Public speaking

Narendra Modis bete noire Sanjay Joshi was seen in a function attended by former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi and party vice-president Shanta Kumar in the capital on Friday.

Public speaking

Narendra Modis bete noire Sanjay Joshi was seen in a function attended by former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi and party vice-president Shanta Kumar in the capital on Friday. While Sanjay Joshi sat quietly at the back amid the audience,Murli Manohar Joshi,sitting on the dais,was showered with praises,with one speaker declaring him the true ideological inheritor of Jan Sangh ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay. However,the same speaker described the BJP as the Vajpayee version of Janata Party with the constitution of Congress. Flattered by the praise heaped on him,Murli Manohar Joshi,who spoke later,sought to ignore this criticism of the party. Instead,he came down heavily against mixing business with public life.

Hostage Fatigue

OUT of sight is out of mind. That is true even of government policies. Faced with a crisis situation sometime back when the collector of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh had been kidnapped by Maoists,there was talk of drafting a hostage policy to be followed in such situations. The best opportunity for discussing the contours of such a policy came last week when chiefs of police forces from across the country met for an annual conference. The meeting had separate session and several presentations on Left-wing extremism. But with the kidnapping incident now a distant memory,a hostage policy was no longer on the minds of the police officers.

Working Housewives

MINISTER for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath has struck a new idea of late that housewives should be entitled to salaries. She has been talking about it in private and recently also touched upon the issue during a two-day conference of ministers and secretaries dealing with Women and Child Development departments in state governments. Tirath has given no thought to how the concept can be put into practice,but wants the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to conduct a study to quantify the contribution of homemakers to households and the society. She is convinced that it is an idea that needs to be worked on. While there is support to the thought behind this concept,the response so far has been lukewarm,even within her own ministry.

Cabinet Chances

HEAD of the Jharkhand Congress Pradip Kumar Balmuchu is likely to lose his position very soon. Balmuchu was recently elected to the Rajya Sabha and the party is said to be looking for someone else to spearhead its battle against the BJP-led government in the state. Sensing his fate,he has started lobbying for a ministerial berth in the Union Cabinet that is expected to happen soon. With Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai the only Congress MP in Lok Sabha from Jharkhand considered to be on shaky grounds in the Cabinet,Balmuchu is excited about his chances.