MANY stranded Air India passengers including bureaucrats of various ranks had to board trains to continue their journey on Tuesday as India’s national carrier was severely disrupted thanks to the ongoing strike by senior pilots beginning Saturday last. In fact, many senior government employees who by rules had to take Air India to avail of LTC claims for their vacation virtually hit the air-pockets because of the sudden development in Air India.
Significantly, Indian Railways swung into action and set up train passenger reservation counters and ‘May I Help You’ booths at all important airports throughout the country on Tuesday for the convenience of stranded passengers who want to travel by trains.
What’s more, zonal railways were asked to coordinate with airline officials to facilitate the movement of stranded passengers for using train travel option. Stranded passengers were asked to contact the nearest passenger reservation centres or visit the website http://www.irctc.co.in for e-ticket.
Railways minister Mamata Banerjee further stepped in to bail out Air passengers by announcing that additional coaches could also be tagged on to superfast trains to carry the passengers. Also, the railways would run special trains from Wednesday to carry the air passengers from Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore to their respective destinations.
She also asked union minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy to run an additional service of the Shipping Corporation of India on Wednesday to bring back the air passengers stranded in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Meanwhile, it was a tough day for senior civil aviation officials including secretary M Madhavan Nambiar and Director General of DGCA who on Tuesday met the representatives of all the airlines to ensure that passengers traveling by Air India had to undergo minimum inconvenience due to cancellation, re-routing and merging of Air India flights. Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav is also an IAS of 1978 batch.
Lt Gen Badhani takes over as DG Border Roads Lieutenant General M C Badhani took over as the 20th Director General Border Roads in place of Lieutenant General A K Nanda. The BRO, which was established in 1960, has earned the reputation of being the only road construction agency to maintain roads in difficult and inhospitable terrain and climate. An alumnus of National Defence Academy Khadakvasla, Pune, Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, College of Defence Management, Secunderabad and National Defence College, New Delhi, Lieutenant General Badhani had an illustrious service in the Army for 38 years.
IF YOU are an Indian babu, you have reasons to cheer about. Reigning in bureaucrats is next to impossible, even globally.
In fact, Japan’s new political party which made an electoral promise that it would curtail powers of bureaucrats in the country suffered a major setback in its first attempt to reign in bureaucrats.
A few days after the country’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) announced a total ban on press briefings by bureaucrats, the government now backtracked and reportedly said that bureaucrats would now be allowed to hold news conferences with permission from their ministers, according to media reports published by Kyodo News which were given wide publicity by western media.
According to reports, the ban, which was meant to empower cabinet ministers under the new government, resulted in cancellation of a number of news briefings by important bureaucrats such as Japan’s ambassador to US.
But the government finally softened its stand and allowed bureaucrats to hold press meets once permission was obtained from cabinet ministers. All vice ministers of Japan’s ministries are, in fact, bureaucrats who are in a way equivalent to secretaries to government of India.
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USING the tool of Right To Information (RTI) Act, CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat has alleged that a section of bureaucrats might delay the implementing the Centre’s announcement that real wages under the flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) would now be raised to Rs 100. Most states pay less than Rs 100 per day to a labourer under the Central scheme.
What could probably be the first such instance of a senior politician getting the details of an internal meeting of officers by filing an RTI application, Ms Karat obtained the minutes of a meeting called on July 10, 2009 to discuss the policy of revising the wage rates where additional secretary and financial advisor of rural development ministry Arvind Mayaram reportedly interpreted what finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said about the hike of NREGS wages during the General Budget.
As was shared with a section of media by the CPI(M) about the findings of the RTI, Mr Mayaram pointed out that the finance minister in his announcement had merely said that “we are committed” to provide rural wages of Rs 100, but never said “we shall provide” it.
The meeting, attended by officers from Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), finance ministry, rural development ministry and the ministry of labour, decided that the issue of raising the wages to Rs 100 would be taken up only if states approach the Centre. Ms Karat later wrote to rural development minister C P Joshi that it was an attempt by senior officers to sabotage the promised wage increase.
