Silenced by foreign hand

Unintelligent move

Last month the director, Intelligence Bureau, came out of the Prime Minister’s Office at South Block and discovered that his official car was missing. The SPG had insisted that the IB director’s driver park his car about half-a-kilometre away, at the bottom of Raisina Hill. The IB chief was furious. After all he is supposed to brief the Prime Minister regularly and a space for his car has always been reserved. There were many red faces in the PMO after he protested. Standing instructions were issued to ensure that the director’s car be permitted to park in the front entrance of the PMO.

Coloured views

Sonia Gandhi announced that she was not celebrating Holi this year because of tsunami. But since the tragedy occurred in December some felt that it was a bit odd to prolong the period of mourning till late March. Sonia’s political opponents believe that she does not really enjoy the messy colour exchanges and was looking for an excuse. Once the party president had given the royal veto, others in the Congress dutifully followed suit. The traditional Holi festivity was completely absent at the Prime Minister’s residence this year. The official explanation is that this was not because of tsunami but because Manmohan Singh is not very comfortable with colour since he does not normally play Holi.

In contrast, Opposition leaders Vajpayee, Advani and Nitish Kumar and even UPA minister Ram Vilas Paswan observed the festival with customary exuberance at their respective residences.

Clipping their wings

Most officers in the Press Information Bureau at Shastri Bhawan spend their mornings with a pair of a scissors, a pot of glue and piles of the day’s newspapers. An important part of their job is maintaining clipping files of all press references of their respective ministries and ministers. But such old-fashioned manual methods mean that the clipping files reach the concerned ministry well after noon, when press clippings are required by ministers on their desk the first thing in the morning.

Recently, the finance ministry asked its information officer to check with NIC whether it could supply a computer software by which newspapers could be automatically scanned and relevant portions displayed in a special file. The officer is dragging his feet in following the orders. If NIC introduces the software he will be rendered redundant, as will his colleagues in other ministries. As it is, the other major function of the PIB, briefing the media, has been snatched away. Most ministers prefer to speak to the press directly or get their personal staff to do so.

Sugar-coated boast

It was Maneka Gandhi who introduced her cousin Virendra Mohan Singh to politics by making him her OSD in 1989. But once the two fell out, Singh tried to wreak revenge by attempting to cut into her vote share in her Pilibhit constituency. First he joined the Samajwadi Party, then Mahinder Singh Tikait and now he is in the Congress party. Singh fought the last Pilibhit parliamentary election on the Congress symbol and lost his deposit. He claims close proximity with the top leaders of whichever party he happens to join. Recently, he announced to the local media with amazing effrontery that he was the man behind Rahul Gandhi’s maiden speech in Parliament on the payment of arrears to sugarcane growers in UP.

Tytler as marriage broker

They sniggered when Jagdish Tytler was made a minister of a newly-created portfolio called NRI Affairs, but Tytler has had the last laugh. He has succeeded in carving out for himself a substantial empire from what was once just a tiny wing of the Ministry of External Affairs. From two rooms in South Block, Tytler has expanded to two floors of the former Akbar Hotel, though he still does not have enough manpower to fill up the office space. Tytler has got budgetary sanction for setting up offices in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand and London. He has even taken over the Protectorate of Emigrants from the Labour Ministry.

Tytler’s latest scheme is a marriage bureau for NRIs which will check out the bonafides of prospective NRI grooms. For a price the bureau will investigate whether the groom-to-be has been married before or has a live-in girlfriend. It will also confirm whether or not he holds a permanent job or owns a house.