IAS officers rehab Senior IAS officials are being rehabilitated after retirement by the Congress government. Chief secretary K Jayakumar will be posted as vice-chancellor of the newly formed Malayalam University after his retirement on October 31. Jayakumar is also special commissioner to Sabarimala temple. Last month,former DGP Jacob Punnose was made the CEO of the 35th National Games to be hosted by Kerala. Former additional chief secretary T Balakrishnan was made the managing director of the Kerala High-Speed Corridor Corporation earlier this year. Principal secretary (revenue) K B Valsala Kumari,slated to retire on October 31,will be appointed as the executive director of the Kudumbasree Mission. Also,a former chief secretary,P Prabhakaran,was appointed to a one-man commission for designing a development package for Kasargode district. All-time high in Union cabinet Sundays cabinet rejig has given Kerala an all-time record representation in the Union government. With the induction of Shashi Tharoor and Kodikunnil Suresh as Union ministers of state,Keralas tally has gone up to eight. Seven of these ministers belong to the Congress and the eighth to the Indian Union Muslim League. Besides,Rajya Sabha deputy chairman P J Kurian is also a Congress MP from Kerala. In the Kerala government,the Congress has only 10 ministers,including the chief minister,in a 21-strong cabinet. A junior ally of the Congress,the regional Christian party Kerala Congress (Mani),is sulking about being left out of the reshuffle. K M Mani has long been waiting to see his MP son Jose K Mani become a Union minister of state. But the PM has made it clear that Sundays was the last reshuffle before the elections. Identification error Goof-ups in the run-up to the Viswa Malayalam festival,which begins on Tuesday,have been the source of much embarrassment to the government. Organisers were to put up a bust of Malayalam novelist and playwright C V Raman Pillai but instead erected one of scientist C V Raman in front of the state secretariat. Again,Benjamin Bailey,a British missionary who published the first English-Malayalam dictionary,was depicted as someone who indulged in religious conversion. Bailey had established the first printing press in Kerala. With the errors leading to criticism about the irresponsibility of the organisers,Cultural Affairs Minister K C Joseph tendered an apology. Eventually,the right bust of Pillai was installed. Dengue outbreak Dengue has broken out in Thiruvananthapuram,where solid waste disposal has been suspended since last December due to stiff resistance from villagers near the dumping ground. According to the health departments statistics,of the 1,396 dengue cases reported in Kerala in the first six months of this year,926 were from Thiruvananthapuram district. Most of these cases were reported from the city and suburban areas,where household waste disposal has been a cause for worry. The health department has said that the piling garbage has contributed to the health crisis in the city.
