A cross-border exchange

WHILE the UPA Government expects to pass the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill in the forthcoming session of Parliament,the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science amp; Technology,to which the Bill has been referred,is set to embark on a study tour from July 14. The Committee,headed by T Subbarami Reddy,will visit Mumbai,Chennai and the temple town of Tirupati. While officials of the Ministry of Science amp; Technology were initially confused,they have now discovered the apparent reason for the committees visit to Tirupati: the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory NARL is located at Gadanki village near Tirupati. NARL is involved in carrying out fundamental and applied research in Atmospheric and Space Sciences.

Entering no-austerity zone

RAJASTHAN Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ended austerity measures in the state by flying business class to New York with a team of over a dozen ministers,bureaucrats and his personal staff. They had been initially booked in economy class as the austerity measures announced by the state government last September were in place till June 30. It was converted to business class after officials pointed out that the flight was in the wee hours of July 1. The visit is in connection with a conference of the Rajasthan Association of North America RANA.

Azad move boomerangs

UNION Minister Ghulam Nabi Azads move to send a delegation of 47 leaders from Jammu amp; Kashmir to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi last week to complain against PCC chief Saifuddin Soz appears to have boomeranged. Sonia is said to be extremely upset that while just two MLAs had sought appointment with her,such a large delegation actually turned up. What really infuriated her was the fact that the delegation included some lawyers who were not even members of the Congress. One such lawyer was B S Slathia,a prominent activist of the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti floated by the RSS in 2008. While the hunt is now on to fix responsibility for this,the Soz camp cant stop grinning.

A Left-hand drive

Last week,the CPIs white Honda City that often drove party general secretary A B Bardhan and party national secretary D Raja around the city,was stolen. This car also had its own bit of interesting history. In 2006,after a successful strike at the Honda auto plant in Gurgaon,the AITUC CPIs trade union wing had gifted the car to the party. So it was quite a relief when the car was finally recovered. However,this theft and subsequent recovery of the politically-incorrect Honda City car uncovered a sub-plot too. As the cops took the partys temporary driver,who had stolen the vehicle,to his native village in the course of their investigations,his family members were surprised to see him materialise after a long time. So,you have come back!, one of them exclaimed. According to party sources,it turned out that the driver had taken away the driving licence of his brother when he had left home for good after a tiff with the family. Since then,he had been driving around using this licence.

Trinamool eyes Cabinet upgrade

There is hardly any clarity on when the Cabinet reshuffle will happen,but the possibility has already got the six Ministers of State from the Trinamool Congress excited and expectant. The party,despite being the second largest constituent in the ruling coalition after the Congress,has so far avoided seeking Cabinet rank for its ministers,apparently because the boss,and the lone Cabinet minister from the party,Mamata Banerjee,is wary of creating a parallel power centre.

However,in the past few days,the party is understood to have informed the Congress that it would like at least two of its Ministers of State to be given independent charge of ministries. The party has not specified who it wants elevated,causing a lot of anxiety among the six ministers.

Bardhans trinamool gaffe

CPI general secretary A B Bardhan asked the Communist rank and file to go to trinamool last week. No he was not directing the cadre to go to the Trinamool Congress,but to the grassroots to make the Bharat Bandh a success Trinamool means grassroots in Bengali. At a convention organised by the Left in the Capital,he exhorted partymen aap trinamool main pohonchiye. Realising what that could sound like,he immediately corrected and said aap grassroots tak jayiye to seek support for the strike. Although Bardhans was a slip of tongue,many would see it as Freudian,given that several lower and middle-level leaders of the Left have moved to Mamata Banerjees outfit sensing the winds of change blowing in West Bengal.

Clearing the way for Uma

UMA Bharti is not banking on just L K Advani for making a return to the BJP. She is said to be knocking on the doors,quite literally,of party chief Nitin Gadkari too,to fast-track her homecoming. She has visited his residence more than once. But despite his desire to take her back,Gadkari is also helpless given the strong opposition to her re-entry from Madhya Pradesh by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the state unit. Keen to bring back all those stalwarts who have left the party in the past,Gadkari is now said to be trying to persuade those opposing her to have a rethink.

Peacock feathers trail Ramesh

While he is used to facing criticism from ministerial colleagues for his Ministrys intervention into their turf,Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh was in for a surprise from an unexpected quarter recently. The MoS,Rural Development,Pradeep Jain,wrote to Ramesh objecting to proposed amendments to the Wildlife Protection Act. The amendments,which seek to ban trade in peacock feathers/tails,have caught Jains attention as his community members reminded him the importance of peacock feathers in Jainism. Now,Ramesh is up for a balancing act between protecting wildlife and honouring the feelings of a religious minority.

Ad continuum

It Seems that the probe into an advertisement put out by the Women and Child Development WCD Ministry in a national daily earlier this year will remain inconclusive. While the goof-up,of including a Pakistan Army officers picture in an advertisement on the national girl child day,happened in January this year,and the ministry set up the inquiry after the Prime Ministers intervention,it is yet to come to any conclusion. And thats likely to stay the fate of the probe given that the trail of how that advertisement got cleared goes all the way to the top.

Health reports rising temperatures

Bristling over the attack on them by Union Minister of State,Health,Dinesh Trivedi,bureaucrats in the ministry at the Joint Secretary level have decided to take up the matter with minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. What has upset bureaucrats more is the fact that Trivedi has otherwise shared a good rapport with them at the Health Ministry so far. The reason behind his outburst,say insiders,is that Trivedi has been feeling rather cold-shouldered by Azad of late. While he was earlier a regular invitee to the ministrys various programmes,for the last few months he has either got to know about the functions at the last minute or has not been invited for some of them.

Power play in UP

Around the same time that the Uttar Pradesh government decided to change the name of Rahul Gandhis constituency Amethi by designating it as a district and renaming it Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar,the adjoining district of Rae Bareli,Sonia Gandhis constituency,was witnessing protests against prolonged power cuts. The state government was quick to blame inadequate supply from the Centre. While the Central government could not do anything about the renaming of Amethi,it moved swiftly to control the damage in Rae Bareli. When the Power Ministry came to know about the protests and state governments attempts to blame the Centre in the evening of Wednesday,it issued a clarification late at night,saying Uttar Pradesh was being allocated the maximum amount of electricity and that the state government was exclusively responsible for the power disruption. One doesnt know whether the clarification brought any succour to the people of Rae Bareli,but the Power Ministry must be hoping that at least 10,Janpath was satisfied with its promptness.