AIR TRAVEL: Centre extends LTC relaxation norm for North-East for 2 years

Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh is not far from India-China border

THE Central government employees wishing to venture out to India’s North-East, have reasons to cheer. The government on Monday extended its earlier order of relaxation of LTC rules so that the employees could continue to travel by air to North-Eastern Region and avail their Leave Travel Concession. According to a DoPT office memorandum dated April 30, 2012, the extension is for

Why Bengal CM was kind towards rail minister’s PS Vandana Yadav?

LAST year, West Bengal chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee turned down the requests of many IAS and IPS officers who wanted to come to New Delhi on Central deputation. The most prominent rejection was then Birbhum district magistrate and 2002 batch IAS Soumitra Mohan who finance minister Pranab Mukherjee wanted to be his private secretary in place of Manoj Pant who was to fly to Washington DC to become senior adviser to ED in World Bank. Miss Banerjee was however very kind towards one officer: 1998 batch IAS Vandana Yadav who was allowed to come on Central deputation. She became Mukul Roy’s private secretary in the ministry of shipping.
Now, Ms Yadav has been laterally shifted from the ministry of shipping to the ministry of railways. Ms Yadav will now be Roy’s private secretary in the Rail Bhawan. But why Ms Yadav in the first place got Mamata Banerjee’s nod to come to Delhi when CM even refused to consider Pranab Mukherjee’s pleas? Here is the answer...

PM believes in “trust” while choosing officials; but why not for other ministers?

LOOK, even Prime Minister wants someone he trusts as his joint secretary. After Chhattisgarh chief minister wrote to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh asking newly appointed PMO joint secretary BVR Subrahmanyam to be repatriated to the state, this was what PM wrote to Raman Singh: “I need an officer who has the experience and exposure in handling sensitive matter. The officer also needs to be someone who enjoys my trust and confidence. Due to these reasons, I have selected BVR…”. Yes, PM emphasized on two keywords: trust and confidence. But most ministers in his cabinet or for that matter even in earlier governments have to be satisfied with the officers they are thrust upon. Even a secretary to a department can’t choose his team-mates. Why can’t the Dhoni of a government department have the liberty to pick and choose his own players?

The rationale behind this British legacy is that...

No changes in UPSC exams, for now; Govt to wait for Nigavekar committee report

THE government has clarified that the civil services (mains) exam will remain as it is, at least for now. There were speculations, and even rumours that very pattern of the civil services examinations would undergo drastic changes. But V Narayanasamy, minister of state in the ministry of personnel, public grievances and PMO said in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Wednesday that currently there is no proposal to introduce changes in the main examination of the civil services examination. Yet,

Govt debates lateral entry into Indian civil services, UK crops up as example

THE government has begun the process of debating whether it should allow lateral entry of talents, from academia, research and private sector to join the civil services. It’s noticed that some civil servants with a time-bound career progress get lazy and lethargic which in turn damage the over-all efficiency of Indian bureaucracy.

“For all civil services, especially for the All-India Civil Services, lateral entry at different levels could be evaluated. The lateral entry would inspire competition among the civil servants,” a government-prepared background paper released on this year’s Civil Services Day writes.

The 56-page long background paper which formed the basis of a panel discussion on April 21 last, also gave the UK example where...

Diplomat M Manimekalai is India's evacuation specialist; gets PM's Award

Ms Manimekalai in Queen’s Baton rally in Malta (File photo)

IT WAS over one year ago. Ms M Manimekalai, a 1981 batch IFS officer was then Ambassador of India in Libya. Uprising against Libyan dictator Col Gaddafi was at the peak. The authoritarian regimes at Tunisia and Egypt had by then collapsed. There were air strikes in the capital city of Tripoli and elsewhere from European countries. Ms Manimekalai’s mission was to act like a full-fledged crisis management authority and evacuate more than 16,000 Indian nationals working in various companies such as Punj Lloyd, OVL, OIL etc. They were stranded in war zones of Benghazi, Tripoli etc.

One year later, on April 21, 2012, Ms Manimekalai received the prestigious Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2010-2011 at the individual category. If Tessy Thomas is India’s missile woman post Agni-V’s success, Manimekalai is India’s evacuation specialist, playing a key role in saving the lives of 16,000 Indians.

And this was how the department of administrative reforms and public grievances wrote about her

Alex Paul was kidnapped on a day PM spent time with thousands of bureaucrats

PM with an award winning bureaucrat on April 21

THE day Alex Paul Menon, a 2006 batch IAS, was kidnapped by Naxals from Majhipara village in Maoist-infested Chhattisgarh district, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was incidentally addressing hundreds of bureaucrats in New Delhi. The occasion was the annual Civil Services Day. While showering praise on bureaucrats, Prime Minister said Indian civil servants would rank “among the best in the world”. “They have done excellent work. They have delivered results in the face of adversity,” he said.

But as Alex Paul Menon incident has demonstrated, the adversities for young officers serving in Naxal-hit areas...

Why Leena Nandan is getting stuck with a Commonwealth Games post?

Leena Nandan (File Photo)

Delhi Commonwealth Games was over one and half years ago, but a few officers have failed to come out of it, for one reason or the other. On April 17, the Appointments Committee of Cabinet, which is headed by Prime Minister, has approved the extension of Leena Nandan, a 1987 batch UP cadre IAS “as Project Director of the Host Broadcaster Team (HBT) Commonwealth Games, 2010 in Doordarshan for a period up to May 31, 2012”. The ACC order itself said it was “a special case”, but did not mention why an extension was required for an officer who came on a Central deputation in November, 2004. A number of officers working in Organizing Committee of the Commonwealth Games, 2010, had to continue with their posts even after the Games were over, and that too for months with no work, but they finally managed escape routes.

Is Ms Nandan getting stuck because...

Indian government to send secretary ranked officers for Harvard crash courses

INDIAN government will fund even secretary-level officers for short-term courses in Harvard University this year. The secretary ranked officers are however eligible to apply only in two out of 30 short-term tailor-made foreign courses for which the government will fund under Domestic Funding of Foreign Training Scheme, 2012-13.

One of those two courses titled “Leaders in Development: Managing Political and Economic Change” will begin on June 4 and end on June 15, 2012. The other course where secretary ranked officers are also eligible to apply is on

IPL Season: A month long cricket camp for bureaucrats’ children now

Ex-IAS Raghu Menon

IN THIS season of IPL and cricketing fever, the children of the Central government employees are being wooed to a formal cricket coaching camp. The summer vacation is beginning soon, and the children will have a chance to stay fit. And you never know, there could be a future Tendulkar, Dhoni or Kohli out of them.

If the child is between eight and sixteen years old...