Takeover of a ministry

HRD Minister Arjun Singh does not seem occupied with ministerial work these days. This was evident this past week when he skipped an otherwise “important event” from his political point of view: a three-day seminar on noted Urdu poet and political activist Makhdoom Mouiddin, organised by the Urdu language Council at the Islamic Cultural Centre under his ministry. Present were the CPI’s A B Bardhan, Congress leader P Shivshankar and the “secular”-minded gentry. That the PMO has taken over the reins of the HRD Ministry was confirmed when the idea of education SEZs was mooted by South Block, and babus of the Finance and Commerce ministries and the Planning Commission got together to finalise the concept. The buzz is that the education secretary was given a call at the last minute: the HRD’s token presence at the meeting. In the midst of it all, Arjun Singh spent considerable time with one “private” visitor—Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh.