Opinion Uncharitable chatter

Senior police officers were taken aback by the speech of National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon at a conference of Director Generals of Police held earlier this week. Unlike his predecessor,M K Narayanan,who used to talk about Maoism,law and order and terror attacks,the NSA focussed largely on international relations. Menon discussed India’s relations with our neighbours,and with the US and China. Some wondered,in fact,whether Menon had got confused about the venue and assumed he was speaking in his former role as foreign secretary to the conference of heads of missions,which was also held in the Capital last week.

Who gobbles the budget?

A recent report of Parliament’s food management committee confirms what we have long suspected: the lion’s share of government expenditure is gobbled up simply on staff maintenance. The meeting of the Parliamentary Food Management Committee brought out some telling statistics. For 2008-2009,the Northern Railway claimed a subsidy of Rs 7.44 crore from the Finance Ministry as the cost for serving snacks and meals in Parliament. A breakdown of the subsidy shows that Rs 5.47 crore was the cost of maintaining the 262 railway staff members,59 per cent of the total cost. Only 41 per cent of the budget was spent on ingredients,fuel and cartage. A comparison with figures for 2003-2004 indicates that railway staff expenses shot up by 171 per cent after the Sixth Pay Commission. Another interesting question is who ate the huge quantities of food? The food subsidy is meant for the MPs,but there are only around 750MPs most ofwhomare in Delhi for less than 100 days a year. A similar number of journalists are accredited to Parliament. The inescapable conclusion is that majority of the subsided meals meant for parliamentarians were actually consumed by the security staff and secretariat of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Unsung Young Turks

The Young Turk MPs of yesteryears were a different breed from today’s Young Turks,is the grouse of the older generation. Earlier YoungTurks like Sharad Yadav and Lalu Yadav were in the mould of the original Indian Young Turk,Chandra Shekhar. They were angry socialists,tough talking,scruffily dressed and made it in politics on theirownsteam. Today’s Young Turks are seen as smartly dressed,soft spoken and scions of families with a tradition in politics. Familiar faces such as Milind Deora,Supriya Sule,Dushyant Singh and Kalikesh Singh spring to mind. In fact,the majority of the under-40 MPs do not come with a pedigree nor do they fit this stereotype.TherelativelyunknownYoungTurks in Parliament includeRamSewari Hazari,Arjun Rai Devji Patel,Kamlesh Paswan,B Y Raghvendra,Yogi Adityanath,Nathubahi G Patel,Madhu Sudan Yadav,Jai Shanti,PoonamVeljibhai Jat,Saroj Pandey and Jyoti Dhurve.

Very specific circular

The Law Ministry recently came out with a circular cautioning law officers not to speak to the media without first checking with the ministry. Now,a new circular makes clear that the first note did not refer to the Attorney General. That seems to imply that Law Minister Veerappa Moily was directly singling out Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam,whohad briefed the media on his interaction with the American law officers on the Headley case.

Performance card

Omar Abdullah’s poor performance as CM is cited as an example of today’s Young Turks not living up to much hyped expectations. On the other hand,Minister for Communication Sachin Pilot proved himself in the recent Rajasthan municipal elections. A Congress candidate fromPilot’s constituency,was elected head of the Ajmer civic body,a first for the party in almost two decades. In contrast,Pilot’s senior ministerial colleagues,C P Joshi,Namo Narain Meena,and Mahadeo Singh Khadela could not ensure victory for their party in their respective constituencies of Bhilwara,Tonk and Sikar.