Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s media advisor, Harish Khare, is clearly not striking the right notes in his first 100 days. An angry Health Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, recently alleged that confidential letters were being leaked by an “official” from the Prime Minister’s Office. While Azad, who is reported to have taken up the issue with the Prime Minister, refused to disclose the name of the official, sources said Khare was the target. It seems Khare is finding it difficult to decide which side of the fence he is on. Ahead of the PM’s press conference during the trip to Pittsburgh, some mediapersons struck up an informal chat with Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla. Khare asked Chawla if he was holding a mini-press conference before the PM’s briefing. Chawla, a seasoned bureaucrat, replied that the reporters were “old friends from Delhi.” To which Khare said: “They (reporters) cannot be friends”. But old habits die hard and so, in the true spirit of a hack’s hunger for information, Khare was heard asking a senior journalist details about when his paper was getting a new editor.

Rolling out the red carpet

NOTWITHSTANDING its sloppiness in the preparations for next year’s Commonwealth Games, the Suresh Kalmadi-led organising committee is not leaving any stone unturned in trying to impress the member countries. To deal with the security concerns of some of the countries, the organising committee has come up with an innovative idea. It has asked the government to provide NSG cover to each of the delegates who are coming to participate in the week-long general assembly of the Commonwealth Games Federation from Thursday. The Delhi government is also playing ball and has offered to treat Prince Edward of England — the vice-president of the Federation — as a state guest which will entitle him to high security and ceremonials. Now, if only putting up a decent infrastructure and making other arrangements for a successful Games was also this easy.

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