In fact, it’s now possible to get details of file noting of bureaucrats, in addition to minutes of inter-departmental meetings, by filing an RTI.
Mr Mayaram is a 1978 batch IAS from Rajasthan cadre who had earlier worked as a joint secretary in the ministry of finance and had made an immense contribution to fledging public private partnership (PPP) initiatives in India.
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Ms K Sujatha Rao, a 1974 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS and India’s new health secretary, will take charge on September 30. Currently serving as secretary, department of AIDS control under the ministry of health and family welfare, let’s have a look at the career graph of the lady who has so far spent 35 years in public service. Significantly, during this long innings, she has spent more of her time and energy in health related issues.
IF YOU have planned a vacation during this festive season to claim LTC (Leave Travel Concession), this piece of news is bound to disturb you. Four hundred Air India pilots are now threatening to go on mass leave in protest against up to 50% reduction in their productivity-linked incentives (PLIs). The impact could be worse than that of the recent Jet Airways strike if junior pilots of the national carrier too join their seniors who now say that they were not consulted before the management had decided to reduce their incentives, media reports said.
For government employees, the strike could be a disaster as many officers might have booked their family vacations for the coming Diwali season only in Air India after the government had issued a directive saying that LTC could be claimed if one takes an Air India flight.
Significantly, Arvind Jadhav, the Managing Director of NACIL, the company that runs Air India, is himself an IAS of 1978 batch. In a related development, the Air India is now looking for a Chief Operating Officer (COO) for which the company has given advertisements in leading financial dailies abroad.
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A BLACK Ford Ikon parked not so far away from finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s white ambassador outside a North Block gate made a new security guard so upset that he wanted the driver to take it away immediately to the general parking lot. It was Tuesday afternoon when babu blogger witnessed the high-voltage drama of the Ikon’s driver refusing to obey the security personnel’s order saying that the car belonged to a secretary, and he had every right to park it right there. But the security personnel on his part refused to believe the driver as he believed no government officer’s car could be a black one if not a white ambassador.
But that’s the reality in the parking lots of Delhi’s power corridors. More and more non-ambassador cars donning red lights and ferrying ministers and officers are quite visible in Lutyen’s Delhi now.
In fact, home minister P Chidambaram was the first to get a new Ford Fiesta car replacing the Maruti Esteem used by him during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. But it’s white in colour which makes it still acceptable amongst white ambassadors.
Yet, among the new Ford Ikons bought for finance ministry officials, there were ones in Panther black colour making them stand out in the parking lot. According to media reports, the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals — a central purchase organisation of the Central government under the ministry of commerce and industries —approved Ford Fiesta and Ford Ikons after those cars were found more suitable than ambassadors.
In fact, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Infosys Technologies co-founder Nandan Nilekani disappointed many techies from Bangalore who wanted him to travel in a red light-fitted white ambassador in Delhi. Mr Nilekani instead preferred a Tata Indica, and that’s too without a siren!
IF all-powerful Indian bureaucrats feel that they will someday be able to wipe out the word babu, which still carries a negative connotation thanks to the colonial baggage, it’s just impossible. It’s a small and sweet-sounding word which people would continue to use and hear in lieu of the tongue twister “bureaucrat” or more official type “civil servant”. Though most civil servants blame media, and probably rightly so, for corrupting the word babu to make it synonymous with comfort and laziness, it’s a fact that media will continue to use it for humour and space. It’s space because “bureaucrat” is a lousy word for a headline, and “civil servant” is too big to fit into a space which demands large font-size! Mind you, the word “bureaucracy” is no longer a positive word, and it won’t take much time for the media to belittle the word “civil servants” either.
Before I air my views, let’s first see how popular dictionaries are interpreting the word. In dictionary.com which is considered to be the Bible for tech savvy netizens looking for word meanings, here are the meanings for babu:
a) Hindu title of address equivalent to Sir, Mr., or Esquire.
b) A Hindu gentleman.
c) A native Indian clerk who writes English.
d) Usually Disparaging. Any native Indian having only a limited knowledge of English.
