Dimples Day

Three months after the retirement of General V K Singh,the Army is still carrying out a quiet clean-up exercise. Lt Gen Vijay Kumar Pillai,Delhi area commander,is the latest V K Singh associate to have got a change in assignment. Pillai,who belongs to the same regiment as V K Singh and was appointed as the Delhi area commander by the previous chief,has been transferred to Chennai,much before the expiry of his tenure. With Singh having turned full-time activist and receiving a flurry of visitors at his Delhi Cantt residence,sometimes between 20-30 vehicles a day,Pillai had come under criticism for failing to control the free passage of large number of people in the high-security zone. His role on the night of the January 16 troop movement to Delhi coinciding with V K Singh approaching court on the date of birth issue had also come into question as the para commandoes from Agra had been stationed in a unit which fell directly under his jurisdiction. A few days ago,Lt Gen A K Choudhary,director general of military operations,was moved to a relatively low profile position in Bengal area. Choudhary had been reprimanded in January by the Defence Ministry for the troop movement. Another officer,Lt Gen Ashok Singh,who as commander of Mathura corps had ordered the mechanised units to march towards Delhi,has already been moved out,having been appointed as Commandant of the National Defence Academy NDA.

Moving On

Arun Kumar Jain,the controversial whistle-blower in the Prasar Bharati Board whose disclosures led to the ouster of the then CEO B S Lalli,has finally been transferred out of the organisation after a rather tumultuous tenure as Member Finance. This 1977-batch IAS officer has been appointed Advisor in the Inter-State Council Secretariat under the Ministry of Home in the rank of Additional Secretary. His appointment came just a few days after Rajiv Takru,Additional Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the government appointed nominee on the Prasar Bharati Board,was moved to the Health Ministry. Takru also served as acting CEO of Prasar Bharati for some time and the two officers were known to have a running feud within the Board. With both the gentlemen moving out,the Prasar Bharati is hoping that the Board would finally get down to doing some useful work.

INSIDE OUTSIDE

NATIONAL Advisory Council NAC member Aruna Roy seems to believe in voicing opposition from within,as she did a couple of days ago in a letter to NAC chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi demanding a halt on commissioning of new nuclear power plants. A few weeks back,when the NAC was being reconstituted,Roy had told Sonia Gandhi that she was not so sure whether she would like to renew her tenure. Gandhi did not try to persuade her but just told her to let her know by the next morning when the orders for the new NAC were to be signed. Early the next morning,Roy had sent in her confirmation that she did indeed want to continue for another term.

Short Fuse

Increasingly,ministers are complaining that last minute additions to agendas of Cabinet meetings are making it difficult for them to form their opinion on important issues. Last week,the Cabinet papers landed at some ministers offices minutes before they were to leave for the meeting,prompting a senior minister to lose his cool. Incidentally,it is the same Cabinet Secretariat that some time back had asked all the ministries to send their Cabinet items well in advance so that it could be circulated to all other ministries. Seems,the Cabinet Secretariat is not practising what it preaches.

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