Ex-Cabinet Secy146;s Current Clout

In fact, the shortlist of contenders included Kumar and two CTS officers. Kumar got herself deputed to the Ministry of Commerce more than two years ago while her father was Cabinet Secretary but inter-service friction being what it is, she continues to be regarded as an outsider.

Advani Catches Up With His Reading

Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani likes to keep in step with the times. So with disinvestment being the flavour of the month, it was natural that he should reach out for a book on the subject.

For several days last month, he was spied by friends and visitors with his nose buried in Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Stiglitz8217;s Globalisation and its Discontents.

Not quite what the pro-reforms lobby would have wanted him to read for Stiglitz8217;s book is a scathing appraisal of the impact of World Bank prescriptions for Third World economies.

Advani is apparently so impressed by the book that he8217;s been recommending it to Sangh ideologues and other colleagues. He8217;s even quoted from it during internal discussions on disinvestment and liberalisation.

Birthday Poops The Editors8217; Party

The annual Economic Editors8217; Conference, sponsored by the Press Information Bureau, has fallen by the wayside in the Government8217;s eagerness to celebrate its third birthday with a splash.

The Conference is usually held in September as a mid-term review of the state of the economy and budget promises kept and broken. But this year, the PIB has been so caught up in preparations for the birthday party, starting on October 13, that it simply hasn8217;t had time to organise the conference, a tradition since 1981.

The fillip for a big celebration this year seems to have come from L K Advani. He will kick off the party with a formal press conference in the Capital on Sunday. Government circles are eager to point out that no prime minister has had a media interaction on this scale since Narasimha Rao in 1994. Naturally, the PIB is in a tizzy. It8217;s putting together snazzy folders highlighting the achievements of various ministries. And over the next fortnight, various ministers will hold press conferences of their own to trumpet their performance.

BJP8217;s Ten-Lakh Strong Headache

On the party front, the BJP is in rally fever. It8217;s planning a mammoth show in the Capital in December to rev up its cadres for next year8217;s assembly polls and the parliamentary polls the year after.

Party circles are talking in terms of a crowd of ten lakh. The target is to beat the show put up by Devi Lal in the early nineties when he collected a crowd of some five lakh supporters from neighbouring Haryana. Those were the days of huge rallies when Delhi would be over run by people eager to sightsee in the Capital at the expense of a political party.

Unfortunately, the Boat Club, which used to be the venue for such events, is now out-of-bounds. The BJP is looking around desperately for an alternative site which is just as big, just as accessible and can make as much of an impact. It8217;s also hunting for leaders who can produce the numbers. With most of its high-profile leaders being Rajya Sabha members without a mass base, the party may ultimately have to scale down its ambitions.