Will you agree with this set of meanings for babu? I don’t.
Let’s now read what Wikipedia, which is the most respected free encyclopedia used by net users across the world, has to say. It says, “In British India, ‘babu’ was a term used to describe a native Indian clerk. The word was originally used as a term of respect attached to a proper name, the equivalent of ‘mister’, and ‘babuji’ was used in many parts to mean ‘sir’; but when used alone without the suffix, it was a derogatory word signifying a semi-literate native, with a mere veneer of modern education. In the early 20th century the term babu was frequently used to refer to bureaucrats and other government officials, especially by the Indian media; in this sense the word hints at corrupt or lazy work practices. It can also mean the pimp or client of a sex worker. The term babu has thus fallen out of favour in polite society, since it may be taken as an insult.”
I strongly feel that Indian bureaucrats should engage in a brand-building exercise to convert “babu” into a neutral word if not bringing it straight into the positive zone. First, the connotation of the word will automatically change if administrative reforms are being carried out from time to time. I feel many Indian bureaucrats are very hard working and disciplined and there are cases where they have proved to be better managers than India Inc’s top ranking CEOs.
I personally know many bureaucrats who are not only the products of top Indian B-schools, but have the quality of the best managers of the country. Here is my big dilemma: If a St Stephens pass-out or an IIM guy joins Infosys or HSBC, he earns respects and reputation, forget his fat salary for a moment. But how can the same person turn into a lazy babu if he cracks the UPSC exam to join as an IAS? That’s the irony which administrative reformers need to look at very carefully.
The 6th Pay Commission has introduced, though symbolically, a performance incentive for those who are better than the rest. I feel it’s the high time healthy competition should be encouraged within the government. The time-bound promotion needs to be weeded out if the government wants its schemes to be successful, and more significantly, if India aspires to be a truly developed nation by 2020.
Also, why not encourage entry of professionals into the bureaucratic set-up at mid-career level? If Nandan Nilekani can join the government, or Cornell professor Kaushik Basu taking up a full-time job in North Block sacrificing his high salary, there would be many mid-career professionals with rich experiences in their own domain, won’t mind taking a joining bureaucracy and becoming babus? Let’s induct professionals at the joint secretary level and make them the mission heads of various programmes across the country.
Yes, babu remains in your mind-space. Let’s change its meaning forever. If you spot a smart bureaucrat call him a smart babu, if he is lazy call him a lazy babu. And those who are smart, dedicated and yet powerful, babu blogger loves to call them, babuz --- both for singular and plural. babu survives, and maybe for a better tomorrow…
THE next time you spot Rajeev Khandelwal, who hosts the controversial realty show Sach Ka Saamna, in power corridors of Delhi, don’t get intimidated. He is not trying to rope you in for his TV show and ask you an uncomfortable question of whether you have an illicit affair with someone in your office!
But yes, he is eager to meet Indian bureaucrats, chat with them to understand how bureaucracy functions as he is getting ready for a film named Return Gift to be directed by Sourabh Narang.
For those detached from reality, Sach Ka Saamna is the Indian version of the popular American reality show The Moment of Truth.
In Return Gift, Rajeev will play an Indian bureaucrat on a mission to Pakistan for which understanding babudom in both sides of the border is extremely important. As was reported in a section of media, Rajeev said it’s a character that has far-reaching relevance, and he would be meeting eminent bureaucrats to understand how Indian bureaucracy works and also to comprehend the vexed issue of Indo-Pak relations.
However, no Bollywood story exists without twists! And this is no exception either. Rajeev has been selected for playing a role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Chenab Gandhi mainly because of his long hair. But his role as a bureaucrat in Return Gift demands short hair as the director says no bureaucrat sports long hair! And of course, he can’t do both the roles simultaneously thanks to his thorny issue of hair.
So, you can solve Rajeev’s dilemma of long or short hair by identifying a few top bureaucrats sporting relatively long hair. Will principal secretary to PM TKA Nair be a right example? If you have anyone in mind, kindly comment below this post…, or write at babu.blogger1@gmail.com
