Also moonstruck

In a departure from convention, President Pratibha Patil gave a late night telephone interview to a TV channel on India8217;s moon-landing without the knowledge of most of her staff.

In a departure from convention, President Pratibha Patil gave a late night telephone interview to a TV channel on India8217;s moon-landing without the knowledge of most of her staff. Some in the President8217;s secretariat were taken aback by thenbsp;departure from protocol. Shenbsp;seems to have been prompted by an adviser, who felt that her predecessor A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was hogging all the creditnbsp;for the Chandrayaan missionnbsp;success and she must feature in the credits somewhere.

Kalam, who is said to have first mooted the idea of a moon impact probe MIP innbsp; Chandrayaan, was quick to congratulatenbsp;the ISRO team when he heard the news in nbsp; Chandigarh of the successful moon mission take-off.nbsp;The scientists werenbsp;enthused by Kalam8217;s encouraging words and invited him to witness the moon landing from the control station.nbsp;On the day of the landing, Kalam occupied centre-stage. Newspapernbsp;photographsnbsp;and television footagenbsp;showednbsp;the former president rejoicing over India8217;s singular achievement along with the scientists. Kalam addressed a press conference with the ISRO top brass.nbsp;nbsp;

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who should have appropriated some of the credit for this major milestone in Indian space technology, got left behind. His messages of congratulations were belated, since he was away in Tokyo when the satellite took off,nbsp;and in Washington when itnbsp;landed on the moon.

Minor slip, big fall

The Egyptian Ambassador hosted a lunch in honour of President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak8217;s wife Suzanne at his residence. BJP MP and former deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Heptullah, who moderated the discussion on the state of women in Egypt, remarked in her speech that she was extremely sorry that she had to cancel her recent trip to Egypt because she had slipped on the treadmillnbsp;while exercising.nbsp;Heptullah added only half in jest that those who were in politics know full well that a small slip can often lead to a very big fall.nbsp;Some of thenbsp;high-powered women guests assumed that she was referring to herself,nbsp;since Heptullah8217;s political careernbsp;had taken a nosedive after shenbsp;incurred Sonia Gandhi8217;s displeasure for anbsp;minor slip. Others thoughtnbsp;she was empathising withnbsp;her former party colleague Margaret Alva, who now finds herself in the boondocks after speaking out of turn about the sale of party tickets.

Transfer of authority?

The Jaipurnbsp;civic authorities recently transferred a sweeper to a different ward since it had received numerous complaints that he was not cleaning satisfactorily. The transferred sweeper complained to the Election Commission that his transfer was in violation of election rules.nbsp;Amazingly, the State Election Commission took the complaint very seriously and promptly issuednbsp;a notice to thenbsp;Jaipur Development Authority, calling for an explanation and asking fornbsp;the name of the officer whonbsp;had ordered the transfer.nbsp;The EC verballynbsp;asked for the sweeper to be transferred back to his original ward. nbsp;

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PSU cutbacks

A Union Minister was taken aback when a navaratna PSU under his ministry explainednbsp;apologetically that it could not foot the bill for newspaper advertisements placed by the ministry announcing the inaugural of a prestigious project in Tamil Nadu by him. The minister had in fact personally selected the photographs to be displayed along with the ad. Consequently the ads had to be cancelled at the last minute. In view of the financial crunch, PSUs had been asked to cut costs by at least 10 per cent. Apart from stopping funding free publicitynbsp;for their ministers, PSUsnbsp;are also cutting back on bulk orders for special diaries, calendars and other New Year gifts.

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Video conferencing

Cabinet Secretarynbsp;Chandra Shekhar has issued a circular to 80-odd secretaries to the GoI, explaining that as part of the e-governance initiative, the National Informatics Centre NICnbsp;had been asked to installnbsp;the infrastructure for video-conferencingnbsp;in their offices.nbsp; The purpose is to save time and money by avoiding unnecessary travel to attend conferences. NIC has installed the EVCS executive video conferencing service in nearly 50 secretaries8217; offices so far. Already, the committee of secretaries, which used to meet in thenbsp;cabinet secretariat, has started video-conferencing. Since the cabinet secretariat8217;s office is a mere kilometer away from the offices of all other member-secretaries, it is doubtful if there is much cost cutting.nbsp;The real test will be whethernbsp;travel outside Delhi comes down. Some secretaries remain resistant to change and use the video screen to hang their face towels.