Delhi Confidential: Silent retirement

Three Rajya Sabha members — CPI’s M P Achuthan, CPM’s P Rajeeve and Congress’s Vayalar Ravi — have become victims of prorogation.

Set to retire, they will not be able to deliver their conventional farewell speeches in the Upper House. The reason: they would all complete their six-year tenure on April 21, which is just two days before the Upper House is scheduled to meet. They could have had their say earlier but then it was assumed that the House would be back in session from April 20.

Opting Out

The Congress had last week announced plans to celebrate 125th birth anniversary of B R Amdebkar in a big way and had set up a committee headed by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul to draw up plans. Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar was made a member of the 21-member panel but is now learnt to have opted out. Kumar is credited with the belief that her father, Jagjivan Ram, also has requisite credentials for being projected as the Dalit icon. Apparently, the thinking is that if she cannot prevent her party from lapping up Ambedkar, at least she can stay from joining the bandwagon.

Personal Check

The night before the two-day conference of state environment ministers which Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated on Monday, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar spent a few hours making personal checks of the venue at Vigyan Bhawan. He discovered that Modi’s slogan ‘Zero Effect, Zero Defect’ pasted on the speaker’s rostrum was slightly below the range of vision of television cameras. He immediately got the poster re-adjusted so that it was in clear view of the cameras. Javadekar was at the venue till 9.30 pm.

Cutting it Short

In line with recommendations made by a committee earlier, the Centre is now mulling reducing the duration of the induction training programme for IAS officers from the present eight weeks to six. The DoPT has sought comments from state governments on the matter by April 24. Last year, the Kiran Aggarwal Committee, tasked with reviewing the content and duration of training, had recommended that the total training period for IAS officers be brought down from two years (103 weeks) to one-and-a-half years (75 weeks). These recommendations were made despite opposition from the director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration.

Another Committee?

Suresh Prabhu has earned the nickname “committee minister” in the bureaucratic circles in Rail Bhawan. His tenure so far has been peppered with formation and presentation of reports by a slew of committees. The latest in line could be an expert committee to be formed under former NASSCOM chief Som Mittal to look into how IT use in Railways can be turned around. While Prabhu’s ability to get famous names from outside the Railway has earned him some respect in Rail Bhawan, the fate of the countless recommendations by the committees is being questioned. The report of the D K Mittal committee, which is gathering dust, or the role of former CAG Vinod Rai, who is hardly ever seen in Rail Bhawan, are being cited as examples. The more cynical ones are even going to the extent of saying that all the reports end up recommending things rail officials already know.

Source:: Indian Express