Dynastic alliance

General defence for job loan

The surprise promotion of two Major Generals who were expecting to retire at the end of last month has stunned the top brass of the army. Since there were no available slots within the defence establishment for the newly-promoted Lieutenant Generals, the ministry simply appropriated two outside posts to accommodate them. One General has been appointed Director General, Ex-Servicemen’s Contributory Health Services, and the other Director General, Environment. On the file, the retiring Defence Secretary, Ajay Vikram Singh, has made clear that the promotions were at the instance of the Defence Minister.

Since Pranab Mukherjee is generally a stickler for rules, his insistence on the promotions has intrigued many, especially as Army Chief Joginder Singh too was reportedly against setting a wrong precedent. The surmise is that one of the Generals happens to be from the minister’s home state and a special exception had to be made for him. Because the other was senior in rank he could not be ignored. Ministry sources, however, maintain that no special favour has been shown and the minister was simply trying to implement Ajay Vikram Singh’s own report calling for more promotional avenues for the Armed Forces so that the services can retain talent. The two borrowed slots for the Lt Generals are a ‘‘temporary loan’’ and by October the Army will be in position to accommodate them in jobs within its own establishment, is the explanation.

Judicious selection

At the insistence of the Congress high command, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda reluctantly ordered a judicial inquiry into the brutal lathicharge by the cops on the workers of the Honda factory in Gurgaon. The choice of Justice G C Garg to head the inquiry is intriguing, particularly as Hooda claims confidently that the judge will complete the task assigned to him within three months.

Justice Garg, who was earlier asked to head a judicial inquiry into the Khanna railway accident of 1998 in which 210 passengers were killed, certainly took his own time about completing that inquiry. Garg, who was expected to submit his report on the railway accident within a few months, had not completed his task at the time of his retirement from the Punjab and Haryana High Court several years later. In fact, when Garg got a post-retirement position with CAT, it was agreed that he would work on his CAT job in the daytime and the railway accident inquiry at night. His report was finally produced only in 2004 and tabled in Parliament in 2005, six years after the event.

Blues over booze

Dilip Singh Judeo, the popular tribal leader from Chhattisgarh who lost his chance to be chief minister after a sting operation showed him accepting money on camera, was in the Delhi Press Club last week drowning his sorrows in drink. A photographer seeing a familiar face went up to talk to him and comforted him with a line which normally politicians fall for. ‘‘Sir one day you are bound to be CM, even if not this time.’’ Judeo, however, did not bite the bait. He lamented philosophically ‘‘Raaj gaya, path gaya’’, he had been disgraced and no one would ever consider him for the CM’s post.

Considering that he got into hot water for accepting cash from a stranger, one assumed that Judeo would duck the next time someone offered him a currency note. But when a journalist asked for his autograph on a Rs 1,000 bill, Judeo cheerfully obliged.

PM trips up officials

A report of the Expenditure Department of the Finance Ministry calculated that among senior bureaucrats, of the rank of joint secretary and above, almost a quarter of the 280 working days a year is spent abroad on one pretext or another. This works out to some 50 to 75 days a year. The most common excuse among IAS and IPS officers for a foreign trip is that they are going for mid-career studies.

Now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to act as a spoilsport. He has written a two-page letter to all ministers asking them to ensure that their officers cut down foreign trips. In fact, the government has already written to several foreign universities asking if they would like to formulate 15-day study course modules for Indian bureaucrats which could be conducted within the country.