Delhi Confidential: Panel Picks

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday made several key appointments related to Parliamentary Standing Committees for a yearlong tenure beginning May 1. The appointments were made to committees on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; Public Undertakings; Estimates; and Public Accounts. Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal has been named Chairperson of the Committee on Public Accounts. Incidentally, Venugopal is being seen as a probable candidate for the chief minister’s post in Kerala where exit polls predict a Congress-led UDF government.

Batch of Honour

As many as 17 secretaries, all of them from the 1992 batch, posted in New Delhi assembled for a farewell to outgoing MSME Secretary S C L Das on Thursday. Of these 17 IAS officers, 14 are secretaries in different Central government departments, including ministries, while the remaining three occupy the posts of Delhi Chief Secretary, UPSC Secretary, and Inter-State Council Secretary.

May Day Message

On May Day, associated with workers’ rights, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh associated with the RSS offered journalists an interesting interpretation in a personal message. The message said that the workers’ day for Indians is actually Vishwakarma Diwas on September 17. It said the May Day tradition draws from the 1886 “class struggle” violence in Chicago in which many workers were killed. The message said that labour and capital have to co-exist as an “audhyogik parivaar” (industrial family) and there should be no ground for clashes.