General presence

Even as the controversy over General J F R Jacobs memoirs in which he criticised the late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw,rages on,the formal release of the book.

Even as the controversy over General J F R Jacobs memoirs in which he criticised the late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw,rages on,the formal release of the book witnessed the presence of Army chief General V K Singh. While the Army chief released the book at a function in the capital on Monday,insiders say he accepted the invitation of the war decorated Jacob but that did not necessarily mean that he endorsed the contents of the book.

CURBS ON TAPPING

The Central Board of Direct Taxes may have managed to retain its powers of interception but this,it now transpires,is not without provisos. The Ministry of Home Affairs,which is the nodal agency for clearing interception requests,is in the process of framing exclusive guidelines to be shortly issued to the CBDT. Basically,the guidelines reiterate the provision for the CBDT to make requests for telephone interception only in rare cases where national security is involved and that mere suspicion of evasion of taxes will no longer be sufficient reason for the interception to be allowed. And MHA insiders inform that while the largest volume of interception requests in the pre-Radia period used to come from the CBDT,guess how many the tax sleuths have sent since the leakage of the corporate lobbyists interception transcripts? Not a single one!

CBI CORNERED

The recent goof-ups in the most-wanted list that India handed over to Pakistan is turning out to be quite an education for Indian investigative agencies. After the embarrassing mistake,some of the CBI officers scheduled a discussion with Interpol officers as it went about setting its house in order. During that meeting the Interpol officials queried them about the origin of the phrase Red Corner Notice,or RCN,that is so often used by the Indian agencies. It seems there is nothing called a Red Corner Notice at Interpol. Instead,the Interpol notices are only classified as Red,Green,Yellow or Black notices. One of the Interpol officers then remarked that perhaps the insertion of the word corner in Red Notice had something to do with the fact that the corner of the paper on which the Red Notice is issued is red.

FRIENDS AND FOES

For the first few days of his stay in Delhi,when the government bent backwards to please him,Baba Ramdev had little time for his old friends. Rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty,he was not even taking phone calls from some of his close associates. The contact was back to normal as soon as his honeymoon with the government was over. Meanwhile,the Health ministry is learnt to be taking steps to investigate the ayurvedic and herbal products manufactured at Ramdevs ashram. The Ministry said it was acting on complaints it had received against the products.

Pressed for advice

The Prime Ministers Media Advisor Harish Khare had to bear the brunt of severe criticism that the government had to face for sending four of its senior ministers to receive Baba Ramdev at the airport last week. On running into him while going for one of the meetings,a senior Union minister is learnt to have asked Khare whether he had given his advice to the Prime Minister on the media plan for Ramdev. Caught off-guard,Khare replied that he had not been asked for his advice yet. The minister is then said to have curtly reminded Khare that he was a Secretary-level officer and must be pro-active in discharging his functions.