Identity crisis

Six months ago Tourism Minister Ambika Soni was down in the dumps. Her ministry8217;s affidavit to the Supreme Court denying the existence of Lord Ram embarrassed the government no end. Rivals in her party speculated that Soni was on her way out. Far from being ejected, Soni has now got upgraded. Minister of State Kanti Singh has joined the ministry as her deputy. And the tourism ministry has been made part of the prime minister8217;s infrastructure committee. The government now recognises tourism8217;s importance. The revenue last year was a record-breaking 12 billion, up from 8.9 billion in 2006. Soni8217;s dogged attempts to promote India in countries such as Germany, US, and China are showing results.

Mum8217;s the word

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a man of few words. Though Opposition MPs in Parliament have repeatedly accused the PMO of impropriety in trying to expedite procurement of subsidised gas supplies for Transport Minister T.R. Baalu8217;s son8217;s firm, the prime minister did not rise to defend himself. He let others from his party do the talking. At cabinet meetings, generally, ministers like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Kamal Nath and P. Chidambaram speak while Singh simply nods his head occasionally to signal agreement. Even those of Singh8217;s staff, who because of the nature of their duties are in constant proximity to him, confess privately that they know much less about him than any of his predecessors. Singh is such a closed book that not many are even aware that his surname is actually Kohli not Singh. He dropped Kohli after his return from Oxford University.

Doubly discriminated

As A child, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati probably felt discriminated against more because of her sex than her Dalit status. Behenji, a political biography of Mayawati by journalist Ajoy Bose, which is to be released next week, recalls that Mayawati smarted and suffered from her father Prabhu Das8217;s pronounced male bias. Her father even contemplated remarriage because his wife had borne three daughters in quick succession while he wanted male heirs. Her mother eventually produced six sons. Mayawati was the best student in the family but she was sent, along with her sisters, to low-performing government schools while the family8217;s small income was spent on educating the boys in private schools. Prabhu Das maintained that his sons were his future and needed special grooming. Years later, Mayawati had her revenge. When she became a political force to reckon with, her father approached her with a request from his village to announce a special scheme for Badalpur. Mayawati could not resist taunting him, 8220;But I thought it was your sons who were going to carry forward the family name.8221;

Caught in the middle

CBI director Vijay Shankar is caught in the middle between the two feuding chieftains of Bihar, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav. Lalu was acquitted by the lower court in a case of disproportionate assets filed against him by the CBI. The Bihar state government appealed against the judgment in Patna High Court, since the CBI did not do so. The Patna High Court accepted the appeal. Lalu then filed an SLP application in the Supreme Court challenging the high court order and the CBI filed a similar SLP. Shankar has to keep Lalu happy, but at the same time he does not want to annoy Nitish. He has met both men to plead that he should not be dragged into a political battle and blamed for doing his duty as an officer. The CBI director is struck by the coincidence that Lalu was a Bihar chief minister who became a central railway minister and Nitish was Lalu8217;s predecessor in the railway ministry who later stepped into Lalu8217;s shoes as chief minister. The CBI director has told both that they are ideal candidates to be prime minister some day.