women power: Following the spectacular show of their women motorcycle acrobats on Rajpath during Republic Day, the BSF on Monday launched an official Twitter handle in their name (@SeemaBhawaniBSF). It will be used to promote the motorcycle team and will put out videos and photographs of their antics apart from news about them, BSF officers said. A similar Instagram account has also been opened. Notably, the men’s motorcycle team, which in 2015 got a thumbs up from US President Barack Obama, has got no such social media presence. “The idea behind the move is to use the appreciation and fame they have garnered to inspire women in general to achieve greater heights,” a BSF spokesperson said.