Mrs B & Mrs G

If you thought most government speeches were boring, stuffed with silly stats, you were right. The PMO thinks so too. Which is why TKA Nair, principal secretary to the PM, wrote an angry letter to all department secretaries. Dated March 30, the letter asks the secys to‘‘personally vet draft speech/materials submitted to the PM and also ensure that the policy statements or proposals that can be included in the speech have been duly processed and approved at the competent levels’’. Apparently, when it comes to sending material for PM’s speech, most departments send only ‘‘routine reports’’ or ‘‘mere compilation of facts’’. That makes life difficult for the 26 officers in the PMO whose job is to work on the PM’s speeches. The ministries have a different take — they say with more than two-dozen officers on the job, the PMO can surely apply its own mind, too.

State of State Bank

There are two bitter struggles on at SBI. One you know—between the management and unions. One you don’t—between various managers, the Finance Ministry and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). Current SBI CMD A K Purwar wants Yogesh Aggarwal, MD of an SBI subsidiary, to succeed him. The FM wants the job to go to O P Bhatt, MD of another SBI subsidiary. The DoPT wants answers to the kind of questions only the DoPT asks: why was Aggarwal given his last promotion 10 months ahead of others when they are all the same batch. Purwar, it seems, is not terribly interested in answering such questions; he wasn’t exactly shaken up when a letter from joint secretary, banking, asking somewhat similar things had arrived at his desk on January 2005. Whether he’s right or whether his critiques are, the fact is Purwar retires on May 31. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to pick the head of the country’s biggest bank.

Flight change

Lesson for every minister who has to deal with Left protests: let them think you’ll do the “anti-people” deed at place A and quietly shift the venue to place B. The idea is thanks to Praful Patel and it worked brilliantly for him. Left unions were getting itchy as the airport modernisation signing ceremony was drawing nearer. Having been told by the PMO that he would have to handle all the fuss, Patel let everyone, including his senior officials, think that the handover to GMR and GVK would happen at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan. On the day, while protestors and the red banners waited for Patel to reach the civil aviation HQ, he was at the Ashok Hotel, signing the papers and shaking hands. Even Patel’s OSD was out of the loop. The only other person wise to this strategy was civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad.

Mother’s land

Who said Rae Bareli will never test a Nehru-Gandhi? Sonia Gandhi’s reelection may be certain, but Rahul Gandhi’s election management is not. The son has been put in charge of the mother’s poll campaign. The means all the hurly burly of Indian elections and all that micromanaging – which rally will she address, which leaders should be allowed to bask in her glory, how many marigold garlands to requisition each morning. Rahul has been told to concentrate on the family business while other Congress leaders have been told to manage the five state elections. Rae Bareli’s campaign HQ has all the trappings, including shiny PCs, expected of ‘‘young politicians’’. There’s also one facility expected of only one young politician—a hotline to 10 Janpath has been installed.

Mani matters—again

As these columns had said, you can take Mani Shanker Aiyar out of diplomacy but not diplomacy out of Mani Aiyar. After arranging affairs in the Sports Ministry in a manner that international engagements become the norm, Aiyar now has an opportunity to globalise his other charge—local self-government. Hamid Karzai, the visiting Afghan president, is apparently keen on a few tips on how to run local councils. So, he will have Aiyar making a detailed presentation. Should be fascinating stuff – how to make warlords behave like gram pradhans.

Landmark performance

Whoever said statistics are like a bikini—it reveals the suggestive and conceals the vitals—should have worked for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). NHAI, as reports in this newspaper have demonstrated, is doing a poor job of land acquisition for the Golden Quadrilateral. But suddenly, its monthly reports show a sharp performance upgrade. The January report said only 14 per cent of the land needed for the southwest corridor was acquired. The figure was 48 per cent in the February report. Did we miss a Pg 1 story? No. NHAI thought everyone would miss the finepirnt, which makes clear that the 48 per cent figure includes

both land acquired and land in the process of being acquired. The

infrastructure committee headed by the PM noticed this and NHAI

has been told it must show both figures, land acquired and land for which notice has been sent.

Quiet a job

Brajesh Mishra would appreciate this. Or would he? UPA’s National Security Advisor M K Narayanan is becoming a dab hand at covertly working the levers of inter-government cooperation. He’s was off to Saudi Arabia over the weekend, to talk to his counterpart, Prince Bandar bin Sultan Abdul Aziz Al-Saud. Prince Bandar, perhaps the most cosmopolitan and colourful of the Saudi ruling family, and Narayanan talked energy. As did Igor Ivanov, the Russian NSA, and Narayanan, who took a quiet trip to Moscow a fortnight ago. Question everyone interested in unconventional diplomacy is asking: when will Narayanan meet Tariq Aziz, the Pakistani NSA?

Tailpiece

Don’t look at complicated ED investigations to guess whether Natwar Singh will make a comeback. The MEA’s workings are a far better indicator. Vikas Swarup, a foreign service officer, has been waiting for his new posting ever since Natwar first denied any wrong doing in the Volcker issue. The MEA had been waiting all these weeks. No longer. Last week Swarup was given his new posting as deputy high commissioner, Pretoria. That was MEA’s way of saying that they don’t really expect the ex-minister to come back.