More than friends

Mulayam Singh Yadav owes the public an explanation over his growing intimacy with George Fernandes.

Mulayam Singh Yadav owes the public an explanation over his growing intimacy with George Fernandes. As convener of the NDA, George has not only been close to the RSS leadership but was also part of the BJP-led government at the Centre for six years and his conduct during the Gujarat riots was widely criticised when he tried to protect Narendra Modi in the NDA coordination committee. Now Mulayam says George will soon be inducted into the SP. It begs the question: how can one partner George and still call oneself a champion of secularism? Mulayam and George are actually working out a new political front that will favour the BJP in the national perspective. It is no longer a secret that during his six years as country8217;s defence minister, George did his best to protect decisions and deals done by Mulayam, his predecessor in office. The recent Parliamentary session demonstrated for the first time the obvious signs of collaboration between the SP and BJP; they spoke in one voice on almost every issue and left few in doubt about their relationship.

Occupational hazard

Every month the Department of Personnel receives a couple of applications from IAS and other service officials requesting voluntary retirement. The trend shows that only competent IAS officers are resigning; there8217;ve been no requests from average or 8220;tainted8221; officers. The government is understandably concerned at the exodus, which might drain the Indian bureaucracy of all of its high-performing officers. The most common reason cited by these officials for leaving service is their work environment, and the tremendous pressure they face from various watchdog institutions: the CVC, CAG, CBI and now the Right to Information Act. Civil aviation minister Praful Patel recently pointed out to this paper that bureaucrats are unable to take timely decisions because they are afraid of being pulled up by these institutions. In trying to avoid doing any wrong the bureaucrats are not doing anything at all.

Patel also asked why anonymous complaints were being entertained at all by agencies like CVC and CBI. The anonymous mechanism is invariably misused for a personal agenda and officials are often harassed for years; even if no discrepancies are found, their career is over. It8217;s high time the government looked into the pressures and constant threats of harassment afflicting our bureaucracy so that this exodus is restricted. RTI is a powerful act that empowers common citizens but there have been complaints of it being used to settle personal scores. Some NGOs have built a business model out of seeking peculiar information from government departments which is neither in the public interest nor affecting the common citizen in any manner. There is a serious danger of the RTI act being hijacked by vested interests, quite against the intention of the law.

Mumbai8217;s makeover

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has approved Rs. 12,000 crore for Mumbai8217;s facelift. I think one of the first steps to improve the lives of Mumbaikars is to improve the traffic. The moment the sea-link projects are completed, a large volume of traffic will be removed from the clogged suburban roads. Equal priority should be given to rebuilding the city8217;s antique drainage system so that waterlogging doesn8217;t become a life-threatening. Finally, the city8217;s surface should be thoroughly cleaned up. No new slum should be allowed to come up while those living in existing slums should be rehabilitated. There is already a scheme that is working successfully in this regard, it should be enlarged in its scope and even Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia, should be brought under it.

The writer is a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha