Tamil Nadu government revokes suspension order of 1990 batch IAS C Umashankar

A 1990 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS C Umashankar, whose suspension created a political divide in the state, got a reprieve as the state government on Thursday revoked the suspension order. Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa openly defended the suspended IAS and the state BSP went one step ahead in resorting to postering in the cities in solidarity of the suspended IAS.

Umashankar was suspended on the charge of furnishing false information to obtain his community certificate. He has been posted as managing director of the Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation (Tansi). A government order said that as an inquiry had already been initiated against him, the government "has considered, and revokes the suspension of C Umashankar, with effect from the afternoon of September 2, 2010".

Also Read

BSP resorts to postering in support of Umashankar

J Jayalalithaa's support to Umashankar 

Action and Appointments

a) Pradeep Kumar Misra, a 1976 batch Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS, has taken over as secretary in the ministry of steel. Earlier, Misra was Special Secretary and Establishment Officer in the ministry of personnel and training. (Read about PK Mishra)

b) Shamhu Singh, a 1986 batch Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS has been appointed as joint secretary in the ministry of home affairs.

c) The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved the proposal for extension of inter cadre deputation of Chitrangad, a 1996 batch Uttarakhand cadre IPS from Uttarakhand to Uttar Pradesh for further period of one year beyond August 25, .2010.

d) The competent authority has approved that Syamal Kumar Sarkar, a 1979 batch West Bengal cadre IAS, additional secretary, Department of Personnel and Training will hold the additional charge of the post of Establishment Officer and Additional Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training, for a period of three months with effect from September 1, 2010.

Manmohan Singh and 86 lucky officers

Woh! The Union Service Public Commission (UPSC) has recommended 87 candidates from Civil Services Examination, 2008 for appointments. Guess who has figured in the list? The last person who has been selected is incidentally “Man Mohan Singh”. 

NAMES OF NEW RECRUITS

PillaiSpeak: Home secretary’s “paragliders” remark in a Canadian newspaper draws international media attention

HOME secretary GK Pillai’s reported remark that militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba had bought “as many as 150 paragliders” from China and the Gulf to launch attack during the Commonwealth Games, has attracted Western media’s attention. The Canadian newspaper, The Star, which broke the story, mentioned how Pillai said in an interview on Tuesday that “it’s very worrisome” that the paragliders were bought to launch airborne attacks on athletes, tourists and visiting politicians at the Commonwealth Games.
The paper has further elaborated how paragliders are controlled by a pilot who’s suspended on a harness under a special controllable parachute. Modern paragliders can travel as many as 500 kilometres and stay in the air for up to 11 hours.

An Wall Street Journal item, in an analytical piece, has drawn a comparison between a typical Indian bureaucrat versus Pillai. “India’s bureaucrats are generally known for being pretty tight-lipped. When they give press conferences, they often stick to repeating well-established policy mantra. When they grant one-on-one interviews, they’re quick to insist that large chunks of it are off-the-record or can only be attributed to “a source.” Even official spokesmen frequently request anonymity while stating little more than basic fact…But GK Pillai, the country’s top security civil servant, appears to be cut from different material,” the WSJ report said. 

Also Read

Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao defends Pillai's ISI remark

Pillai objects forest officials helping Naxals

Finance Minister wants IRS officers’ rising aspirations to be met; wants CBDT and CBEC to be model employers

INDIAN Revenue Service officers have a reason to cheer about. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has asked Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to aim at becoming model employers and improve the human resource management to meet the rising expectations of the officers and the staff. FM was speaking at a review meeting with the chief commissioners and commissioners of income tax, customs and central excise in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The government has begun to look into the concerns of the IRS officers after annual tax collections have increased manifold during the last six years, and the fiscal discipline of the government is increasingly depending on the taxmen’s ability to meet over-ambitious target of tax collections. The UPA government’s rising expenditure on social sector activities is largely to be funded by increased tax collections.

