Back in action

Tharoor also attended a meeting on Tuesday on the mid-day meal scheme.

BACK IN ACTION

Minister of State for HRD Shashi Tharoor made his first public appearance since his wife’s death at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Tuesday at the ceremony to confer the Bharat Ratna on cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and scientist C N R Rao. Dressed in white, Tharoor now also sports a beard. In keeping with Kashmiri traditions, Tharoor had stayed off work for 10 days after his wife’s death. While the grieving period draws to a close this weekend with the immersion ritual to be carried out at Kanyakumari, the MoS is back to work due to the Parliament session. He is also addressing a public event later this week. Tharoor also attended a meeting on Tuesday on the mid-day meal scheme.

HOT SEAT

Even as four-time Lok Sabha member from Chandigarh Pawan Kumar Bansal faces an unprecedented situation with five contenders seeking the Congress ticket from his seat, the Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee’s move to take Rs 10,000 as security deposit from those applying for the ticket has raised eyebrows in party circles. No such fee is charged in any other state. Grapevine has it that the CTCC’s decision was prompted by influential leaders who wanted to keep challengers out of the race. But CTCC president B B Bahl has a defence for this: “Hadn’t we imposed this fee, 200 applications would have come. Who would have processed those? People who have applied for a ticket earn well and there is nothing wrong if they pay an amount for the party.”

WRAP UP TIME

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HRD Minister Pallam Raju has decided to call one last meeting of the IIT Council while he is in charge. It is planned for next month. The idea, it is learnt, is to wrap up and consolidate whatever has been worked upon in the last few Council meetings before a new minister takes over and changes are effected. The Lok Sabha elections will not only — in all probability — bring a new education minister but also effect major changes in the bureaucracy at the ministry. Secretary Higher Education Ashok Thakur is set to retire in September and Additional Secretary Technical Education Amita Sharma will retire in August.

THE INTERNS

The Trinamool Congress has received applications from 31 students of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, for a two-month internship the party wants to offer to aspiring MBAs from the country’s premier B-school. It will ultimately take two from the final year for the two-month programme. A team of five core members from the party will conduct group discussions and interviews to select the two. The party hopes to give its campaign, especially online, an edge by strengthening “Brand-Mamata” and hopes that the internship programme turns out to be a mutually beneficial exercise.

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