Un-warranted changes

The Home Ministry now plans to update the Warrant of Precedence yet again and has written to all ministries inquiring whether new offices or positions have been created which deserve inclusion.

The big question is, will there be a slot for Sonia Gandhi, who holds no official position ever since she resigned as chairperson of the National Advisory Council. Since the Gandhis have never been circumscribed by the rules meant for lesser folk, to make a place for the UPA chief in the official hierarchy is really unnecessary. For instance, in Parliament, conventional rules of seating and allocation of office space have been given the go-by where Sonia is concerned.

Party mixer

Of the 10 names of organisers on the invitation card for the Amrit Mahotsav to felicitate former prime minister V P Singh on his 75th birthday last Sunday, three high-profile hosts were missing from the function. Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was in Germany on an official trip, Sharad Yadav was in Varanasi attending a rally with his new partner in UP the Apna Dal and Prakash Karat was in Tuscany, Italy, on a family vacation. (Interestingly it was a senior government official who was keen to spread the word of the CPI-M general secretary’s upmarket holiday destination through SMS).

The guests at the Amrit Mahotsav cut across the political spectrum. There were even two MPs from the BJP, Maneka Gandhi and Dharmendra Pradhan, though Singh’s relationship with the party is far from cordial. From the Congress, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Santosh Mohan Dev and Natwar Singh attended the dinner hosted for Singh by Ram Vilas Paswan the same night, causing comment since party loyalists are irked by some of the remarks in his about-to-be-released memoirs.

Interestingly, the speakers all lauded Singh for his role as a social activist, but almost no one praised his performance as prime minister. Former president R Venkataraman in fact damned Singh with his faint praise, ‘‘Singh would have been a good prime minister if he had had a majority in Parliament.’’

Unsporting advantage

In the ongoing tussle between head of the Indian Olympic Association Suresh Kalmadi and Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer for control of the preparations for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010, the former was believed to have the upper hand. His advantage is that nobody wanted to quibble about the escalating costs of the games for fear they would be accused of holding up the work, delaying the completion of the projects on time.

But the PMO now seems to have taken heed of Aiyer’s complaints of extravagance. A budget of Rs 680 crore which was cleared during the NDA government has now shot up nearly ten fold. The Principal Secretary to the PM wrote to the Cabinet Secretary last week stipulating that the infrastucture committee for the Commonwealth Games should submit its report by July 31 and the committee of secretaries by August 31. Significantly, the letter adds that while considering the requirements projected by the Commonwealth Federation and the organising committee, caution should be taken to avoid ‘‘unnecessary and extravagant expenditure’’.

Previews pack punch

The PM’s media adviser, Sanjay Baru, plans a modest function for the release of his book Strategic Consequences of India’s Economic Performance next month. Strategic affairs scholar K Subramaniam rather than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the chief guest. But considering the glowing previews of the book from a galaxy of eminent persons, the release is unlikely to be a low-key affair. Those who have highly recommended the book include Farid Zakaria, Narayana Murthy, Jagdish Bhagwati, Martin Feldstein, Y Venugopal Reddy, Sunil Khilnani and Ashley Tellis. Cynics might suggest that Baru’s proximity to the seat of power has something to do with the rave notices. In fact, Baru was a highly respected academician and journalist before he took up his present assignment, and the book is a compilation of articles he had written in his previous avatar.

Doctors at war

During his confrontation with AIIMS Director P Venugopal, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss called on Arjun Singh. Ramadoss was hoping to get the HRD Minister’s support in his battle against the director, whom Ramadoss accuses of having backed medical students in their agitation against OBC quotas. Singh, who has generally been very vocal on the pro-reservation issue, however, preferred to keep silent this time. Singh happens to be a patient of Venugopal, an eminent cardiologist.

If the AIIMS Director has withstood Ramadoss’s efforts to ease him out so far it is because he has a formidable range of powerful patients, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former prime minster Vajpayee and Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

Meanwhile, Ramadoss’s detractors claim that as President of AIIMS, he has left himself open for disqualification as an MP as he holds an ‘office of profit’ and this post has not even been included in the amended OoP Bill. But considering the pivotal role Ramadoss’s PMK party plays in Tamil Nadu politics, he cannot be unduly bothered.