Didi8217;s Different

To show that she is in a great hurry to get her new Bill against chit funds cleared by the Home Ministry,West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

To show that she is in a great hurry to get her new Bill against chit funds cleared by the Home Ministry,West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did something entirely uncharacteristic. On Sunday,her Finance Minister Amit Mitra flew down to Delhi to catch hold of West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan at Delhi airport. The Governor was on his way back to Kolkata from a foreign trip. Mitra caught hold of Narayanan at the airport lounge and got his signature on the Bill,without which the Bill could not have been forwarded to the Centre. While it was Mamatas way of showing urgency in the matter,some within her own party were left wondering as to why Mitra and company could not have waited for the Governor to reach Kolkata on Sunday and get his signature there. The team could have then flown to Delhi on Monday to deliver the Bill to the Home Ministry personally,if that is what was to be done.

Different Strokes

WHILE the role of IAS officers as district magistrates is considered to be one of the most challenging parts of their career,their record or duration of service at that level is rarely considered for their appointment to top jobs. There were quite a few secretary-level officers in the government who had put in longer time as DM than the three contenders for the Home Secretarys post that was decided recently. Anil Goswami,who emerged the winner,was DM for two years and six months,P K Mishra for two years and seven months and DRS Chaudhary for three years and 11 months. In comparison,Arun Kumar Mishra,Secretary,Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation,Deshdeepak Verma,Secretary,Parliamentary Affairs,and Saurabh Chandra,Secretary,Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion,have all spent more than five years as DM. None of them were considered for the post of Home Secretary. There are at least four serving Secretary-rank officers R S Gujral,Naved Masood,Sangeeta Gairola and Arun Kumar Jain who have never served as a district magistrate!

Radio Chatter

IN military terms,radio silence is maintained to ensure that no word of a planned operation or activity is leaked to the enemy. On Sunday evening,as the India-China border stand-off was close to a resolution,strict instructions were passed to all government agencies to maintain radio silence on the matter. The deal was to part with details of the resolution only after 10 pm when things became clearer. However as it turned out,details started trickling out minutes after the flag meeting to discuss the final details ended at 7.30 pm.

Double Whammy

A number of lawyers are learnt to have begun their attempts to grab the vacancy created by the resignation of former Additional Solicitor General Haren Raval,who quit after the furore over CBIs status report on the coal block allocation scam. However,nobody knows who exactly to approach to push their case since the fate of Law Minister Ashwani Kumar is also at the mercy of the Supreme Court which is to pronounce again in the case on Wednesday.