Opinion Fake faces down south

As if A Raja does not have enough worries,some mischievous individual has opened a Facebook account in the name of the former Telecommunication Minister.

Coomi Kapoor

February 20, 2011 11:51 PM IST First published on: Feb 20, 2011 at 11:51 PM IST

Fake faces down south

As if A Raja does not have enough worries,some mischievous individual has opened a Facebook account in the name of the former Telecommunication Minister. The Facebook account lists him as an expert in selling cheap spectrums and handling CBI inquiries. The fake account lists Niira Radia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as friends and Rajas recent comment on his wall mentions that he has just talked to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi who has assured him that there is no cause to worry. Those searching for like-minded friends to add to their Facebook list have been offered suggestions like Suresh Kalmadi and Sharad Pawar. While Raja has still to comment on his fake Facebook account,the AIADMKs J Jayalalithaa has issued an official statement to deny that she has a Twitter account and the tweets in her name,including the fact that she met Sonia Gandhi recently,are fraud.

Quiet divorce

Arun Shourie has distanced himself from his former party,the BJP,and vice versa. Last week,the former telecommunication minister did not just attack the UPA government over the 2G Scam,but also hinted that the BJP itself was not really keen to pursue the matter. Significantly,a member of the BJPs media advisory cell telephoned TV journalists to suggest that they refer to Shourie as a former telecommunication minister and not as a BJP leader. Also copies of Opposition leader Arun Jaitleys earlier speeches in the Rajya Sabha on 2G were quietly circulated to the media to make clear that the BJP had not been sleeping over the issue as Shourie implied. The silent parting of ways between Shourie and the party high command came about last June after he was denied a fresh term in the Rajya Sabha,and he relocated from Delhi to Lavasa without leaving any forwarding address for his party. RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat remained neutral in the standoff between Shourie on one side and Advani and the BJPs new parliamentary team on the other.

Unusual guest

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef,once Afghanistans ambassador to Pakistan who was detained at the US Guantanamo Bay camp till 2005 as a suspected terrorist,was invited last week by Kings College,London,to a seminar on how to resolve the situation in Afghanistan. As a gesture of goodwill,the British authorities even arranged a shooting party in Scotland for Zaeef,who has been absolved by the UN of being a terrorist. Zaeef,meanwhile,is believed to have requested the Indian government for permission to come to India for medical treatment. It is uncertain whether our government will oblige,considering American sensitivities about a founder member of the Taliban.

Handle with care

The MEA is divided over whether Indias permanent envoy to the UN,Hardeep Puri,was the hero of the hour for hastily alerting Foreign Minister S M Krishna that he was mistakenly reading out the Portuguese foreign ministers speech or was he to blame for the faux pas in the first place. Some diplomats feel that Puri should have handed over the speech directly to 78-year-old Krishna rather than merely place it on a desk,on which there were several other papers.

Not on same side

Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi,the newly elected vice chancellor of Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband,has been accused of being a stooge of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by his opponents. In fact,Modis former home minister,the controversial Amit Shah,had instituted an inquiry against Vastanvi to find out the source of funds from the Middle East for his institution in the border town of Akkalkuwa,between Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Discrete suggestions

Congress Chief Sonia Gandhis prescription to curb corruption in the wake of the Adarsh scam was to scale down the discretionary powers of ministers. A group of ministers was set up recently to discuss her proposal. According to a lengthy note prepared by the committee,it was concluded that some 32 discretionary powers are largely confined to 14 ministries. The home ministry headed the list with the maximum discretionary powers followed by the ministry for tribal affairs,railways and tourism. At the GoM,there was a heated discussion between Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on one side and P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee on the other,on how to handle corrupt government employees. Banerjee argued that while amending anti-corruption laws,the fundamental rights ofovernment employees must be protected.