Parting with precedent, Kejriwal, who is happy to toe the Government line, has abrogated to himself the power to commission programmes. An order passed by Deputy Director-General T R Malakar on February 4 says ``it has been decided that henceforth no slotting of programmes will be done by any section without the approval of the CEO''.

With the UPSC interviews unlikely to take place any time soon, DD is not likely to have a professionally selected D-G. The candidates who had been invited for the interviews slated for February 22 have been issued registered letters and telegrams informing them that they need not turn up.

``The next date will be intimated in duecourse,'' says the letter.

Though the UPSC had taken a decision on January 18 to hold the long-pending interviews, citing a Prasar Bharati board resolution of December 1998, the I&B Ministry had objected on the grounds that it would have been a violation of Section 10 of the Prasar Bharati Act of 1990.

The Ministry has chosen to speak for the Prasar Bharati board when it says that the latter did not read the rules carefully. The board, as always, is maintaining a complete silence, as a result of which DD is likely to remain headless, as it has been since last year when former CEO S S Gill reverted K S Sarma to the Ministry.

The UPSC has decided to refer the interviews to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) as a face-saving measure, which suits the I&B Ministry fine.

The query from the Vice-President about the salary and status of the Prasar Bharati CEO has also been referred to the DoPT, where it has remained for over two months. I&B Minister Pramod Mahajan, however, has insisted that thePrasar Bharati case is ``not stuck with the DoPT''.

``The Government takes its own time,'' he said at a press conference last month.