Mukherjee said that all annual general transfers should be carried out by the second week of April. “I have noticed that transfer orders of the officers are issued in mid of the year, which affects not only the officer, but also the department. The officer has to shift his family and children in the mid of the academic session, which causes avoidable mental stress. Similarly, by shifting of the officers in the mid of the year from one charge to the other charge, the continuity and time available is reduced considerably. This adversely affects achieving the targeted revenue,” Mukherjee said.

(In Picture: FM addressing the press after meeting with Custom, Excise and Income Tax officers, in Mumbai on September 01, 2010)

Action and Appointments

a) Sutanu Behuria, a 1976 batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IAS, currently working as special secretary in the department of commerce has been appointed as secretary, in the department of fertilizers.

b) The ACC has approved the inter-cadre deputation of M Senthil Kumar, a 1999 batch Nagaland cadre IFS from Nagaland to Tamil Nadu cadre for a period of five years.

c) Mukul Joshi, a 1975 batch Punjab cadre IAS, presently secretary, Inter State Council Secretariat has been appointed as secretary in the department of pharmaceuticals.

d) M Raman, a 1976 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, has been appointed as secretary, department of chemicals and petrochemicals.

Newly-appointed Tamil Nadu chief secretary S Malathi’s philosophy of mind and body

MANY people know her as an upright officer, but very few can gauge her intellectual mind. A 1977 batch IAS S Malathi, who has been appointed as chief secretary of Tamil Nadu, only the second woman to clinch the top bureaucrat’s post in the state, wrote a mind-boggling piece sometime ago, narrating her life after she was diagnosed with cancer of the breast seven years ago.
“I have come to understand that the fear I experienced at the time of diagnosis was more to do with the process of dying than with death itself…The fact is that nothing stops for anybody and individuals really do not matter in the bigger canvas of life. It’s a tremendously humbling feeling to realise I’m just another actor with a role to play. Life is too beautiful to be spent in self-pity,” Malathi wrote in “Indiainteracts” in an article dated January, 2007.

A postgraduate in zoology and diploma-holder in development finance from Britain’s Birmingham University, Malathi has always been posted in the state, taking up many a challenging role including state’s home secretary and vigilance commissioner. During the AIADMK regime, she was implicated in a flyover scam case, which later turned out to be a case of political vendetta. The case was dropped later.

Here is an excerpt of her philosophy of life, courtesy “Indiainteracts”

“If you are one of those diagnosed with cancer, believe me, it’s not the end. For all you know it may be the beginning of a totally new and enjoyable life. If, however, you are one of the fortunate ones not suffering from cancer, be grateful and learn to live each day as it comes. Take care of your mind and body because one affects the other”.

Action and appointments

a) Uday Kumar Varma, a 1976 batch MP cadre IAS, presently special secretary, in the ministry of information and broadcasting has been appointed as secretary, ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises.

b) Brijeshwar Singh, a 1975 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, will continue as chairman, National Highways Authority of India for another three months. The appointment, on contract basis, will be for three months with effect from September 1, 2010. or till a regular incumbent takes over, whichever is earlier.

c) The proposal of the ministry of road transport and highways for extension in Central deputation tenure of joint secretary Saroj Kumar Dash, a 1980 batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IAS, for a period of three months beyond November 27, 2010, has been approved.

d) The proposal for premature repatriation of Dilip Rath, a 1979 batch West Bengal cadre IAS to his parent cadre, has been approved.

e) Ms Esther Sakunthala Kar, a 1983 batch IIS has been appointed as joint secretary, in the National Commission for Minorities under the ministry of minority affairs.

f) Gudey Srinivas, a 1990 batch Orissa cadre IAS, presently working as director in the ministry of mines has been appointed as joint secretary in that ministry.

Rajasthan to have its first Muslim chief secretary; Naveen Patnaik appoints Bijay Patnaik to lead Orissa bureaucracy

TWO Indian states, Rajasthan and Orissa, will have new chief secretaries. While Rajasthan is making history by appointing a Muslim officer, 1975-batch IAS Salauddin Ahmed, to lead the state bureaucracy, Orissa will have 1976 batch IAS Bijay Kumar Patnaik as the new chief secretary.

