7 officers including 3 non-IAS appointed as additional secretaries or equivalent; 7 IES officers empanelled as JS

THE government on Friday announced the following seven additional secretary level appointments:

PMO Reshuffle: Nandini Paliwal shifted out to LBSNAA, Assam cadre officer Kavitha Padmanabhan to move to South Block

IN A minor bureaucratic reshuffle in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Nandini Paliwal, 2003 batch AGMUT cadre IAS, has been laterally shifted to Lal Bahadur Shashtri National Academy for Administration (LBSNAA) whereas Kavitha Padmanabhan, 2006 batch Assam cadre IAS presently working as deputy secretary in the DoPT, has been appointed as deputy secretary in the PMO. Ms Paliwal, 42, originally hails from…

Ms Sangeet Verma appointed as Competition Commission member; tenure of PMO’s deputy secretary Ajit Kumar extended

Ms. Sangeet Verma has been appointed as a Member of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). She will be given a consolidated pay package of Rs 4 lakh per month, without doling out any official car and bungalow. She is appointed for a period of five years. Meanwhile, Kalpana Mittal Baruah, 1985 batch Punjab cadre IAS, presently in the cabinet secretariat, has been repatriated to her cadre…

PMO’s Shrikar Keshav Pardeshi elevated as JS; IAS Dinesh Arora is new Dy CEO of National Health Agency

Dr Shrikar Keshav Pardeshi, 2001 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS and present director in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has been elevated as the joint secretary in the PMO. Pardeshi will be in the PMO till April 9, 2020, according to a DoPT order issued on August 1. Originally belonging to Maharashtra, he did his masters in preventive and social medicine before cracking IAS in 2001. He was allotted the home cadre. He has been in the PMO since...

Gujarat cadre IAS Rajender Kumar laterally shifted from DoPT to PMO; IPS PS Purohit elevated as special director in IB

Rajender Kumar, 2004 batch Gujarat cadre IAS, presently a director in the department of personnel and training (DoPT), has been laterally shifted as director in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). His tenure will be till May 26, 2021, or until further order, a DoPT office memorandum issued on July 2, said. A graduate in Ayurvedic before getting selected as an IAS, Kumar was collector in Gujarat’s Rajkot and then Surat district before joining the…

PVRK Prasad, an obituary: 1966 batch retired IAS and close aid of former PM PV Narasimha Rao died, aged 77

A book written by PVRK Prasad

IN MID-1990s, PVRK Prasad was one of the most influential bureaucrats in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). During his four and half years tenure in the PMO, he first served as the joint secretary and then the additional secretary during which period he also handled the post of media advisor to the then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao. PVRK Prasad is no more. According to reports, Prasad…

PMO gets a new deputy secretary by transferring post from MEA; power secretary Pradeep Pujari to hold additional charge of telecom

Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) will have a new deputy secretary-ranked officer, 2003 batch Indian Foreign Service officer Siddhartha Nath. The government on Thursday appointed Nath in the PMO for three years by temporarily transferring a director’s post from the ministry of external affairs (MEA) to PMO. Singh was earlier counsellor to PMI, Conference on Disarmament, Geneva. Meanwhile, the government entrusted the additional charge of post of telecom secretary to Pradeep Kumar Pujari, 1981 batch Gujarat cadre IAS and present...

Know Your Officers: 2 new faces in PMO — Vijay Kumar Mantri, Ms Aishvarya Singh

THE Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) will soon have two new faces — Ms Aishvarya Singh and Vijay Kumar Mantri — both of whom have currently been working in two different Northeastern states, Sikkim and Meghalaya. Ms Aishvarya Singh, a 2008 batch Sikkim cadre IAS officer and Vijay Kumar Mantri, a 2007 batch Assam-Meghalaya cadre IAS, were on Friday appointed as under secretary and deputy secretary respectively in the PMO. The IAS officers are usually brought in to Delhi on deputation at least at the rank of deputy secretaries, and not as under secretaries. According to PMO website, there are currently…

When a cabinet minister sits behind PMO officials in a government function

WHAT could be described as a rare instance in protocol-heavy government functions where sitting arrangement is well-calibrated and pre-determined, a cabinet minister of the Government of India was seen sitting behind PMO officials at a function held in New Delhi on Wednesday. The occasion was the presentation of ideas on governance, science and technology, and energy and environment to Prime Minister by three group of GoI secretaries. As this government-released photo shows, union human resource development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar was seen sitting in the second row behind three officials from the Prime Minister’s Office viz…

What are 8 new ideas that 2014 batch IAS officers presented to the PM? A snapshot

One of the eight presentations

LAST Thursday, a few IAS officers of 2014 batch gave presentation to an audience that included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others. Why shouldn’t there be a satellite-based mining surveillance system when the number of illegal mining cases jumped to 97,149 in 2014-15 — an increase of 40%, from 2009-10? Also, why not having e-court system on a mission mode when there are 2.7 crore pending cases in lower courts alone? Here are the few ideas — DBT, e-Courts, health, MyGoV, satellite-based mining surveillance system, Swachh Bharat, tourism and waste exchange etc.— that the officers gave and PMO noted:

