This is an archive article published on July 22, 2014

Delhi confidential: The perfect goodbye

Army chief General Bikram Singh will be visiting the Kargil memorial at Dras on July 25, a day prior to the Kargil Vijay Diwas.

3 min readJul 22, 2014 12:24 AM IST First published on: Jul 22, 2014 at 12:24 AM IST

THE PERFECT GOODBYE

ARMY chief General Bikram Singh will be visiting the Kargil memorial at Dras on July 25, a day prior to the Kargil Vijay Diwas. But according to those in the know, the event means much more than a mere ceremonial function. For not only has General Bikram Singh been the Corps Commander of Srinagar-based 15 corps, but was also the official spokesperson of the Army in the 1999 conflict which made him the face of the Army in the country’s first ever war fought under 24X 7 media glare. So even as the outgoing chief pays farewell visits to commands and formations to bid adieu before retiring on July 31, the glimpse of the memorial before hanging the boots is sure to mean the perfect goodbye.

JUMPING THE GUN

VINAY Srivastava, 1992-batch Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers officer, was Monday appointed as Private Secretary to I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar. But the series of events leading up to this appointment revealed how difficult handling a section of bureaucrats is proving for the ministers in the newly-elected NDA government. In anticipation of his new posting, Srivastava, who was last posted as a Director in the Cabinet Secretariat, had started sitting in the Shastri Bhavan office of Javadekar’s PS a few days back. This did not go down well with a section of babus in the Cabinet Secretariat who pulled him up for having joined the new office without getting relieved from his previous posting. The order announcing Srivastava’s appointment as Javadekar’s PS had to categorically state that “Cabinet Secretariat is requested to relieve” him for “taking up his new assignment”.

SOME CONSOLATION

SENIOR Congress leader Kamal Nath had hoped to become the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. As the senior-most member of the House, it was not unnatural for him to nurse this hope. But Sonia Gandhi had different plans. She overlooked him while distributing the parliamentary party posts. Kamal Nath is now said to be in the reckoning for the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which conventionally goes to the single-largest opposition party. There are quite a few contenders in the Congress even for this post though.

PUTTING IT IN PRINT

IN order to promote its flagship MGNREGA, the Rural Development Ministry has started a quarterly newsletter to highlight various issues concerning the scheme. The first edition of the newsletter called Saransh pertains to the April-June 2014 time-period and has introductory messages by Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari, MoS Upendra Kushwaha and Secretary L C Goyal. The eight-page newsletter is not available for sale and is entirely meant for private circulation.

SOMEONE TO STEER

THE Environment Ministry’s Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) may finally get someone to steer it. Headless for more than a year, ICFRE in Dehradun is likely to get Ashwini Kumar — a 1980 batch Indian Forest Service officer — as its DG soon. It is learnt that the Prakash Javadekar-led ministry has okayed Kumar’s candidature which now only awaits the nod from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.