In Rajasthan, appointment of Salauddin Ahmed will send a strong signal to the minority community that their interests would now be taken care of. There were speculations that Abhimanyu Singh, a 1974 batch IAS currently posted in at the Unesco office in Beijing, would clinch the chief secretary’s post. New chief secretary Ahmed, an MA in history, has mostly served in the state itself except his stint as deputy secretary and director in the ministry of textile back in 1986-91. Ahmed has a degree in public management from IDS, University of Sussex, UK.

New Orissa chief secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik has currently been serving as principal secretary to Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik. Patnaik, a 1976 batch IAS, has currently been serving as the principal secretary to Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

Secretaries in Action

Secretary in the ministry of shipping K Mohandas, 1974 batch Kerala cadre IAS, on Monday emphasised the need for ports to augment capacity and increase it to several times more than the present capacity. He was chairing a meeting of senior officers on Maritime State Development Council (MSDC) in Chennai. The meeting was meant to find strategies to curb delays and queuing at ports.

Mussoorie Musings: An IAS officer kidnapped, but only in reel life!

IF THE earlier years’ trends continue, hotels in Mussoorie might have been booked for the next few days. Call it a groom-searching tourism when parents of prospective brides, mainly from Bihar and parts of UP, land up in the Indian hill station, Mussoorie, with their daughters’ kundlis to spot bright civil servant grooms.

The newly selected civil servants of India have gathered in Mussoorie’s prestigious training institute Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), for the foundation course beginning today. For the record, IAS, IPS, IFS and other group A service officers will attend the course to be held between August 30 to December 10, 2010 before other officers except IAS leave the Academy for advanced training in their respective training institutes.

This is the period when match-making takes place alongside hard work in training sessions. Come Diwali, young probationers from all services including IAS, IFS, IPS would meet at Happy valley grounds in Mussoorie to participate in the annual fete. It is a festival when mehendi to astrology stalls are being set up besides organizing mock-jails and dance competitions. And eateries sell chole bhature and chaat to Bengali fish curry!

If 2008 batch Punjab cadre IAS, Dr Joram Beda’s video of LBSNAA is any proof, life is fun at the Academy, and no officer trainee would forget the sweet memories of those days in the rest of his or her life. Dr Beda, who hails from Arunachal Pradesh, has captured in his 5-minute video a number of golden moments -- Ganga hostel, Monday blues, tracking, birth day bashes and folk dances etc.

Bollywood’s latest movie, Sushil Rajpal’s Antardwand, may not be based on such a fun atmosphere, but is definitely telling a true story of bureaucrats being forcefully married. The film revolves around a story about a prospective IAS being abducted and forcefully married to a girl, a practice that is witnessed mostly in Bihar. Director Rajpal told media how mostly IAS officers and government engineers are targeted for forceful wedlock as private sector is yet to make any mark in Bihar. Don’t worry guys, it’s a story of kidnapping and forceful marriage only in reel life. BoI (babusofindia.com) extends best wishes to all new civil servants gathered at LBSNAA who would begin a new journey in public life for the next 35 years or more.

Government nod to Ranganath Misra Commission recommendation means end of the road for senior Hindu officers, claims retired IFS OP Gupta

THE promotion of a senior Hindu Indian officer at the rank of joint secretary or additional secretary would be adversely impacted if the government gives its nod to Ranganath Misra Commission Report which was tabled in the Parliament in December, 2009, argues OP Gupta, a 1971 batch retired IFS officer. Gupta who is a BHU chancellor gold medalist and served as Consul General, Ambassador, High Commissioner to many countries, has sent his detailed viewpoints to babusofindia.com. Here are a few excerpts of his take:

“On December 18, 2009 the UPA Government tabled the Ranganath Misra Commission Report on the table of the Parliament. By suggesting to reserve 15 per cent for minorities it has recommended reducing promotion and job opportunities of all Hindu officials and Hindu youth at least by 15 per cent, reducing availability of educational seats from nursery to university level in non-minority sector to all sections of Hindu students by at least 15 per cent, and; disadvantaging SC and ST Hindus by yoking them within their existing reservation quotas with Muslims and Christians who enjoy better literacy rate than SC and ST Hindus.

