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...

Rakesh Garg in Mayaram, Takru, LC Goyal club; Loses telecom secretary's post; List of new secretaries

1980 BATCH UP cadre lAS Rakesh Garg, who will retire in November this year, has become the third union secretary serving in high-profile department to have been shifted out (or demoted?) to the ministry of minority affairs, in the last 20 months of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, the first two being 1978 batch IAS Arvind Mayaram (from finance secretary to secretary, minority affairs) and 1979 batch IAS Rajiv Takru (from revenue secretary to chairman, national commission for minorities). On the secretary-level reshuffle undertaken on Friday, Garg, a mechanical engineer-turned IAS, was shunted out of the high-profile ministry of telecom possibly because of…

Know Your Babu: New telecom secretary & Tamil Nadu IAS MF Farooqui

TWO days after taking charge as new telecom secretary, 1978 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS MF Farooqui will be addressing India’s top business honchos in New Delhi today. The topic: Overcoming India’s implementation gap. Industry body CII’s annual meet will also be addressed by cabinet secretary Ajit K Seth and three other…

9 years post retirement, ex-telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh faces CBI raid

Ghosh, a week before retirement

NINE years after he retired as telecom secretary, 1965 batch Gujarat cadre IAS Shyamal Ghosh woke up in the morning on Saturday to find CBI sleuths knocking at his home in New Delhi. The reason? The investigating agency wanted to raid the residence of Ghosh who was telecom secretary when BJP leader Pramod Mahajan was the minister. Mahajan, who was a close confidante of then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was later killed by his own brother on a family dispute. The CBI believes that the policy of allotting airwaves in 2002 led to the loss of Rs 508 crore to the exchequer. There were raids in offices of telecom majors, Airtel and Vodafone, which are the supposed beneficiaries of NDA’s telecom policies. Both the companies have denied taking undue favour from the then government.

Many bureaucrats now feel that Ghosh is a scapegoat in India’s recent saga of telecom scam and high-voltage investigations. Former telecom minister A Raja and ex-secretary Siddhartha Behura have been behind bars for months. The principal opposition party BJP termed Saturday’s raid as a political conspiracy ahead of the Parliament session so as to divert the attention from the real culprits.

An MA in economics from Calcutta University and post graduate in public administration from America’s Princeton University, Ghosh held many important posts in government Gujarat and the Centre. He was Surat’s municipal commissioner during 1976-77. At the Centre, he was first the textile secretary and then got involved in telecom policies. He was the chairman of Telecom Commission and secretary, department of telecommunications between February 7, 2000 and May 31, 2002. Post-retirement, Ghosh became administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund under DoT between May 2002 and May 2005. Currently, he is the chairman of Data Security Council of India, a self-regulatory organization promoted by industry lobby NASSCOM.

He was also a strong contender for the post of comptroller and accountant general (CAG) after VK Shunglu’s tenure ended nine years ago. But VN Kaul succeeded Shunglu, and became CAG between 2002 and 2008.

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Siddhartha Behura: A poster boy of 1991 reforms 

Secretaries in Action  

Finance secretary and 1976 batch IAS RS Gujral will inaugurate the 35th meeting of heads of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (HONDLEA) Asia Pacific region at Agra on November 22, 2011. More than 100 delegates from member countries for Asia Pacific region members of ESCAP and governmental organisations will be attending the meet.

Kerala Ahoy! Who is new telecom secretary P J Thomas?

YET another important ministry will be under an IAS from Kerala cadre as P J Thomas, former chief secretary of Kerala and Parliamentary affairs secretary in government of India took over as telecom secretary on October 1, 2009. The telecom secretary is a key post in the run-up to the auction of third generation mobile technology or 3G. In addition to cabinet secretary and foreign secretary, several other Keralite officers or ones from Kerala cadre are heading Central government’s key ministries such as the ministry of home affairs, urban development ministry, ministry of heavy industries and the ministry of Indian overseas affairs. Profile of P J Thomas

Service: IAS Cadre: Kerala Batch: 1973 Date of Birth: January 13, 1951 Place of Domicile: Kerala Mother Tongue: Malayalam

Educational Qualifications a) Graduate (Physics, chemistry and match) First div b) PG in Physics, First div c) PG in Economics, Second division

Major Postings a) District Magistrate (Deputy secretary level), Ernakulam (From June 1, 1982 to April 1, 1984) b) Secretary (Deputy secretary level) Finance (From April 1, 1984 to July 1, 1985) c) Chief Electoral Officer (Joint secretary level) State Election Commission (From February 1, 1998 to January 22, 2005) d) Principal secretary (Additional secretary level) Human Resource Development (From January 22, 2005 to September 13, 2005) e) Director, Additional secretary level, IIM (From September 13, 2005 to February 1, 2006) f) Additional chief secretary, Human Resource Development (From February 1, 2006 to September 17, 2007) g) Chief secretary (secretary level) Kerala September 18, 2007 to January 22, 2009) h) Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, New Delhi (From January 23, 2009 to September 30, 2009) g) Secretary, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communications & Info Tech, New Delhi (From October 1, 2009 to ….)

Foreign Training One year course in public administration at IIPA, Paris (1987)

Straight From Files

Race for secretaries' posts (September 22, 2009) where babu blogger said Mr Thomas was a key contender to be telecom secretary

Ex-telecom secretary J S Sarma appointed as TRAI chairman

TDSAT member J S Sarma has been appointed the new chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), said media reports on Friday. The final clearance for Mr Sarma to take over as TRAI chairman came after the appointment committee of Cabinet cleared his name. Mr Sarma is a former telecom secretary of the country. He will succeed Nripendra Mishra, who retired on March 22, 2009. At present, TRAI member A K Sawhney is managing the show as the interim chairman of the telecom regulatory body. Mr Sarma was also the Telecom Commission Chairman from June 2005 to July 2006. In fact, the total number of telephone connections as on March 31, 2009, reached 429.72 million whereas the base of the total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and wireless local loop - fixed) stood at 391.76 million.