Inside track

With the new order, the ministries’ control over the PSUs will be drastically reduced since the annual confidential reports of the joint secretaries in charge of the 185 PSUs will be written jointly by the Department of Public Disinvestment headed by Arun Jaitley and the ministry concerned.

Losing out
Loyalist Makhan Lal Fotedar has been waiting patiently for the last few years to be rewarded by Sonia Gandhi. First, Fotedar was confident of becoming a CWC member, then Sonia’s political secretary and when both positions went to others he was sure that at the very least he would be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. The selection of Ambica Soni, Karan Singh and A.R. Kidwai to the Rajya Sabha from Delhi has shattered Fotedar.

For that matter the nomination of the dark horse Kidwai has taken aback many others in the Congress. Mohsina Kidwai was the favourite since the party had decided to give the seat to a member of the minority community. But UPCC president Salman Khursheed sabotaged Mohsina’s case for he sees her as a rival for leadership of UP Muslims. In the process of scuttling Mohsina’s chances the wrong Kidwai got rewarded!

Trust tussle
Former President R. Venkataraman will in all probability be elected Chairperson of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in place of Sonia Gandhi at the next meeting of its board. Though it is doubtful whether Sonia will agree to continue as just another member of the trust, which was till recently her personal fiefdom. So much so that even the salaries for several peons working for the Congress were paid by the IGNCA.

Incidentally, the next target of the Culture Ministry is the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Trust, which Sonia Gandhi heads, but in which Sanjay’s widow Maneka and son Feroze Gandhi find no place. The government wants to know why a private trust should be housed in a government bungalow.

Clueless in Lucknow
How clueless is UP Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta can be gauged from the following story. Sometime back Gupta berated a man whom he noticed had been following him around for several days carrying papers. The chief minister ordered the shadow to stop trailing him and advised him sternly to hand over whatever petition he wanted to present to him and get out. The flabbergasted man explained that he was in fact one of the CM’s secretaries!

Extended stay
In his two-and-a-half-years as director of the SPG, M.R. Reddy has been so successful that he has won commendations from both Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Vajpayee. Reddy had to continue after the his term expired because a replacement could not be found. Reddy was to move to Berlin in September as minister counselor at the Indian embassy after Tarun Kanti Kumar was finally designated as his successor.

But Reddy’s departure was again held up. First he was needed to handle the security for Prime Minister Vajpayee’s trip to Durban for the Commonwealth meet and then he was asked to stay on to familiarise his successor with the job while handling security arrangement for this Republic Day.

Guarding his turf
One of the first decisions of Vajpayee was to order a separate department for elementary school education, so that special attention can be given to this neglected sphere. Through the Prime Minister Principal Secretary to the PM Brajesh Mishra has sent several reminders to the Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, the department of primary education has still not been separated from that of higher education.

It seems that the Secretary Education M.K. Kaw is dragging his feet on the score. He does not want to bifurcate his territory and hand over charge to another secretary.