1972-batch IPS officer, Ashish Ranjan Sinha, has been having the time of his life ever since Bihar Governor Buta Singh appointed him Director General of Police in May 2005 during President’s Rule. He had earlier probed the Rs 17.5-crore flood relief scam against the Patna District Magistrate. Sinha is the youngest DGP of the state and belongs to the same town – Nalanda – and same caste – Kurmi – as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Immediately after assum-ing charge as DGP, he promised to control the law and order problem in the state within three months. But this was not to be. He was soon accused of fighting with another senior IPS officer of the state, Abhyanand, a Bhumihar acclaimed for coaching poor students for IIT entrance tests free of cost.
As a result, the state’s Police force became divided along caste lines and the crime rate increased. Since both Kurmis and Bhumihars are Nitish’s sup-porters, the CM did not want to annoy his support base. He found a solution by sending Sinha to Delhi as Director General of the Railway Protection Force (RPF). But Sinha refused to go and ultimately caste con-siderations prevailed over governance. And MK Sinha, a 1971-batch IPS officer of Bihar, is the new DG of the RPF.
Arjun Singh has a soft cor-ner for civil servants from his home state, Madhya Pradesh. He has invariably imported a team of his favourite mandarins from his state to any ministry he has assumed charge of dur-ing his long career. His pres-ent stint is no different. After becoming minister in the UPA government, he brought Sudip Banerjee, an IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre (now Chhattisgarh), into Shastri Bhawan as Secretary in his Ministry.
Banerjee extended patronage to all other junior officers in the Ministry from his state, at the cost of offi-cers from other states.And Joint Secretary Sunil Kumar of the Chhattisgarh cadre called the shots in the min-istry. Now that Banerjee has retired and the next Secretary, RP Aggarwal, belongs to the Andhra Pradesh cadre, Kumar has been reduced to a virtual nobody without any work. Aggarwal is considered tough and not the type to favour anybody on cadre considerations.And Kumar is now desperate to get back to his state but no one is coming to his rescue.
Dasmunsi keeps DD in doldrums
THE professional versus babu battle at Doordarshan shows no signs of ending. Ever since the greenhorn Chief Executive Officer, BS Lalli, joined Prasar Bharati, he had tried every trick in the book to dislodge the widely respect-ed Director General of Doordarshan, LD Mandloi, but failed.
However, Lalli’s day was made when Minister for Information & Broadcasting PR Dasmunsi, who had remained neutral for long, suddenly decided to step in. He chose to install the Deputy Director General of Doordarshan, Ashok Jailkhani, as acting DG even While Mandloi was DG. But the Minister’s deci-sion has cooked up a storm in Doordarshan and many theories are afloat about his move. The most proffered is that the Ministry has been given a huge budget of Rs 475 crore to make and telecast programmes for the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010. With Mandloi in the seat till then, it would not have been possible to favour certain producers
