Who are these IAS, IPS, IRS, IRTS officers who set up a virtual communication room to help Chennai flood victims?

AS Chennai drowns under the heaviest rain ever, here is a team of bureaucrats comprising 15 officers belonging to IAS, IPS, IRS, IRTS etc. who set up a virtual communication room by leveraging their social media expertise, and helped in turn many flood-hit victims by using their bureaucratic clout and connect. “Kamakshi Memorial Hospital in Pallikaranai is without power. There are patients in ICU and needs dialysis. Please make sure they are rescued” -- is one of many messages the center had received, and the bureaucrats located across states intervened immediately. The bureaucrats who set up the 24X7 virtual communication center include…

Are Indian bureaucrats a serious, longfaced, boring breed? Not really

IAS officer Alex Paul Menon who was kidnapped by Left wing extremists in Chhattisgarh, uploaded this photo in Facebook recently. It’s not about red terror but a simple shot depicting problems of a girl and a boy. He tweeted to say: “When it comes to other better districts. .. It’s the situation of a girl. Sukma is a lonely boy”. Menon was till recently the collector of Chhattisgarh's backward district of Sukma before he was appointed as CEO of Raipur Development Authority. 
Don’t think bureaucrats are too boring to think beyond file notings. Yes, many of them raise serious issues like governance, corruption, security, administration etc., also in social media. But here are 4 samples of bureaucrats’ Tweets which may help babus shedding their tag of “a boring, long-faced, unsmiling, serious breed”.

Alex Paul Menon narrates his “brutal” kidnapping; says about passion for Sukma

Alex (File Photo)

EVEN nine days after 2006 batch Chhattisgarh cadre IAS Alex Paul Menon was released by the Naxals, people are still talking about the kidnapping saga. In social media, readers are leaving their views and are trying to connect directly with the officer. BoI here presents what Alex Paul Menon himself wrote in a social media site two days after he was released by the Maoists. First, there was no Stockholm syndrome as the IAS officer narrated how the kidnapping took place in “brutal fashion”. Second, he was deeply concerned about the killing of his two bodyguards. And finally, he was determined to carry forward his work at Sukma with the same “enthusiasm and passion”. Here is the full text of Alex’s narration:

Alex Paul was kidnapped on a day PM spent time with thousands of bureaucrats

PM with an award winning bureaucrat on April 21

THE day Alex Paul Menon, a 2006 batch IAS, was kidnapped by Naxals from Majhipara village in Maoist-infested Chhattisgarh district, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was incidentally addressing hundreds of bureaucrats in New Delhi. The occasion was the annual Civil Services Day. While showering praise on bureaucrats, Prime Minister said Indian civil servants would rank “among the best in the world”. “They have done excellent work. They have delivered results in the face of adversity,” he said.

But as Alex Paul Menon incident has demonstrated, the adversities for young officers serving in Naxal-hit areas...