More about private secretaries of 3 ministers -- Amit Shah, Smriti Irani and Jitendra Singh

THE Central government last week appointed private secretaries of three prominent ministers — home minister, Amit Shah, textiles minister, Smriti Irani and DoPT and DoNER minister, Jitendra Singh. Here below are the details:

Gauri Prashar Joshi: The IAS officer who reached home at 3 am with blood stain on her clothes; 10 Things to Know

IN THE last couple of days, social media has been abuzz with the way an IAS officer — Ms Gauri Prashar Joshi — handled the situation when followers of Sirsa Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim turned violent, forcing even the cops to flee from the scene. All had happened at Haryana’s Panchkula on Friday soon after Ram Rahim was convicted of rape. Ms Joshi who is Panchkula’s deputy commissioner and is also the mother of an 11-month-old, had minor injuries, reaching home as late as 3 in the morning, with blood stains on her clothes. Want to know more about this brave lady IAS officer? Here are 10 things to know about her:

Govt permits 2009 batch IAS to change her name; she will now be Jyoti Yadav

2009 BATCH Uttarakhand cadre IAS Jyoti Neeraj Khairwal will now be known as Jyoti Yadav for all official purposes. Yes, this IAS officer has changed her name. The government notification issued last week read like this:

Amstrong Pame: Every Friday, this Manipur cadre IAS will have dinner with 10 students

DEPUTY commissioner of Manipur’s Tamenglong district and 2009 batch IAS Amstrong Pame has asked school authorities of his district to short-list students for having first-hand experiences of witnessing the functioning of the deputy commissioner’s office, apart from joining him at the dinner table once in a week at his official bungalow. According to a letter dated July 3 issued by his office, a group of 10 students ranging from Class V to X will be invited every Friday for dinner with DC. The letter further said how the students needed to be selected. First, here's the full text of the letter issued by the deputy commissioner’s office:

“No” to inter cadre transfer request of Bihar cadre IPS Saurav Kumar Shah; “Yes” to Jayshree Bhoj’s request for premature repatriation

NOT allowing the inter cadre transfer of 2009 batch Bihar cadre IPS Saurav Kumar Shah on grounds of marriage to AGMUT cadre IAS Ms Tanvi Garg -- to give its nod to premature repatriation of Jayshree Bhoj, 2003 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS from Uttar Pradesh cadre to Maharashtra cadre, a high-powered DoPT committee headed by its secretary last week took a call on seven proposals on cadre change, inter cadre deputation etc. Here are those 7 decisions, according to the minutes of the meeting held on March 29.

More about the IAS couple of Chandigarh-Panchkula -- Gauri Prasher Joshi and Ajit Balaji Joshi

Pinjore Garden in Panchkula

LAST WEEK, 2009 batch Odisha cadre IAS Gauri Prasher Joshi was appointed as deputy commissioner of Panchkula, a planned Haryana city adjoining the union territory of Chandigarh that houses the capitals of both Punjab and Haryana. Significantly, Chandigarh’s deputy commissioner and 2003 batch IAS Ajit Balaji Joshi of Haryana cadre is Gauri Prasher’s husband. With Gauri Prasher’s appointment, Panchkula gets third deputy commissioner in one year. A product of St. Stephens college, Ms Joshi did her journalism from…

What bureaucrats have to say about DK Ravi, the officer who was found dead in Bengaluru

What Ravi wrote in Facebook when he left Kolar

"I'm at IAS Officer DK Ravi home. his body's kept for last respects. Thousands are here whose lives he touched. Officers like him make India”—That was a message posted in Twitter by 1994 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer Srivatsa Krishna. Ravi, 35, was found dead on Monday under mysterious circumstances at his residence in Bengaluru. A number of officers including IAS, IRS, and IPS posted their messages about the honest officer who courageously took on both the sand mafia and the builders manipulating taxes. Here are the comments of the bureaucrats including his friends, and “trekking and Bharat Dharshan mate”:

Mysterious death of 2009 batch IAS DK Ravi: More about the officer

35-YEAR-old IAS officer DK Ravi on Monday was found dead under mysterious circumstances at his residence in Bengaluru. His body was found hanging from the ceiling at his apartment. At the time of filing this report, a special investigation team was formed under the supervision of a DCP ranked officer to probe into his death. Was it a suicide? Or was it a…

