Inside Track

The inspector general — Forests, the additional inspector general — Forests and the head of Project Tiger, motored down to Ranthambore to win brownie points with the Union Environment Minister Suresh Prabhu, who is from the Shiv Sena. Prabhu also turned up at the sanctuary to get a glimpse of the only tiger cub who really matters to him.

Prabhu, initially keen on an economic portfolio, has decided to make the best of what has been allotted to him. The minister has been globe-trotting on the pretext of attending environment-related conferences. He began his tenure witha trip to Mauritius and the Maldives and recently returned from a 15-day junket-cum-conference to New York. Now he is off to Kenya.

Georgian style

Defence Minister George Fernandes’ methods may be unorthodox but the armed forces are beginning to appreciate the minister’s concern for their welfare. Take the case of the long-pending order for the purchase of snow mobiles for the Army in the Siachen glacier. The file for the urgently required snow mobiles had been shuttling between two officials in the supply department of the secretariat for almost two years.

The civilian in charge of clearing the purchase kept dragging his feet, raising all sorts of nit-picking queries on the file, even though the Army commanders explained repeatedly that the snow mobiles were required urgently. The majority of fatal casualties in Siachen are not caused by enemy fire but by accidental falls into ice crevices because most of the snow mobiles are old and unreliable. Not only did Fernandes clear the purchaseinstantly, but he also ordered that the two bureaucrats who had needlessly held up the file do a stint at the glacier so that they could experience at first-hand the gruelling conditions under which our jawans function.

Forward thinking

The Brahmin lobby in the UP BJP has been gunning for Chief Minister Kalyan Singh for quite a while. But the OBC leader, without whom the BJP’s Lok Sabha victory in the state would not have been possible, is quite a match for them. Singh quietly stymied the chances of his two Brahmin rivals — Lalji Tandon and Kalraj Mishra — by ordering a CBI inquiry into the construction of former Chief Minister Mayawati’s grandiose Ambedkar Park.

Singh knew that besides Mayawati, Tandon and Mishra who were both ministers in the Mayawati cabinet would also find themselves in hot water in an inquiry. Another potential chief ministerial aspirant was the UP BJP state president Raj Nath Singh who represents the Thakur lobby, but Raj Nath Singh has recently mended his fences withKalyan Singh.

The anti-Kalyan Singh lobby has now floated the idea that the Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi should take over as the chief minister and Kalyan Singh be accommodated in Vajpayee’s Cabinet. While Joshi is willing, Kalyan Singh has made it clear to the party high command that he would prefer to resign from the party rather than give up his chief ministership.

Obstinate CEO

Last week’s meeting of the Prasar Bharati board scheduled for 10 a.m. began 45 minutes late since the board members first had an informal discussion in Chairman Nikhil Chakravartty’s room preparing a strategy to tackle their powerful CEO, S.S. Gill. At the formal board meeting, members questioned Gill’s competence in unilaterally appointing Harish Awasthi who was earlier DG (news) AIR and head of news DD as DG Prasar Bharati (news), when there was no such post.

Gill did not bother to consult the board about the appointment though his candidate has been charge-sheeted in the specialCBI court. Besides DD and AIR have not been merged so far. Despite the board’s objection, Gill has not withdrawn his controversial order and Awasthi’s large brass name-plate proudly proclaims his new designation.

Poor example

Food Minister S.S. Barnala has appointed S.S. Dhuri, who was his election agent and still looks after Barnala’s constituency, as chairman of Delhi’s Super Bazar co-operative store. The store incurs an annual loss of Rs 45 lakh, but the new chairman is not exactly setting a good example in cutting costs. After taking over a fortnight ago, Dhuri immediately demanded that his office room be broken down and extended so that it was larger in size than the managing director’s office. Now he has put in an order for a new vehicle though the chairman’s car was bought only a few months ago. Dhuri uses the official car to shuttle up and down from Delhi to his home in Punjab on weekends.