New Appointment for IAS, IRS-IT, IOFS and Indian Railway Store Service officers

THE government on Monday appointed an MP cadre IAS —Vivek Aggarwal— as a GoI joint secretary, apart from appointing three other officers belonging to IRS-IT, Indian Railway Store Service and Indian Ordnance Factory Service (IOFS), as directors in various central government departments. Here below are the 4 new appointments:

1994 batch IAS Aparajita Sarangi quits IAS; likely to contest Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat on a BJP ticket

Aparajita Sarangi (Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Aparajita Sarangi, a 1994 batch Odisha cadre IAS officer who took voluntary retirement early this month, is joining the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), thereby becoming the second IAS officer in the recent time to quit IAS and join the party that has been ruling the Central government. Only in August this year, 2005 batch Chhattisgarh cadre IAS, OP Choudhary, resigned from the elite service to join the BJP. He contested from Kharasia constituency of the state in the assembly poll that was held on November 20. The results will be out on December 11. In Sarangi’s state, Odisha, the BJP is, however, in the…

1 IAS, 1 IDSE officer prematurely repatriated; 1994 batch IFS Rudrendra Tandon is India’s ambassador to ASEAN

Ms Sigy Thomas Vaidhyan, 2002 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer and director of NITI Aayog, has been prematurely repatriated to her parent cadre on personal ground. Ms Vaidyan is a director in the NITI Aayog. In the DoPT’s list of new orders dated June 4, she is however shown as an officer belonging to the Planning Commission (kindly see the photo) though in the actual order, she is mentioned as…

IAS Sharat Chauhan gets 2 years extension in WHO; MoS Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti’s PS elevated as OSD

THE government has approved the extension in tenure of foreign assignment of Dr Sharat Chauhan, 1994 batch AGMUT cadre IAS, as technical officer, planning and coordination, Grade 5 in World Health Organization (WHO), New Delhi, for a period between February 9, 2018 to February 29, 2020. The order towards it was released on Tuesday. In another appointment, the competent authority on Tuesday approved the…

2 IPS officers' extension proposals rejected; IPS Anurag Kumar posted in Indian embassy, Washington DC

TWO DAYS Two Instances of Rejection. Yes, during the last two days, there have been two instances of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) declining proposals of the ministry of home affairs (MHA) for extension of deputation tenure of two IPS officers serving in CRPF. On Tuesday, the ACC declined the MHA’s proposal of extending the deputation tenure of 1991 batch Uttar Pradesh cadre IPS officer Piyush Anand, serving as Inspector General (IG) in CRPF. His deputation tenure ended on January 2, 2018. Only on Monday, the ACC had declined to…

Know Your IAS: Arvind Shrivastava and his new assignment in Maldives

DECKS are being cleared for 1994 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer Arvind Shrivastava to take up an assignment in Maldives for the development of the island nation located in Indian ocean. He will be in Maldives as a development specialist attached with the Asian Development Bank under a project named “Strengthening capacity under operational management for development of Maldives” up to…

23 IFoS officers empanelled as GoI joint secretary; Full list

THE government has empanelled as many as 23 officers belonging to Indian Forest Service (IFoS) for holding the post of Government of India joint secretary. Out of them, nine belonged to 1991 batch, 10 from 1992 batch and another four from 1993 batch. Here are the names of 23 IFoS officers:

How the steel frame strangulates “railway officer” Ravina’s ideations…In a fiction by IRTS Ateesh Singh

“Ravina Shekhar starts off ‘Right Time’ from an overcrowded platform just like a newly announced train in the Railway Budget. As she chugs along an over-wrought career path, the steel frame strangulates her ideations and the high horses of power mock her polished percipience. Train operations fascinate her but there are scoffing side games in the loop lines which derail mainline work…” Hold on. Ravina Shekhar is not a real railway officer but a…

37 IPS of 1994 batch empanelled as JS; women officers dominate in Indian Posts and Telegraph empanelment

AS many as 37 Indian Police Service officers have been empanelled as Government of India joint secretary or joint secretary equivalent. The government has also empanelled 7 officers belonging to 1994 batch Indian Post and Telegraph Account and Finance Service, six of whom being women. Here are the 2 lists of joint secretary empanelment:

Why empanelment of these 11 IDAS officers as GoI joint secretaries bears significance

ON Monday, the Central government released two lists of empanelment for joint secretaries, belonging to 1994 and 1995 batches of Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS). The batches are quite close to 1997 batch of IAS, which got empaneled and their members were elevated to the posts of JS. The empanelment of 1994 and 1995 batches of IDAS draws attention because there are times when Group “A” service officers get emplaned a decade later than their IAS counterparts. For example, only in the month of January last, as many as 31 officers of Indian Ordnance Factory Service (IOFS) were empaneled. And all of them belong to 1988 batch! Here is the list of IDAS officers getting empanelment as JS:

Backroom Boys of 7th Pay Commission: Who was its “heart and soul”; and who “displayed great stamina”?

YOU may or may not agree with all the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission which had submitted its report last Thursday. But you must not ignore the hard-work of many an official who made this gigantic 880-page report a reality, well on time. Who were the backroom boys in the Commission headed by chairman Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur, and two members Vivek Rae, a former IAS and Dr Rathin Roy, a young economist? Find out who was the Commission's "heart and soul" and who displayed a "great stamina":

Full list of 48 officers empanelled as GoI joint secretary; Some belong to 1985 batch, some 1997!