It means that from the date of implementation at least 15 per cent posts in the grade of Secretary to Government of India, and also in other grades of Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary etc. shall get reserved for minority officers which will block or retard pace of promotion of many Hindu officers and may result into some Hindu officers ending up serving under their own junior minority religion officers. This would be happening all over India in all departments, central as well as provincial, whether school teachers, lecturers, deputy superintendents of police, engineers, deputy collectors, inspectors of police, customs, income tax, public sector undertakings, etc.

After the Misra Commission Report is implemented Hindus’ promotional avenues will get restricted to 85 per cent of existing posts so the pace of their promotions will get slowed with worsening stagnations. But minority officials who constituted only 8.3 per cent in 2006-07 will fill up 15 per cent of posts i.e. pace of their promotions will be much faster than those of Hindu officials.

So it is high time that all Hindu officials and all those Hindus who aspire to join public services should come out of their secular slumber and open their eyes to see which political parties are going to harm their career interests permanently and irreversibly.”

Tax hound Sudhir Chandra is India’s 4th Most Powerful Bureaucrat

WHEN 400 taxmen carried out a massive search operation across properties of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda last year to trace his Rs 2000 cr allegedly unaccounted assets, a tax hound sitting at his North Block office was instructing everybody how to be extremely polite in handling the operation, but at the same time be as courageous as “Rani of Jhansi”. That was just the beginning of a string of I-T raids at the premises of impregnable IAS officers and leading business houses which were hitherto considered as safe domains.
Sudhir Chandra, Member, Investigation of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is the 4th Most Powerful Bureaucrat in the BoI (Babus of India) power list. A 1973 batch Indian Revenue Service official, Chandra has proved that no one including politicians and top bureaucrats should feel secured and flaunt their unaccounted money because of their clout in the corridors of power. He is truly the corridors’ game-changer.

The man who is driven by his fearlessness has kept photographs of his religious guru all around the wall of his official room, possibly to draw strength against any political interventions! And no wonder, thanks to his growing clout, he is adding more enemies every single day.

What this tax hound does when he ends his busy day in North Block? That’s his own world as he starts playing Lara’s Theme to Strangers in the Night... in his piano. (In Picture: Chandra (left) with revenue secretary Sunil Mitra and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee)

Change of Heart? Ahluwalia takes break from macro-economics to discover world of paintings

WHAT has happened to the man who spends time only on planning and macro economics to have a relaxed afternoon in appreciating traditional paintings? Yes, the photograph is of deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia after inaugurating the exhibition-cum-sale of traditional paintings and home decor products, in New Delhi on August 25, 2010. Does Ahluwalia love painting, or is it his Member Secretary and retired IAS Sudha Pillai's influence on Yojana Bhawan? Ms Pillai is a quality painter for whom painting is a serious hobby. Ms Pillai, who is wife of home secretary GK Pillai, has made several ceramic murals, including a series on the Tree of Life and organised a number of painting exhibitions. No doubt, there is a little bit of art in everybody's life!