Govt constitutes 10 new groups of secretaries to focus on agriculture, transport, energy etc.; 8 earlier groups disbanded

Union Secretaries While Listening to PM

THE government is constituting 10 new groups of union secretaries which will focus on sectors such as agriculture, energy, transport etc. and submit their reports by the end of November. These groups will replace eight earlier groups of secretaries constituted in January this year which in turn had worked on specific themes. In a meeting held on Thursday where Prime Minister Narendra Modi met all the secretaries, it was cabinet secretary PK Sinha who…

Secretary empanelled 1983 batch IAS officers given special secretary rank; Bhaskar Khulbe is now Secretary to PM

Bhaskar Khulbe (Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

ALL 1983 batch IAS officers who were already empanelled as union secretaries, are now designated as special secretaries with effect from July 29, 2016, by temporarily upgrading the posts held by the officers. According to rules, the moment the senior-most officer of the batch is appointed as secretary, all her batch mates empanelled as secretaries, get elevated to the rank of a special secretary. Special secretaries have the same rank as secretaries and receive the same salary as that of a secretary. Here are the newly elevated officers:

PM gets complaints against customs and excise officers; asks for strict action against erring bureaucrats

IN AN aggressive stand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday ordered strict action against officers who fail to redress public grievances of people. During the ninth interaction with secretaries through PRAGATI —multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation, PM went to the extent of saying that options could include even dismissal of officers, according to reports. The complaints that PM had received were mainly related officers belonging to customs and excise sector, as he reviewed…

10 developments about PM’s meeting with secretaries

PM Modi during a meeting of Group of Secretaries, in New Delhi on Jan 12

 PRIME Minister Narendra Modi has begun the process of meeting eight groups of secretaries set up to focus on certain thrust areas.
The first round of meeting was held on January 12. Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj as also Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya, besides all secretaries to the Group were present there.
Here are 10 developments of the meeting:

PMO asks for explanation from 5 junior officials about their lackadaisical attitude

Additional Principal Secretary to PM PK Mishra

THE Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has taken note of the casual approach of five junior officials including clerks who neither turned up for scheduled interactive sessions in the PMO nor even bothered to inform it regarding their inability to turn up for the same. Last week, the PMO in an unusual move sent notices to the ministries and departments where those officials were currently working, directing the departments to seek explanation from the officials as to why...

Vinay Mohan Kwatra: PM’s new OSD, his fluency in Hindi and understanding of economy and terrorism

IT WAS July 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi needed interpreters with fluency in Hindi, as he was to leave for Brazil via Germany to attend the BRICS summit. A 1988 batch IFS officer -- Vinay Mohan Kwatra, who was then posted in MEA on counter-terrorism desk, reportedly created a pool of Hindi-speaking diplomats who could double up as interpreters. On Tuesday, the government appointed Kwatra as an officer on special duty (OSD) in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with a direction to the cabinet secretary that…

How to handle bureaucrat-turned politician Manmohan Singh? All about Modi’s warmth and Shah’s anger

PMO site describes Dr Singh as a "thinker and scholar"

ON WEDNESDAY, bureaucrat-turned former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s meeting with prime minister Narendra Modi at 7 Race Course Road surprised not just those belonging to the BJP and the Congress, but also the ones who are pure apolitical. PM tweeted “Very happy to meet Dr. Manmohan Singh ji and welcome him back to 7RCR. We had a great meeting”, with a photo of a warm handshake attached to the post. In fact, most Congress leaders were…

What PM Modi says about Team PMO

Misra and Mishra of PMO

IF YOU check out the official website of India’s prime minister’s office (PMO) and go through the RTI section, you will come across a sub-head called “official working hours”. It is 9 am to 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday excluding Gazetted holidays, it mentions. But the reality is when the PM himself works till late night, there is no chance for the junior staff to log out at 5.30 pm. And on the day, when Modi Sarkar completed a year, PM Modi chose to sit down with PMO officials and…

What MoS in PMO Jitendra Singh told a group of IAS aspirants about UPSC exam pattern

MoS in PMO Singh with an IAS aspirant

IN UPSC examinations, there should be a level-playing field to all student groups regardless of their background -- rural or urban upbringing, their stream or subject of study in high school or graduation, etc., says MoS personnel and PMO Dr Jitendra Singh while talking to a group of civil service aspirants in New Delhi on Thursday. The minister’s statement came at a time when the government decided to…

April 1 Reshuffle: Know more about new entrants in PMO

Tarun Bajaj (left) in Singapore (File photo)

ON MARCH 31 and April 1, the appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC) headed by the prime minister engineered a major reshuffle in the PMO by bringing in five IAS officers including one from the finance ministry and two from the DoPT and paved the way for the exit of four existing PMO officials. Whereas Odisha cadre IAS Ms Anu Garg was shifted as joint secretary to the ministry of textiles, DEA joint secretary Tarun Bajaj was brought into the PMO. More about the men and women at the entry and exit gates: