Entourage returns

FOR all his efforts at consensus-building to ensure safe passage for his many Bills stuck in Parliament,HRD Minister Kapil Sibal is still in a tight spot,even in this Parliament session. While the minister met BJP leader Sushma Swaraj,AIADMKs M Thambidurai and Trinamools Kalyan Banerjee on Thursday in a bid to convince them on the merits of his pending education Bills,it appears that he did not succeed much. The meeting in fact was termed inconclusive by members. That also means that Sibal will have to hold many more confabulations and cede far too many concessions and amendments in his Bills before they can pass muster in Parliament. The minister has five critical Bills lined up for the session and the first in line,relating to grant of accreditation to educational institutes,ran into trouble on day one of the session.

MAKING UP

IN view of the fuss over L K Advani apparently not having being shown enough courtesy at the swearing-in ceremony of Vice-President Hamid Ansari and then again at the At Home function of President Pranab Mukherjee,PMO officials were extremely careful. At the Prime Ministers Iftar party on Thursday evening,Prime Ministers press adviser Pankaj Pachauri was seen carefully escorting the senior BJP leader to the table right in front.

ODD OFFICIALESE

GUESTS at the At Home function hosted by President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday in Rashtrapati Bhawan were baffled by neat boards with the words Invitees upto Article 23 of T.O.P placed strategically at various points. Many guests were compelled to ask officials of the Presidents secretariat what it meant. The mystery was solved when it was explained that T.O.P was abbreviated form for Table of Precedence and the notices were to guide VVIPs who figured in the table of precedence from No 1 to No 23,which included cabinet ministers,ambassadors,governors,cabinet secretary besides,of course,Prime Ministers and former Presidents. So much for officialese.

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