Who would be the first Additional Secretary in 1980 batch: An analysis by an anonymous Insider
An anonymous officer, who definitely understands the power dynamics well, has mailed the following analysis to babu blogger on who could be the first Additional Secretary in 1980 batch. It's worth reading.
"Upendra Tripathy (Karnataka) has moved from Minority Affairs Ministry to Cabinet Secretariat as JS in a lateral shift, to eventually take over from Dr Mrutunjay Sarangi (1977 Tamil Nadu) as and when he moves out as Secretary. Ashok Lavasa (Haryana) has also got a lateral move to Power Ministry to be the AS there when his turn comes, although there is a clear vacancy in Power Ministry after Anil Kumar moved to Planning Commission. Dr Satish B Agnihotri (Orissa) is in charge Director General of Shipping at Mumbai. He would take over as DG when his turn comes.
So these three officers have been slotted and would become AS when there turn comes as per seniority. Similarly Amitabh Kant (Kerala) CEO of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor of Industry Ministry, Dr J S Mishra (UP) CEO Khadi Board at Mumbai and Jiji Thomson (Kerala) with Commonwealth Games would get promoted in their present posts by upgrading the posts.
At least four officers would be designated as Additional Secretaries in their present posts. Naini Jaiseelan (AGMUT) who is Advisor in Planning Commission (though Smt Omita Paul, Advisor to Pranab Mukherjee has made a request to bring her to Finance Ministry); Shakti Kantha Das (Tamil Nadu) who is JS (Budget) in Finance Ministry; Shankar Agrawala (UP) who is JS (E-Governance) in Department of Information Technology and Rajeev Kher (UP) who is JS (Trade Policy) in Commerce.
All eyes are on the top five officers of 1980 batch in the list of empanelment and who are posted in Delhi now. NK Sinha (Bihar) is in Human Resource Development. Kapil Sibal is happy with him and may request for in situ upgradation (as he did for two officers of 1979 batch Sunil Kumar and Anitha Kaul). Dr Arvind Prasad (Bihar) is JS in Social Justice and Empowerment and with a B Tech from IIT Kanpur and PhD from Yale is in high demand. Next is Naini Jaiseelan (Naini Dhillon before marriage) who may stay back in Planning Commission or go to Finance. Dr Anup K Pujari, part time Harvard professor is now in Finance looking after Fund-Bank work (which had such stalwarts as N K Singh (now MP Rajya Sabha from Bihar and V Govindarajan, from AP cadre now in National Manufacturing Commission, both of whom became Additional Secretary in the same desk), and then is Dr Shyam Agrawala (Rajasthan), now JS in Commerce.
Both Dr Pujari and Dr Agrawala have PhD from USA and both have been Additional DG Foreign Trade and hence are in demand to be the DGFT (vacated by R S Gujaral who moved as Secretary Road Transport). Dr Shyam Agrawala may also become AS and FA in place of Dr Sutanu Behuria (1976 HP).
Every one is hoping that an officer of 1980 batch is posted quickly as DGFT or as Establishment Officer (these are the ONLY two clear vacancies) so that other officers get in situ posting as Additional Secretary immediately. Present EO Pradip Mishra prefers Shankar Agrawala who is also from UP cadre like him (and has worked in DoPT earlier) or Dr Pujari who is from Delhi School of Economics like him, to come as EO. PMO has a preference for Dr Nandita Chatterjee (West Bengal) both to have a lady officer as EO and also being backed by a powerful JS in PMO. Dr Chatterjee is now Dy Director General with CAPART and has worked with WHO earlier."

Rights or Wrong: Didi’s mamata for West Bengal forces Rail files to land up in Kolkata

WHO will deny that railway minister Mamata Banerjee has been out of the track when it comes to executing work in Rail Bhawan? From the day she took charge as the railway minister, incidentally in Kolkata rather than Delhi, she has been camping more in West Bengal eying the hot seat in Writers Building. And there were a number of occasion, senior officials have flown to Kolkata carrying official files for clearances.
The Indian railways, for the first time, has officially accepted that files were indeed carried to Kolkata for Banerjee to consider though it played down the events saying it was done only in emergency cases. “It is clarified that hardly ever files have been carried to Kolkata for clearing from the Railway Minister, except in a few emergency cases,” said an official statement from the spokesperson clarifying the news item related to expenditure on movement of official files published in a section of media on August 23, 2010. It has further termed the news item “erroneous” which said that the railways spent around Rs11 lakhs in one year for sending file-carrying officials to Kolkata!

What make retired NE bureaucrats shine?

Harishankar Brahma, a 1975 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS and former power secretary, has been appointed as an Election Commissioner. That he belongs to ST and North East is believed to have helped him piping many other bureaucrat contenders for this coveted post. Brahma is the second person from the North East after JM Lyngdoh, who retired as Chief Election Commissioner in 2004, to become Election Commissioner. A former IPS officer RS Mushahary was made Governor of Meghalaya by the UPA government.

