Communication gap

After taking over as BJP chief about three years ago,Nitin Gadkari has been consistently emphasising the role of information and communication technology for providing good governance.

Communication gap

After taking over as BJP chief about three years ago,Nitin Gadkari has been consistently emphasising the role of information and communication technology for providing good governance. Within the party,he has been exhorting everyone to make the partys internet channel Yuva4India more popular. Some things never change,though. At its national council in September,the party had amended its constitution to allow for a second term for its president. The party website,however,seems reluctant to show the amended clause. It still says that No member will hold the post of a President consecutively for more than a term of three years. The clause on the official website is suddenly getting noticed all over again,in the light of recent question marks over the second term to Gadkari after allegations of financial impropriety have surfaced against him.

POOLING TALENT

DURING the first set of bilateral meetings with his counterparts,External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid ran into an interesting personality on Thursday. The Seychelles Foreign Minister Jean-Paul Adam,who is in Delhi for the conference of India Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation,called upon Khurshid. The new Indian foreign minister was quite impressed to know that his counterpart from Seychelles was a champion swimmer,who represented his country at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics,the 1994 World Swimming Championships in Rome,the 1998 World swimming Championships in Perth,and the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona in 2003. He joined the foreign service in 1996 and progressed quickly to become the Foreign Minister.

TERROR TUTORIALS

SUSHIL Kumar Shinde will be among the first Home Ministers from India to attend the General Assembly meeting of Interpol which is being held between November 5 and 8 at Rome. Shinde is likely to deliver a speech on terrorism. His Pakistan counterpart Rehman Malik is also slated to attend the conference. Shinde recently took a meeting of top officials from IB,NIA and CBI to brush up his knowledge regarding global terrorism. Beside CBI Director A P Singh,Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar and DG NIA S C Sinha are also likely to attend the meet.

EXPANSION PLAN

WITH work piling up,the National Investigation Agency is planning an expansion and has decided to set up an office in Lucknow. The UP government had identified land for the office sometime back but it now turns out that the price quoted for the land by the state government is being considered prohibitive by the Home Ministry. The UP government asked for Rs 20 crore for the plot of land and the Home Ministry is learnt to have asked NIA to put its plan for a Lucknow office on hold for some time.