Corporate crunch

At the function to mark the end of the annual Hindi fortnight,Corporate Affairs Minister M Veerappa Moily,whose mother tongue is Kannada and is not too comfortable with Hindi

At the function to mark the end of the annual Hindi fortnight,Corporate Affairs Minister M Veerappa Moily,whose mother tongue is Kannada and is not too comfortable with Hindi,had a poser for the officials of his Ministry,including those who were being rewarded for their skills with the Hindi language. Not too enthused hearing every speaker referring to the Corporate Affairs Ministry as Kendriya Corporate Karya Mantralaya,the minister,in his speech,asked everybody present to tell him the Hindi word for corporate. When nobody came forward,he announced that he would give an award to anybody who provided him the Hindi word for corporate. The award has yet to find any claimant.

Anniversary Waltz

This year happens to be the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore as well as Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya and the government has planned elaborate programmes to commemorate the event. However,recently the government realised that another important person,Motilal Nehru,the father of Indias first Prime Minister,was also born in 1861 and this year happens to be his 150th birth anniversary as well. It is learnt that Culture Minister Kumari Selja has now inquired from her officers as to how Nehru got ignored. Meanwhile,programmes to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda,which falls in 2013,have also been initiated.

Message Block

The BJPs media cell seems to be one of the first victims of the recent order from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India restricting the number of messages sent by one mobile phone to 100 per day. The party has a list of about 350 journalists who used to be informed of regular updates. With the restriction coming into force,it is now compelled to send emails. Only very few journalists continue to be informed through SMS.

Hasty Retreat

During discussions of the Mines and Mineral Development and Regulation Bill in the Cabinet on Friday,Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal brought up the issue of captive mines,seeking to know whether the provisions of the proposed legislation specifically those relating to sharing of profits from the mines with the local administration would apply to captive mines as well. Fearing that the discussions could drift away,Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee intervened immediately and asked Jaiswal why he did not raise this issue at the Group of Ministers meeting which had deliberated on the Bill for more than a year. Sensing the mood,Jaiswal made a quick retreat. The Bill was approved by the Cabinet.

Waiting for Pulok

A few important Secretary-level positions fell vacant on Friday. Amongst them was that of Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Raghu Menon retired from that position and his successor is still to be announced. Uday Kumar Verma,a 1976-batch IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre,who had served in the Ministry as Special Secretary,is learnt to be the front-runner for the post. Verma is currently Secretary in Ministry of Micro,Small and Medium Enterprises. The other post to fall vacant was that of Secretary in the Drinking Water and Sanitation department,from where Navin Kumar moved out on Friday,having been appointed as Chief Secretary of Bihar. Interestingly,while the government announced some Additional Secretary-level appointments on Friday,it has left the Secretary-level posts vacant for the time being. The grapevine has it that the Secretary-level appointments are awaiting the final nod of Pulok Chatterjee,who is set to take office as the new Principal Secretary to Prime Minister next week.