Trouble in airAfter holding a review of Jammu and Kashmir affairs, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has now focussed on the functioning of the Civil Aviation ministry after Sharad Yadav reported to him that the bureaucracy was beyond his control.The PM was told that Air-India had to pay a compensation of Rs 108 crores to a London-based private firm for its own blunder. The Air-India signed the a contract to take aircraft on wet lease and cancelled it after finding its poor performance. The A-I board was not even informed by the Managing Director before signing the Letter of Intent. The PM now wants responsibility fixed for the gross misconduct.Home problemsSonia Gandhi too has a lot of non-political affairs to sort out. There is a fight in her secretariat, the two assistant private secretaries, P.P. Madhavan and S.V. Pillai cannot see eye-to-eye. Also, Sonia is upset over the Congress leaders queueing up at the Lodhi Estate residence of her daughter Priyanka as they did on herbirthday on January 12. It was strictly a family affair and outsiders were avoided. Priyanka did not even meet Arjun Singh who came with flowers. Sonia is disturbed over reports appearing in a section of the press that there is a fight in the family (between Rahul and Priyanka) over getting into politics.Time to moveMajor bureaucratic changes are on the anvil with 30 out of 150 IAS officers of the 1967 batch being empanelled for promotion to the rank of the Secretary by the Prime Minister's Office. Since seven secretaries are retiring shortly, there will be a major shake-up. In addition, a number of ministers want their `incompetent' secretaries moved. If Ananth Kumar wants his Culture secretary to be shown the door, Civil Aviation secretary is also not wanted in the Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan. There are many who are gunning for N.K. Singh too. Since Naresh Chandra has made it clear that he would not like to continue after Clinton's visit in March, Prabhat Kumar's name is making rounds as a possible USenvoy.Be my guestIf Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley came to the rescue of party's senior leaders (J.P. Mathur and others) by lending his 9 Ashok Road residence to them, Santosh Bagrodia and M.K. Subba have come forward to help out Sonia Gandhi's loyalists. Ajit Jogi who lost in the recent Lok Sabha polls has moved into Subba's house on 1 Talkatora Road. R.D. Pradhan who was made to lose in the Rajya Sabha polls by Sharad Pawar in 1998 will move into Santosh Bagrodia's Lodhi Estate bungalow.No takersV.P. Singh may have announced his readiness to enter politics. But there are no takers and no issues to relaunch him. His former commanders George Fernandes, Mulayam Singh and Laloo Yadav have their own fronts and are leaders in their own right. Sonia loyalists hate him and Sharad Pawar is not willing to touch him either.
