ccpa calls babu to read note
Hindi is the official language of India and, in the Atal Behari Vajpayee administration, Cabinet ministers and the bureaucracy competed with one another to show off their mastery of the language. Some even ventured into Hindi poetry but perhaps the less said about that the better. In the UPA administration, the situation is quite the opposite. When Baba Ramdev aide Acharya Balkrishna’s handwritten note in Hindi was presented on June 4 to the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA), none of the members could read it. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can read Urdu but not Hindi. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee can read Bengali but not Hindi. The question of Home Minister P Chidambaram being able to read Hindi just does not arise. Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah might have been able to read it but he never attends CCPA meetings.
Finally, a bureaucrat was summoned to read the note.
Mukherjee reportedly asked Chidambaram to tell the Department of Official Language under him to organise a crash course in Hindi for him and others in his Ministry. Pranabbabu joked that they were like the five blind men describing an elephant by touching various parts of its anatomy.
As luck would have it, the joke turned out to be ominous. A month after the lathicharge on sleeping women and children at midnight on June4-5, no one in the Manmohan Singh administration has owned responsibility for what some describe as a replay of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Possibly, each of the CCPA members might have had his own version of the official action that was planned at 10, Janpath.
Tale of two Krishnas
sm krishna does a krishna menon
External Affairs Minister SM Krishna seems to be an avatar of the late Krishna Menon. The latter’s greatest achievement as Defence Minister was his fooling of the Indian public in the face of China’s clearly hostile intentions. As late as September 1962, even as intelligence piled up and the US informed India that at least 10 PLA divisions had been massed along India’s borders, he kept insisting that China posed no threat.
Krishna is doing a repeat. Since taking over, he has spent a good deal of time offering untenable explanations about China’s sustained move to dam the Tsangpo, which later becomes the Brahmaputra. Amazingly, he has even used China’s statement that there is no plan to divert the water of the Tsangpo.
His latest move – asking the Indian embassy in Beijing to provide information on the issue – has left defence and intelligence officials tearing their hair. They have forwarded to the PMO satellite images of China’s escalated dam-building activity at the point where the river first moves north and then turns south to flow into India.
Like Jawaharlal Nehru kept silent on the deeds of his illustrious Defence Minister, Manmohan Singh is doing the same – perhaps keen not to ruffle the Middle Kingdom. The bottomline: there is as much political leadership in the defence of India today as during the Nehru years.
Mobile or hot brick?
gifted phones may be bugged
The bugging of Pranab Mukherjee’s office has sent Ministers and bureaucrats into a tizzy. Many of them do not have to buy the high-end mobile phones in vogue nowadays – they get iPhones and Blackberrys as gifts from corporate houses or their rich constituents. Apparently, Ministers with important portfolios and bureaucrats in key ministries who have accepted and are using such gifts are now in a quandary as there is a distinct possibility of their phones having been bugged by those who bestowed them.
If this is true, it will not be surprising if, in days to come, a new Pandora’s box is opened over this method of bugging politicians and bureaucrats. Meanwhile, a gifted mobile phone is bound to be regarded with suspicion.
Cosying up to PC
narayanasamy’s on a roll
In politics, so the saying goes, there are no permanent friends or enemies. So far, V Narayanasamy, the Minister of State for DoPT, has been the trusted lieutenant of Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to Sonia Gandhi. But 100% loyalty cannot be taken for granted and Narayanasamy now heads the CBI. Though he comes under the PMO, he is reportedly influenced by Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Suddenly, Narayanasamy seems to enjoy exalted status at party and Cabinet meetings. He is often addressed as “sir” and people greet him rather more respectfully than earlier.
If North Block sources are to believed, Narayanasamy, Chidambaram and GK Pillai formed a trio that directed the CBI in the 2G scam. A top industrialist was kept from being arrested after he pleaded with the trio to arrest his company officials but not him. In his case, the plea was granted though it wasn’t in Kanimozhi’s case. Sources say 10, Janpath is aware of Narayanasamy’s new proximity to Chidambaram and plans to replace him with another loyalist from Madhya Pradesh. Thereafter, Narayanasamy will be elected to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra and later inducted as Minister for DoPt.
