Red faces

Senior officials of the BSF were embarrassed but Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs wife Gursharan Kaur took the help of a little bit of wit to lighten the tension in the air.

Red faces

Senior officials of the BSF were embarrassed but Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs wife Gursharan Kaur took the help of a little bit of wit to lighten the tension in the air. The announcer at a function organised by the association of wives of Border Security Force officers,while introducing the wives of chiefs of the CBI,the Intelligence Bureau and the BSF to the audience,forgot to mention the name of Kaur,who was the chief guest. The mistake was corrected quickly and she was called on to speak. Mujhe to lagta hai ki ye bhool hi gaye ki maine bhi baat karni hai,accha laga mujhe8230;announcement kar hi diya aapne I thought he had forgotten that I also had to speak. I liked it8230;finally you announced my name, she began,leaving the crowd in splits. BSF officials present,however,were heard discussing the fate of the announcer who made the mistake.

Foreign Affairs

ONE of the frequent requests from the countries Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has been visiting is for a short stint in parliamentary training from India. So much so,that to attend to such requests,the Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training,a wing of the Lok Sabha Secretariat,now has to take language lessons. The Parliament staff recently sought assistance from language experts at Jawaharlal Nehru University,Delhi University and other places to prepare a training module for Spanish-speaking lawmakers and officials of foreign countries. Another training module for Arabic-speaking countries is also ready. These two-week training programmes are expected to be held early next year.

Future Planning

WHETHER the hour-long meeting between Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad earlier this week will resolve the differences between the commission and ministry on the 12th Plan policy direction remains to be seen. But a side-effect of that meeting has been that the intense speculation surrounding Azads future in the ministry has abated for the time being. The logic being that if Azad was headed to another ministry,Ahluwalia would not have made such a prompt visit to the ministry to clarify matters,and would probably have waited for the next Health Minister to take charge.

Hope Floats

WITH Mukul Roy vacating Rail Bhavan,Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa is fancying his chances for an elevation in the widely-anticipated Cabinet reshuffle. Muniyappa believes his elevation would help the Congress in the Kolar region in Karnataka from where he is an MP. Assembly election are due in Karnataka early next year. A six-time MP,Muniyappas difficulty,however,is that the Cabinet already has three bigwigs from Karnataka in S M Krishna,M Veerappa Moily and Mallikarjun Kharge. But,his argument was that the sect of Dalits of which he belongs has no adequate representation in the Cabinet.

Free to Strike

NOW that they are free from the UPA,the TMC has decided to make things difficult for the government even on relatively minor issues. To start with,the party has decided to demand a first row seat for its Leader of the parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha,Sudip Bandyopadhyay,as is the norm for all leaders of their respective parliamentary parties. It will also demand a room in Parliament for its party,something it never asked for because it had the Railway Ministers room. Party MPs said they would also criticise the government at the slightest opportunity and be more vociferous against the governments policies.