Close ties

REMEMBERING VIVEKANANDA

CULTURE Secretary Sangeeta Gairola is on a tour of the US and Canada these days for programmes related to 150th birth anniversaries of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda. She will open an exhibition on Tagores work in Toronto but it is in Chicago where she will try to finish an incomplete task. The government has pledged a Chair at Chicago University in commemoration of Vivekanandas birth anniversary and wanted to install a brass plaque with his image etched on it at the Arts Centre of the university. The US authorities,it is learnt,had resisted the idea as the university rules discourage deification of any kind. But after a lot of prodding from New Delhi,the university conceded,and a temporary metallic plaque was installed when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited the university in January. Gairolas job is to ensure that the university agrees to get a permanent brass plaque installed by July.

AUSTERITY BITES?

THE Health Ministers non-participation in the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva has set tongues wagging about whether he has become the first casualty of the governments austerity measures. Health Ministry officials confirm that his original plan to travel to Geneva was turned down by the PMO but deny it was because of austerity. Instead,they insist,Azad was required to be present in Parliament during the tabling of the Lokpal Bill.

TABLE MANNERS

ON her dinner table at the third anniversary function of UPA-II,Sonia Gandhi had all the important ally partners Lalu Prasad,Mulayam Singh Yadav,Saugata Roy,Omar Abdullah for company. There was another person on the table,who was the odd man out senior Congress leader Karan Singh. Congress insiders played down any significance of Karan Singhs presence on the high table,considering his closeness to 10,Janpath. But with Presidential elections round the corner,the privilege given to Karan Singh,a perennial Presidential hopeful,did not go unnoticed. Some were even speculating on the chances of him getting the post of Vice-President if not the President. Incidentally,everybody on the table,including Sonia Gandhi,enjoyed a full course of meal,satisfied as they seemed at the good job done by the UPA government.

THIRD YEAR RUNNING

FOR the third straight year,the UPA anniversary has coincided with a tragedy. In 2010,the first anniversary of UPA-II was marred by the Mangalore air crash. Last year,there was a railway accident at an unmanned level crossing in Madhubani district of Bihar. And the rail accident in Andhra Pradesh ensured that the unlucky streak continued for this year as well.