Planning Commission bureaucrats watch Peepli Live before brainstorming 12th five-year plan

CALL it a reel plan. Two days ago, senior officials of the Planning Commission came out of their mundane life of preparing what is often perceived as “boring” plan documents to actually enjoy a movie inside the Yojana Bhawan that houses India’s official think tank. Top plan honchos including deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Member Secretary Sudha Pillai, a 1972 batch retired IAS, Members such as Arun Maira and Sayeeda Hamid enjoyed Aamir Khan produced Bollywood film Peepli Live, a satire on farmers’ suicide and inefficiency of development programmes. It remains to be seen whether it would have nay impact on the plan panel bureaucrats who are formulating the draft Approach Paper of the 12th five year plan (20012-17).
After the special screening, Ahluwalia spoke with the reporters to say how important it was to watch a movie that talks about the perception of people on the development programmes. Sometime ago, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself watched the movie and praised it during his interaction with newspaper editors.

It was the debut movie for TV journalist turned filmmaker Anusha Rizvi who went out of the way to depict the Great Indian Political and Bureaucratic Tamasha with her humour-laced script and earthy lingo. Will other ministries too initiate special screening of movies which have social relevance.

Disclaimer: The photograph used is imaginary, not real.

UPSC now encourages online applications

As part of its e-governance initiative, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has introduced the system of online submission of applications for the competitive examinations it conducts. An increasingly good number of candidates have already started applying online for the UPSC examinations notified during 2010. Although this facility is in addition to the option of submitting paper applications already available, the prospective candidates are encouraged to prefer online mode of applying for the UPSC examinations using the link http://www.upsconline.nic.in, according to a government release.

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