Action and Appointments

The three-day DGPs/IGPs conference, organized by the Intelligence Bureau will be held in New Delhi from Wednesday. It will be inaugurated by the Union home minister P Chidambaram. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will address the conference on Thursday. 

Japan’s power corridor getting jammed by retired bureaucrats

WHAT do you do when aging populace are more than willing to work for more number of years to sustain their quality of life? It may not be felt so much in India, one of the global hubs of young people, but it has already been a huge debate in Japan, at least in government circle.
Some 1,528 senior officers at government-linked organizations are being occupied by a former government official for at least the third successive time from the same ministry or agency, Kyodo News reported quoting a survey of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In fact, as high as 4,916 officials who are working at such government-affiliated organizations are aged 65 or more. The statistics are interesting in the backdrop of the government’s intention to ban in principle the hiring of retired civil servants as senior officials of government-affiliated departments so that recruitment can be open to the public.

Here is one of the interesting comments by one of the readers of the original Kyodo News: “I was reading an excellent article the other day about how lobbyist in the US--a huge chunk of whom are former Senate and House members, boosted by former government agency workers--have managed to almost completely stifle some of the key workings of government in that country. I thought to myself ‘I wonder where all the lobbyists are in Japan’, and now I see they just go by another name--all the ex-bureaucrat employees of those thousands of semi-governmental organizations...”

Any thought for retired Indian bureaucrats?

Missing Appointment files

Have papers related to appointment of senior Gujarat cadre IAS officer Rajiv Gupta as personal secretary to Union textile minister Shankersinh Vaghela in 2004, destroyed? The central information commission (CIC) has questioned as to why all files pertaining to his appointment were missing. Gupta, a 1986 batch IAS, is now the secretary of climate change department in the state. 

Government modifies rules on taking up of foreign assignments by senior officers

IF A government officer below the rank of a joint secretary wants to take up a short-term or consultancy assignment with a foreign organization with which he has currently be dealing with, there is no ban, clarifies DoPT. However, for an officer at the rank of a joint secretary and above, requisite permission is mandatory, it further said.
Earlier, according to a letter (No. 111012001-FA(UN) dated October 13, 2004, “if an officer has been dealing with an international organization in his official capacity at any time during the previous five years, he may not accept a short-term or long term consultancy assignment from such an agency”.

An officer’s foreign posting tenure to change depending on his child’s academic calendar

THE DoPT has made it public a decision taken in March this year whereby Appointment Committee of Cabinet said officers posted abroad on foreign assignments would get extension till their children’s academic session there. “Appointments Committee of the Cabinet decided that the tenure of officers on foreign deputation may be linked to the end of the academic session i.e. date of completion of the annual examination… if some adjustment is required (either extension or curtailment), depending on the commencement of the posting, and the timing of the examination, the proposal for approval of the competent authority should be sent to this office at least 2 months before the date of completion of the approved tenure or date of completion of the proposed tenure, whichever is earlier,” a DoPT circular dated March 16, 2010 said.

Chandrasekhar and his 10 bureaucrat commanders to take rein from Kalmadi and Co

THIS is the biggest ever victory of Indian bureaucracy at least during the last one decade if not more. During the final lap of the run-up to the controversy-ridden Commonwealth Games, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has taken out his trump card – an army of 10 IAS officers under cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar to manage the biggest sporting extravaganza, making the all-powerful Organizing Committee under Suresh Kalmadi virtually a subordinate body.

For the hand-picked bureaucrats, it’s quite a challenge as Prime Minister chose to trust bureaucracy rather than handing over the work to a group of ministers. Though there would be a group of ministers under urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy, the actual command will be in the hands of Chandrasekhar and his 10 commanders.

Here are the 10 bureaucrats, four additional secretaries and six joint secretaries, chosen by KM Chandrasekhar for the job.

1. Subodh Kumar: A post  graduate in physics with special 14 weeks-long training at UK in 2001, Subodh Kumar is a 1977 batch Maharastra cadre IAS, currently working as additional secretary in department of telecom (DoT).