IN THE last couple of days, the Central Government announced the empanelment of as many as 48 officers belonging to IAS, IPS, Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers, Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) and Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers (IRSEE) as joint secretary to Government of India (GoI). And they belong to as old as 1985 batch and as new as 1997 batch. Significantly, as 17 officers belonging to 1985 batch Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers get empanelled as joint secretaries, many of their IAS batch-mates were appoined as GoI additional secretaries. Here is the full list of 48 newly-empanelled JS:

“Hang corrupt IAS officers in India Gate, but…”- a fascinating talk by 1994 batch IAS Srivatsa Krishna

Srivatsa Krishna, 1994 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer and one of the most articulate voices of the elite Indian Administrative Service says there are many honest IAS officers undertaking tough jobs away from media limelight, though there are some who are corrupt.  Hang corrupt officers in India Gate, but don't tar everyone with the same brush, says Krishna while addressing a gathering of young entrepreneurs in Bengaluru recently for a TV show titled…

1994 batch IAS Samir Kumar Sinha appointed in newly created JS post in 7th Central Pay Commission

THE OUTGOING government has created a new post at the rank of joint secretary in the 7th Central Pay Commission under the department of expenditure, and appointed 1994 batch Assam cadre IAS Samir Kumar Sinha for that position, according to an order issued on May 13, 2014. Sinha, originally belonging to Bihar, will return from Manila where he has been working as adviser to…

Incredible! Govt regularises 7-year-old unauthorized overstay of a 1994 batch IAS officer

ON NOVEMBER 14, 2013, the DoPT issued a notification mentioning the name of a 1994 batch IAS officer whose unauthorized overstay in Uttarakhand seven years ago, has been regularized. The notification signed by under secretary SS Shukla and sent to four officials viz.

Adviser to ED: Govt begins searches for Anuradha Thakur’s replacement in World Bank

THE government has begun the search process for finding a replacement for Anuradha Thakur who is completing her term as Adviser to the Executive Director in the World Bank on March 24, 2014. Ms Thakur, a 1994 batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IAS, had earlier served as…

Vodafone CEO describes Indian bureaucracy “complicated and stratified”

VODAFONE Group CEO Vittorio Colao has called Indian bureaucracy “very complicated and stratified” adding that there are “just too many layers and too many people who can interpret things the wrong way.” The CEO of the British telecom giant made this remark while speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the largest circulated financial daily in the world, just a few days before India’s finance minister P Chidambaram presented his Union budget. And the context in which Colao referred to Indian bureaucracy was...

Will Dr Faesal and his friends succeed in saving a six-decade old Indian brand, IAS?

IT’S a tale of two doctors, Dr Shah Faesal, the IAS topper of 2009 and Dr Ravi Inder Singh, 1994 batch IAS and home ministry director who was recently detained for allegedly leaking information in lieu of money and sex. Both happen to be MBBS-turned IAS officers, but they are not on the same side when it comes to Brand IAS.

On last Thursday, India’s home minister P Chidambaram released a video entitled “Ray of Hope”, prepared by government-run autonomous organization, National Foundation for Communal Harmony, highlighting the importance of peace, communal harmony and national integration. The video has featured Dr Shah Faesal, 2009 batch IAS topper hailing from the trouble-torn Jammu and Kashmir, as the Goodwill Ambassador of NFCH. In the video, Dr Faesal has highlighted the need of being resilient against odds in life. While home minister Chidambaram released the politically correct video of featuring the young Indian IAS from Jammu and Kashmir, another IAS, a director ranked officer from Chidambaram’s own ministry was already detained as he allegedly leaked sensitive information related to a telecom company. And his reported code language, software from Uzbekistan, meaning sex workers from that country, became a spicy topic for discussion both inside and outside the corridors.

Here comes the big question in corridors of power--- is it the beginning of an end to Brand IAS? Remember, every IAS officer is a big brand in his locality and many middle class families virtually worship IAS officers of their locality or districts as big heroes. And there are many occasions in which IAS toppers are more popular than local MPs and MLAs, both elected representatives.

So, will the young breed of IAS officers being represented by Dr Faesal and his friends be able to stop the fast erosion of a century-old brand, Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Though IAS was formed in 1946, it was a much older brand considering that Indian Civil Service that was created in 1893 was just another name of today’s IAS. But Ravi Inder saga is just one of many recent occasions where brand IAS gets diluted. In February, 2010, Arvind Kumar Joshi and Tinoo Joshi, both 1979 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS, became the talk of the corridors when I-T sleuths recovered a whopping Rs 3.1 crore in cash, jewellery and documents of properties disproportionate to their known sources of income. Similar raids also recovered Rs 52 lakh cash and jewellery worth Rs 72 lakh.from the residence of 1988 batch Chhattisgarh cadre IAS, Babulal Agrawal.

What’s more, in the world of RTIs and growing activism, if the IAS officers finally succumb to the public pressure to disclose their assets, more fall guys are bound to surface. Your assets, your file noting and yes, your telephonic conversations could soon be under public scrutiny!

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