New telecom minister Kapil Sibal cleared IAS exam in 1973; would have been the batch-mate of Ashok Chawla and Nirupama Rao

HAD Indian minister Kapil Sibal chosen to accept the offer to join Indian Administrative Service (IAS) 37 years ago, he would have been batch-mate of finance secretary Ashok Chawla, President’s secretary Christy L Fernandez, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, India’s ambassador to US Meera Shankar and her husband and former industry secretary Ajay Shankar, Chhattisgarh’s top cop Vishwa Ranjan and former telecommunication secretary Siddhartha Behura. Yes, all these super bureaucrats are of 1973 batch when Kapil Sibal, an MA in history from Delhi’s St. Stephens College and product of Harvard Law School, cleared the IAS, but declined the offer as he wanted to become an advocate.

This week, Prime Minister has given Sibal additional charge of ministries of science and technology, and telecommunications in addition to his current HRD portfolio. For the record, his handling of telecommunications ministry would be carefully watched as a number of major decisions are likely to be taken in the ministry in the wake of alleged 2G scam.

Sibal, an MP from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk constituency, would have retired if he had joined bureaucracy in 1973. But now in politics, Sibal is not considered old at all, and he seems to have a long innings before the Congress recommends him for a gubernatorial assignment.

Action and Appointments

a) Nawal Kishore Sharma, a 1988 batch Indian Defence Service of Engineers, has been selected for appointment as director in the ministry of road transport and highways for a period of five years from the date of taking over charge of the post or until further

orders.

Indian Educational Service: Why does govt need to create yet another subordinate cadre?

AS THE government mulls over creating a new service called Indian Educational Service (IES) on the lines of IAS, Indian Forest Service or Indian Revenue Service, many officers from Group-A services have said in the condition of anonymity said that such a specialised service would be meaningless until it's made clear that the human resource development (HRD) would finally be manned by that specialised cadre alone. The officers of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) which is one of the large cadres with 4,400 men all over the country, have now been lobbying hard to make the Income-Tax department independent of the clutches of IAS officers. They are citing the example of Indian Railways and Indian Postal department where their own officers man the show up to the apex level.

North Block officials speculate on who would be the next Finance Minister

The officials of the ministry of finance in India have begun speculating on who would be the next finance minister as they have started the process of preparing the general Budget to be presented by the next government in June, 2009. Kapil Sibal from the Congress party could be a major contender to be the finance minister if the Congress comes back to power. Finmin officials, who all worked under P Chidambaram in most part of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, were sure that the current home minister would get no chance to stage a comeback to Finmin even if the Congress manages a similar mandate as in 2004. Also, Pranab Mukherjee, current incumbent, is unlikely to be the full-fledged finance minister as he would take up either external or defence portfolio, officials felt. However, if the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) forms the next government, the general feeling in the North Block is that the party's old hat Yaswant Sinha, who is contesting from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, would present the next Budget. Another BJP veteran Jaswant Singh, who is fighting an electoral battle from Darjeeling constituency in West Bengal, could also be a contender. Yet, no babu in North Block could hazard a guess who would be the country's finance minister if BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) supremo Mayawati turns lucky to occupy 7, Race Course Road, the official residence of the Prime Minister of India. But yes, Finmin's experienced team of preparing Budget are already getting nervous if Ms Mayawati appoints a Left veteran, say Sitaram Yechurry, as the country's next finance minister!