Aam Ka Aadmi: Tharoor’s lone Tweet on bureaucrats

SHASHI Tharoor’s brush with power politics may have ended in a hurry, at least for time being, but his one-year-long political spell would always be remembered for his controversial but smart 140-character-long one liners. Mr Tharoor who had to resign from Dr Manmohan Singh’s government after his link to Kochi IPL team became apparent, might have tweeted on various aspects of work, life and fun in Delhi’s corridor of power, he incidentally tweeted the least about bureaucrats.

After scanning through his tweets ranging from diplomacy to eating mangoes, BoI found just one tweet on bureaucrats. On June 5, 2009, Tharoor tweeted, “Two more dinners! That intriguing Delhi mix of politicians, bureaucrats, media, + socialites.” Not a controversial tweet any which way!

But what remained non-controversial was his tweet on mangoes (June 9, 2009).

“Having lived abroad in places without Indian mangoes, have literally become “aam aadmi” this year, or at least “aam ka aadmi” – eat 6 a day!”

CBI’s big catch in Mumbai…

Investigating agency CBI arrested I-T additional commissioner Sumitra Banerjee and her husband Subrator in a corruption case, as it was found that the couple owns a sprawling property in Malaysia. Their immediate charge was accepting a bribe of Rs 1.70 crore from a builder to reduce his tax liability. CBI teams raided the Banerjees’ residence at suburban Chembur and recovered cash worth Rs 46 lakh and foreign currency worth Rs 10 lakh.

…And then a small fry

A government employee Rajeev Kumar was arrested by a vigilance team for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000 at Sitarganj area of Udhamsingh Nagar district of Uttarakhand. He was demanding the bribe for transferring a land deed.

Action and Appointments

a) Ms Rajni Razdan, former secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, took the oath of office and secrecy as Member, Union Service Public Commission (UPSC) on Monday. The oath was administered by UPSC chairman Prof DP Agrawal. Ms Razdan was a 1973 batch Haryana cadre IAS.

b) ACC has approved the repatriation of Ms Rajwant Sandhu, a 1975 batch HP cadre IAS, and secretary, department of drinking water supply to her cadre from July 1, 2010.

c) Ms Kiran Dhingra, a 1975 batch UT cadre IAS and secretary, ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, will hold the additional charge of the post of secretary, ministry of tourism during the absence on leave of Sujit Banerjee, a 1972 batch UP cadre IAS from April 16, 2010 to April 25, 2010.

d) US Bhatia, a 1974 batch Orissa cadre IAS has been appointed as Ambassador, Permanent Mission of India, WTO, Geneva, on re-employment on contract basis for a period of three months after his retirement on April 30, 2010, in the rank and pay of secretary to the Government of India.

e) Jayant Dasgupta, a 1981 batch Bihar cadre IAS will be the new Ambassador, Permanent Mission of India, WTO, Geneva, for a period of three years on the completion of the tenure of US Bhatia July 31, 2010.

Delhi’s power corridor feels the heat of monsoon fury; normal work paralyzed

THE work in many government offices in Delhi got disrupted as heavy rains accompanied by strong wind lashed the city Friday afternoon. Whereas a number of appointments and meetings got cancelled, and many bureaucrats were caught up in hours long traffic jams across Lutyen’s Delhi, premises of many key ministries including commerce and industry, steel, urban development and power witnessed severe water logging forcing even the powerful babus encountering real-time monsoon of the current season. The only area that escaped the virtual flash flood was the relatively higher zone of North and South Blocks housing several important ministries such as home, finance, PMO and defence though the officers who were out in the city at that point of time faced the nightmare of Delhi’s one of the worst traffic jam situationa during the recent time. Though falling of trees were seen in premises of many government offices in the capital, none of the buildings witnessed a similar fate as that of Indira Gandhi international airport where a part of the roof in the departure terminal was blown off by the wind, which raised many a question regarding the design of the airport being modernised on a public private partnership mode with GMR group holding the majority stake. Govt may adopt a new agenda for administrative reforms The government may adopt a new agenda for reforms in administration to meet the challenges of the changing times, minister of state for personnel, public grievances & pensions Prithviraj Chavan hinted while inaugurating a day-long conference of state secretaries of the administrative reforms held in New Delhi on Friday. The institution of Prime Minister’s Awards which recognize the best practitioners of administration in wide ranging areas from education, transportation, health, service delivery, policing, environment and urban governance, has given an impetus towards bringing many of the ‘Best Practices’ in administration to limelight, he added. Secretary of administrative reforms and pension Rajni Razdan said that the thrust areas in government reform included transparency, accountability and efficiency among others. Read: "ARC recommendations to be implemented with speed, says Prime Minister; RTI Act to be improved" posted on August 15, 2009.

Action & Appoitments a) The appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC) has rejected the proposal for inter-cadre deputation of Praveen Kumar Raghav, IFS (J&K, 2000) from Jammu & Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh. b) Central deputation tenure of 1981 batch IAS of MP cadre Amar Singh, joint secretary, ministry of rural development has been extended for a period of three months. c) M G V K Bhanu, a 1985 batch Assam cadre IAS, presently on inter cadre deputation to the state of Andhra Pradesh, may be repatriated to his parent cadre of Assam-Meghalaya by the end of September 2009.