Captain’s Cue

The Army is using the emergency funds vested with the northern army commander for a very unusual purchase. While the funds are generally used to make purchases that are not anticipated in time for the budget,a current procurement that is being processed is for 80 new Global Positioning Service (GPS) devices to be put on board helicopters. While the Army insists this purchase was being pursued for some time now,it comes only after an Army helicopter strayed into Pakistan last October,raising questions on the quality of navigational equipment on board.

Prior Appointments

The Congress party may still be some distance away from reclaiming power in Punjab,but the bureaucracy has been buzzing with speculations about the officers who will comprise the core team of the new Congress CM in the state. Already,there are talks that Sudhir Mittal,additional secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs who is considered close to the Congress party’s CM-candidate Captain Amarinder Singh,might become the chief secretary of the state in the new regime. Some other senior officers of Punjab cadre,currently on central deputation,are also reported to be making preparations to return to the state once the new government is put in place.

Soft Landing

Those arrested by the CBI can hope to have a more comfortable stay in the agency’s lock-up. The CBI has recently opened a lock-up facility in the new building it shifted to last year. These are not just air-conditioned but offer better sanitation facilities and food as well to those who are in CBI custody. Till now,the lock-ups in the CBI’s old building were being used because the ones in the new office had not yet been completed. Former Telecom Minister A Raja and Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi had both spent their nights in custody in the old lock-ups.

Straight Talk

Mani Shankar Aiyar may not be in the good books of the party leadership,but that has not stopped him from speaking out his mind aloud. At a book release function on Monday evening,he left both the former and present Tamil Nadu PCC chiefs squirming in their seats when he declared that the Congress,for the last 45 years,has always had to hold a pallu (Jayalalithaa) or a veshti (Karunanidhi) to be relevant in Tamil Nadu and it could take another 45 years before the Congress could make it on its own. He went on to assert that Rahul Gandhi was already past the age for becoming Prime Minister,the reasoning being that members of the Nehru-Gandhi family had gone on to become Prime Minister just after 40. Aiyar,of course,was just echoing what all Congressmen say — that Rahul Gandhi should now take over as head of the government. But his dramatic statements left many wondering whether he had endeared himself to 10,Janpath or whether he had put his foot in his mouth.