Inside Track

But after finalising the agreement, a powerful lobby of hardliners in the Foreign Office created a hue and cry insinuating that even a mere discussion on Kashmir amounted to high treason. With Salman Haider’s retirement as foreign secretary in June, the MEA mischievously backtracked on secretary-level talks by maintaining that Kashmir as an issue should be put on the back burner and the sub-committees deal first with issues like commerce and barrages.

The Pakistanis, feeling cheated, withdrew from the talks. Prime minister I.K. Gujralwas upset but he could not fight the Foreign Office’s sabotage of the talks single-handed.

Fortunately, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee has the vision and statesmanship to realise that there can be no meaningful dialogue in which one side digs in its heels from the start. In the resumed Indo-Pak secretary-level talks, we have returned to the original formula. Though our too-clever-by-half diplomats have tried to cover up the fact with marvellous obfuscation. “India and Pakistan have now resolved the problem by agreeing to sequence the elements of the dialogue but retaining its larger unity,” is the official line of the MEA!

Cut to size

Buta Singh’s supporters claim that though he was excluded from the recent Mumbai rally of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who questioned his secular credentials, cutouts of him nonetheless were displayed, testifying to his popular appeal.

The truth is that the rally’s organisers had made three-in-one cutouts of Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mulayamand Buta Singh. When an order came at the last minute to remove Buta Singh, it was impossible to do so without upsetting the equilibrium of the remaining two cardboard figures. Then someone came up with a strange brain wave: since Akali Dal member Kuldip Singh Wadala was formally joining the Morcha at the rally, the Buta Singh cutout should be disguised to resemble Wadala.

The Buta cutout’s skin was given a lighter hue, the turban colour changed and the beard lengthened and whitened. But these alterations could hardly disguise Buta Singh’s familiar features and stocky build. While Wadala, a minor politician, was overwhelmed by the prominence he was getting in the new front, others in the know were in splits over the real reason for his sharing the limelight.

Demolishing his clout

Sithanshu Mittal is Delhi’s most influential tent contractor. His friends include senior BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and Delhi MP Vijay Goel. As a result, his temporary pandals forweddings can end up as permanent fixtures. When the New Delhi Municipal Committee last week pulled down a `building’ with fancy Roman columns which Mittal was constructing on the posh Aurangzeb Road, purportedly for a wedding, Mahajan took the demolition as a personal affront.

The odds seemed stacked against the civic body considering the high-powered intervention on Mittal’s behalf. Mittal himself has the tendency to throw around the name of even the Prime Minister. (The fact that outdoor caterers were exempted from paying service tax in the Budget is seen as a proof of his phenomenal clout.) But despite Mittal’s best efforts, the Aurangzeb Road construction could not be saved, as the PMO politely declined to intervene in the matter. Worse, it frowned on attempts to misuse its name.

Unready to retire

Increasing the retirement age of government servants from 58 to 60 years was on the clear understanding that there would be positively no further extensions. But influential bureaucrats are alreadyat work to break the new age barrier. The PMO has written to the Personnel Department to examine a proposal for allowing extensions after 60 in exceptional cases.

Seeing the civilians happily extend their career life span, the armed forces have also got greedy. The service chiefs wrote to the Government suggesting that the retirement rules for the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force be amended to make 60 the retirement age, no matter if the mandatory three-year period in the post has been completed. Fortunately, the Government has turned down the request.

Curious query

Company Affairs Minister M. Thambidurai is under flak for sitting over investment proposals from some 150 corporations involving around Rs 1,000 crore. Often the methods employed to stall investment proposals can be downright ludicrous. Take the case of a leading industrial house which submitted a proposal along with its balance sheet, showing that it had foreign funds in two leading Swiss banks, United Bank of Switzerland andCredit Suisse First Boston.

The babus in the ministry promptly shot off a letter to the company demanding to know the details of its holdings in the two foreign banks, apparently unable to differentiate between a depositor and a share-holder!