2. SR Rao: A double MA in social work and rural development (UK), SR Rao is a 1978 batch Gujarat cadre IAS, currently working as additional secretary in IT department. Rao is still known for his stint as Municipal Commissioner to a traumatized, plague-hit Surat city. He is credited with cleaning up the city and placing it back into normalcy.

3. RC Misra: Additional secretary in urban development ministry

4. Amarjeet Singh: Executive Director, Health Ministry

5. JS Deepak: A masters in business administration, JS Deepak is a 1982 batch UP cadre IAS, now serving as joint secretary in the ministry of commerce. He was in the ministry of telecom till recently where he had handled among others the famous 3G auction. He refused to toe the line of telecom minister A Raja for which he was transferred out of the telecom.

6. Rohit Nandan: An MA in history with an MBA from University of Hull, UK, Rohit Nandan is a 1982 batch UP cadre IAS now working as a joint secretary in civil aviation.

7. Shashi Shekar: A 1981 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, Shashi Sekhar is now OSD-Power Trading Corporation.

8. Tara Dutt: Joint secretary at Cabinet Secretariat.

9. Gopal Krishna: A masters in physics and MBA, Gopal Krishna is a1983 batch West Bengal cadre IAS now working as secretary in Sports Authority of India. He had earlier served as joint secretary in the ministry of commerce.

10. Rajeev Kapur: A 1983 batch UP cadre IAS, Rajeev Kapur is now a joint secretary personnel and training.

BoI list of 5 Most Powerful Bureaucrats

Watch out this space to spot who are India’s 4^th and 5^th most powerful bureaucrats

India’s home secretary GK Pillai is 3rd Most Powerful Bureaucrat: BoI report

SOUNDS odd, but the last year’s list of 5 Most Powerful Bureaucrats, brought out by babusofindia.com did not figure country’s home secretary GK Pillai. He was quite an important secretary even then, but home minister P Chidambaram’s handholding style of functioning did not allow anyone including Pillai to emerge as a powerful bureaucrat, at least in public domain.
Now, Pillai is quite assertive, vocal and even non-diplomatic at times when questions of internal security become a priority. Pillai, a 1972 batch Kerala cadre IAS, is ranked 3^rd in BoI’s list of 5 Most Powerful Bureaucrats, 2010, based on feedback of senior civil servants and politicians who are insiders of Delhi’s corridor of power. He is ranked behind just cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar and principal secretary to PM, TKA Nair, making yet another point that three most powerful Indian bureaucrats happen to be from Kerala.

Pillai’s recent remarks about ISI’s role in Mumbai terror attack might have virtually derailed the foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, but no one in India has questioned Pillai’s overtures though many observers strongly criticized foreign minister SM Krishna’s silence during Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi equating Pillai with Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed. After all, Pillai’s statement was not only correct in content, but exposed a harsh reality that mere diplomatic overtures without having any change at the ground have just academic values. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, who came in support to Pillai after the failed talks, walked across the road to North Block to meet the home secretary in person and buried all confusions over a cup of tea. (Read: Nirupama Rao on Pillai)

Pillai was equally blatant when he openly aired another explosive statement saying that some of the senior forest officials living in Naxal areas are attending meetings organized by banned Maoist outfits, in addition to not passing over information about happenings there, raising a serious security concern of the North Block. (Read: Pillai’s straight talk on Naxals, SEZ and NE). He is now clamping down on Black Berry mobile services which cannot be intercepted by security agencies.

Interestingly, Pillai himself is connected 24x7, and according to reports, he is always first to receive any major incident, the Mangalore plane crash being one of those. His wife, Sudha Pillai, also a 1972 batch Kerala cadre IAS, is now Member Secretary in Planning Commission at the rank of a minister of state.

Pillai and his boss -- home minister P Chidambaram, who have brought down incidents of terror through a number of proactive measures, are now gearing up for a fool-proof security arrangement for the biggest sporting extravaganza in India, the Commonwealth Games. For Pillai, Games provide an opportunity to make him a true game-changer.