Opinion SPGs integration
The women commandos are trained in the same skills as the men,from rifle shooting to physical fitness and instant response to a threat perception
SPGs integration
This year on International Womens Day on March 8,the SPG (Special Protection Group),which is responsible for the security of the Prime Minister and former PMs and their families,inducted women into the force. The women commandos are trained in the same skills as the men,from rifle shooting to physical fitness and instant response to a threat perception. In a force of approximately 3,000,there are now two dozen women. Some of those who come under the SPG protection are in any case women: the Prime Ministers wife,Gurcharan Singh Kaur,her two daughters and Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra.
Punjab ke bacche
The fact that officers from the Kerala IAS cadre have got a large share of senior positions in the bureaucracy has been much commented upon. Now,some in the Congress have begun to question the disproportionate number of Punjabi speaking politicians who occupy key positions in government. To begin with,all three Rajya Sabha MPs from PunjabAmbika Soni,M S Gill and Ashwani Kumarhave been made central ministers. Apart from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,other Punjabi luminaries in this government include Montek Singh Ahluwallia,deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission who has Cabinet rank status,and senior ministers Kapil Sibal,Pawan Bansal,Anand Sharma,Ajay Maken,Krishna Tirath and Preneet Kaur. Some even include Ghulam Nabi Azad from Jammu and Vir Bhadra Singh from Himachal Pradesh in the list of those familiar with the Punjabi language.
Beggars cant chose
Congresspersons from West Bengal,including PCC chief Manas Bhunia, blame Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for selling the party short and agreeing to accept only 65 seats in the alliance with the TC instead of the 98 they demanded. They point out resentfully that Mukherjee managed to get his son Abhijit,a newcomer in politics,a ticket. Actually it was the street smart Banerjee who went out of her way to lure Abhijit into contesting assuring him that if the Congress did not allot him a ticket. he was welcome to fight on her party symbol. In fact,Banerjee even wanted to give a ticket to a female relative of the finance minister at the expense of her own party man who heads the Howrah civic body,but her name was knocked off by the Congress high command. Mukherjee,in fact,reportedly urged his son to continue as general manager in SAIL pointing out that he could one day rise to become chairperson of SAIL. His son countered with the argument that his father gave up a lectureship to join politics full time. Why did he not stay on in academia hoping to be made a college principal some day?
In fact,the final OK for the number of seats to be contested was given by Sonia Gandhi. The Congress high command did not want a repeat of the fiasco of the Kolkata civic poll when the local Congress insisted on fighting on its own and allowed the TMC to single handedly walk away with victory.
Five brings luck
J Jayalalithaa managed to bring around actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth to accept her offer of 41 seats in the alliance for the Tamil Nadu assembly polls because of the actors firm belief that his lucky number is five. Since four plus one equals five,it was suitably auspicious for the DMDK leader who did not quibble much. No other figures in the forty bracket would have suited him. The next acceptable figure would have been 50 and the AIADMK leader was not prepared to go that high.
Outsourcing didnt help
At least a dozen elected officer bearers from various state Youth Congress units have been removed after their election because of a variety of complaints,ranging from nepotism to providing fake certificates and fudging the voter list. This is despite the fact that the Youth Congress has spent a fortune on holding the elections and outsourced the poll process to an NGO,Foundation of Advance Management of Elections (FAME),chaired by former CEC J M Lyngdoh,which is meant
to check the authenticity of the
candidates and voters. Congresspersons admit privately that even the budget for holding the Youth Congress elections in some of the smaller states was as high as Rs 2-3 crore.
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