Young IAS Tejaswai Naik flies powered glider to airdrop election pamphlets in Madhya Pradesh town

AN IAS officer of 2009 batch S Tejaswai Naik on Sunday surprised many people at Amarkantak town in Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh when he flew a powered glider, or paramotor, to airdrop Election Commission pamphlets urging people to vote. Naik, 31, used that innovative mode to appeal people in the town to turn up in large numbers for voting in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Another objective however was to…

Khap Panchayat objects to IFS Neelam Sharma's inter-caste marriage with an IAS

2009 batch IFS officers with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

INDIAN Foreign Service officer Neelam Sharma’s decision to marry her batch-mate (2009 batch) and Gujarat cadre IAS Kuldeep Arya would have been counted as one of many such babu marriages over decades. Currently posted in Moscow, Neelam Sharma is a perfect match for young and dynamic Gujarat cadre IAS Arya. Both are young icons from the North Indian state of Haryana. They fell in love and decided to marry.

But the Khap Panchayat of Neelam’s village in Haryana’s Bhiwani district does not find it a perfect match. The Panchayat of Patharwali village has questioned the IFS officer, a Brahmin, to dare to fall in love with a man from another caste. According to reports, there are tensions around the marriage after the Khap Panchayat expressed its reservations on the inter-caste marriage. A section of media quoted the Bhiwani Superintendent of Police Ashwin as saying that the police was keeping a close vigil and the situation was normal. The Superintendent of Police has however deputed men in uniform as well as those in plain clothes to avoid any confrontations. Significantly, Ashwin’s wife is an IAS officer of the same batch of Neelam and Kuldeep Arya.

Meanwhile, a large number of social organizations in the state and outside have given their support to Neelam’s decision to marry her sweetheart despite he belongs to another caste.

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Recent Orders on Babu Marriage

a) The Central government has transferred Srivatsa Krishna, a 1994 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS and Ms Gunjan Krishna, a 2004 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS from their respective cadres to Karnataka cadre on the ground of marriage.

b) The Central government has transferred Rajan Vishal, a 2008 batch Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS and Ms Archana Singh, a 2008 batch Gujarat cadre IAS from their respective cadres to Rajasthan cadre on the ground of marriage.

c) The government has transferred Ms Sharandeep Kaur Brar, a 2009 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS from Rajasthan to Haryana cadre on ground of marriage to Ashwin, a 2006 batch IPS officer.

110,000 Russian bureaucrats to be axed in next 3 years, says finance minister Kudrin

CALL it one of the worst nightmares for bureaucrats in Russia. The government of Russia has announced a plan to cut the number of bureaucrats by whopping 110,000 in the next three years, keeping the bureaucrats guessing --- where the axe would fall. The announcement was made on Monday by none other than Russia’s finance minister Aleksei Kudrin who said the move would save the nation more than $1 billion (or roughly Rs 4,600 crore in Indian currencies), media reports in Russia said.
This is in line with President Dmitry Medvedev’s order in June that the number of civil servants would be reduced by 20 percent.

Under the government’s plan, ministries and agencies will have to sack five percent of their staff in 2011 and 2012, and 10 percent in 2013. Quoting a government commission, the finance minister further said that 1,468 government positions were redundant, 263 duplicated each other and 868 required investigations to find out if they were necessary.

Interestingly, during the last three years, 20,000 bureaucrats got added to Russia’s federal government, 60,000 in regional governments and 50,000 at municipality level. Russian media reports further quoted a Statistics Committee report to say that the total number of federal civil servants in the country amounted to 604,600 in July 2010.

2009 batch IAS reportedly commits suicide

IN A tragic incident, a 33-year-old IAS probationary allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the compound of his official quarter at Moti Daman area. J Rajamurugan, a 2009 batch UT cadre IAS, hails from Tamil Nadu. He was discharging his duties for Panchayat elections held at Daman. He has been at Daman only over a month, and has been living in the official residence with his wife. The police has taken up the case for further investigation.

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