Inside track

Equally curious is the wording of the appointment letters for the Solicitor General and the four additional Solicitor Generals. Usually, theappointment letters specify that the position is for three years, but this time the appointments are simply 8220;until further orders8221;!

Diplomatic moves
Naresh Chandra, our ambassador in Washington, is on extension till President Clinton8217;s visit early next year. Chandra is often dismissed as a stodgy bureaucrat but the fact that successive governments from Narasimha Rao to A.B. Vajpayee were pleased with him speaks for his diplomatic skills. Which is why there is a possibility of Chandra getting an extension.

The front-runner for the ambassadorial slot in Washington is K. Raghunath, who retires as Foreign Secretary at the month-end. Raghunath seems a trifle shy, pedantic and stiff in dealing with the media. But his USP is his mentor, the all-powerful Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to the PM, who would like to place a man of his choice in this job. Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar, whose name is also being mentioned in connection with the post, is unlikely to be shifted. Kumar, after all,is such an acquiescent Cabinet Secretary that it is in the government8217;s interest to retain him exactly where he is.

Jubilee Tent
The original idea was to construct a larger-than-life replica of the Chief Justice8217;s Court complete with wooden paneling, benches and a dais which could accommodate 2,200 people for the inaugural of the golden jubilee celebrations of the Supreme Court on November 26. But after several concerned lawyers questioned the ostentation of wasting Rs 12 lakh for a temporary structure, at a time when Orissa is facing a major tragedy, the organisers including the Supreme Court Bar Association had second thoughts.

Especially as some complained that the baraat pandal in the precincts of the Supreme Court compound was an aesthetic eyesore. Chief Justice A.S. Anand ordered that the half-complete pandal be pulled down. Festivities will now be more modest. President of the SC Bar Association, K.K. Venugopal, says his association8217;s jubilee function, for instance, will be held undera cloth shamiana rather than a wooden pandal.

But since the pandal was already half erected, it is unclear how much money the tent contractor will agree to refund. Incidentally, those concerned whether the Rs one crore allocated to the association by the Law Ministry when P.R. Kumaramangalam was the caretaker Law Minister has been frittered away on jubilee celebrations can relax it seems the government could not eventually deliver the money because of the Kargil crisis.

Royal hoax
It was a surprisingly tendentious report for the conservative Hindu. The news report datelined Durban claimed that the Duke of Edinburgh had committed yet another gaffe by suggesting in a conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee that in a country with a population of one billion, a few thousand extra deaths in the Orissa cyclone made little difference. After the British government emphatically denied the story, the newspaper issued a retraction to say the newspaper and the senior journalist whose by-line was on thereport were the victims of a hoax.

It is claimed that someone else from Durban filed the story from the media room in the name of the correspondent.

Name calling
Just days after the cyclone hit Orissa, Chief Secretary S.B. Mishra, left for the USA leaving the state administration at this critical juncture in the charge of the Additional Chief Secretary S.M. Patnaik. The Chief Secretary who abandoned his state in its hour of need had people punning on his initials 8212; he was dubbed 8220;State Bhago Mishra8221;.

Meanwhile, Patnaik whose initials are S.M., has been nicknamed 8220;Slow Moving Patnaik8221; since the relief is taking its own time to reach the people. And D.N. Padhi, the official-in-charge of the relief work, has the equally uncomplimentary twist to his initials,8220;Do Nothing Padhi8221;.