You have two choices: Watching Dhoni’s boys on TV or babus playing cricket in Delhi

 IF MS Dhoni’s men in blue can perform in the world cup cricket, why can’t the babus do? Civil servants serving across the nation will get together and participate in All India Civil Services Cricket Tournament, (being organized by Central Civil Services Culture and Sports Board) to be played in New Delhi between March 18 and 25, 2015. And like all sarkari rules such as civil services conduct rules, here are the cricket rules being minutely framed for the tournament purpose:

Meet UPSC topper Harshika who is fascinated by cars with red beacons

THE list of highlights that department of personnel and training on Friday released immediately after UPSC results included the following: An alumnus of London School of Economics also figures in the top 25. She is Harshika Singh, 27-year-old girl from Ranchi, the hometown of Indian cricketing icon MS Dhoni. But her passion is not cricket but “economics, anthropology, world affairs and administration”. In her Twitter she wrote:

BoI Survey: 46 percent wants Indian bureaucrats to take bold decision

AFTER the Indian cricket team’s victory in the world club, babusofindia.com (BoI) posed this question: What do you think India’s bureaucrats should learn most from the world cup winning captain MS Dhoni? Here is what the key results of the BoI survey: 46 percent respondents say Indian bureaucrats need to take bold decisions. The result is interesting as there has already been an apprehension that Indian bureaucrats may now be over-cautious in taking bold decisions in the backdrop of the mega investigation on a series of recent scams.

In the same survey, over 19 percent people say bureaucrats need to “set target” whereas 18 percent want them to be “frank”. As India’s cricket captain MS Dhoni was appreciated by all for his cool nature, we posed this question: Do you want Indian bureaucrats to be “super cool like Dhoni”? 23 percent says: Yes, it’s more important to be cool than to be frank.

Here is the snapshot of the result:

What do you think India’s bureaucrats should learn most from the world cup winning captain MS Dhoni?

Take bold decision: 46.3%

Set Target: 19.4%

Be Frank: 18.7%

Be Super Cool: 15.4%

There has been a debate on how to improve Indian administration as many global surveys have ranked Indian bureaucracy lower than the rest. For the last two years, a survey undertaken by Hong Kong-based risk consultancy firm PERC has rated Indian bureaucracy the "worst in Asia". The survey which gets global media attention further claims that Indian politicians’ promise to reform and revitalize bureaucracy has failed as “the civil service is a power centre in its own right”.

No April Fool: Dhoni received real World Cup trophy, clarifies customs officials

THE Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) under the ministry of finance has denied that the original ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 trophy was lying in the Airport Customs Warehouse in Mumbai. The clarification was issued in response to a section of reports claiming that Dhoni and his boys received just a replica of the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy as the real one remained with customs officials stationed in Mumbai airport. As media reports slammed the customs officials for retaining the “trophy”, the only saviour for the customs was a letter dated April 1, 2011, incidentally the day of April Fool. None other than low profile CBEC chairman SD Majumdar reached out to media and showed ICC tournament director’s letter in front of TV camera to prove that the customs officials actually retained the replica of the trophy and the not the real one.

Here is the story line.

Two passengers by the name of Mrs Emma Waite and Mr Rixon Heyder, arrived by Flight 9W 255 on 1st April, 2011 at Mumbai airport from Colombo. They were carrying a trophy in their personal baggage which was claimed to be ‘ICC Perpetual Trophy’. All goods and equipments imported temporarily for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 tournament, a list of which was given by the ICC Tournament Committee, have been exempted from customs duty. However, the list given by the ICC Tournament Committee did not cover the aforesaid trophy which was claimed by the passengers to be ‘ICC Perpetual Trophy’, the CBEC release said.

To remove all doubts, the concerned customs officers contacted the ICC tournament director and enquired about the said ‘trophy’, so that appropriate action could be taken expeditiously and the matter resolved. In response, professor RS Shetty, tournament director of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 in a letter dated April 1, 2011 addressed to commissioner of customs, Air Cargo Complex, Sahar, Mumbai informed that:

i) The ‘trophy’ in question was not to be used for any purpose inside the country for the ongoing World Cup;

ii) It was being carried by Mrs Emma Waite and Mr Rixon Heyder as their personal baggage and that it would have been taken back to the ICC Headquarters on completion of their assignment in India;

iii) That the trophy shall be collected by the above passengers on their way back to their destination;

A request was also made in the letter of Professor Shetty that the customs office may hold the trophy in the customs warehouse at the Mumbai airport till it is collected by the concerned passengers on their return.

Action and Appointments

a) The ministry of minority affairs discussed various issues related to the implementation of programmes for the welfare of minorities with principal secretaries or secretaries of states or UTs on Monday. Vivek Mehrotra, secretary in ministry of minority affairs, inaugurated the meeting.

b) MA Gnnapathy, a 1986 batch Uttarakhand cadre IPS has been appointed as joint secretary (Naxal Management) in the ministry of home affairs in place of Dr Kashmir Singh, a 1978 batch UP cadre IPS.

Can every IAS, IPS or IFS be MS Dhoni or Sachin Tendulkar? Government says NO

THE government has reiterated that officers should not be given 10 out of 10 in a routine manner by the reporting or reviewing authorities, and this should be restricted to 20% of the officers under their supervision, and any grading of more than 8 for each attribute must be justified by giving reasons in writing in a separate sheet. Numerical gradings are done in a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 refers to the lowest grade and 10 to the highest. It has come to notice that many officers have secured full marks in the outcome of Performance Appraisal Report (PAR) introduced for IAS, IPS and IFS so far, which may later be applicable to other civil servants too. The original idea of introducing the numerical system by replacing the age-old Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) was to locate the outstanding officers and help them securing empanelment and promotions faster than the others. But that must be a limited lot as not every officer can be MS Dhoni or Sachin Tendulkar! The government in a recent order has further reiterated its instruction issued on 3rd December, 2008 which says that any grading of more than 8 for each attribute must be justified by giving reasons in writing in a separate sheet. The guidelines for Reporting Authorities also said that the members of the Service graded between 8 and 10 will be rated as ‘outstanding’ and will be given a score of 9 for the purpose of calculating average scores for empanelment/promotion. Similarly, members of the service graded between 6 and short of 8 will be rated as ‘very good’ and will be given a score of 7.

Babu Blogger’s Take: All these are perfect! But what’s about officers who take more initiatives and hence are likely to make more mistakes vis-à-vis others who are laggards so far as new initiatives are concerned. More you work, more controversial you could be! So, it’s a big challenge for the administrative reformers to give special incentives to those who work hard and initiate new projects.