Opinion Confusing ground rules
The ground rules for the Prime Ministers interaction with five editors last Wednesday were a bit confusing.
Confusing ground rules
The ground rules for the Prime Ministers interaction with five editors last Wednesday were a bit confusing. The invitees were sworn to total secrecy,only to discover that the news of the press conference was announced on all TV channels. It was agreed that the meeting would be on the record,but the PMs SPG guards confiscated the journalists tape recorders,considering them a security threat. As a compromise,the recorders were left outside the room but placed in front of a speaker. The audio quality of the tapes was so poor that it was difficult to transcribe the conversation. The PMs media adviser Harish Khare,National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Principal Secretary TKA Nair sat with the Prime Minister throughout the meeting,but a confident Singh turned to his advisers only once for assistance. He asked Menon to reply to a query on the implications for India of a recent move by the Group of Nuclear Suppliers to deny transfer of enrichment and re-processing technology to non-signatories of NPT.
LIC bonanza
At the NREGA meet last week,Congress MP Mabel Rebello raised an important and very valid query about the high cost of involving Life Insurance Corporation of India in the employment guarantee scheme. She calculated that LIC is paid Rs 400 annually per NREGA worker which works out to a yearly premium of Rs 1,000 crore. Citing the example of Jharkhand,Rebello pointed out that there were only two accidental NREGA-related deaths in Jharkhand for the whole year. LIC was earning enormously from a scheme meant for the poorest sections of society. She felt a smarter alternative would be to pay every district collector Rs 10 lakh per year. In the eventuality of an NREGA workers death,the collector would be in a position to pay Rs 1 lakh to the next to kin within 24 hours.
Get out of jail card
Kanimozhi and Suresh Kalmadi,both MPs and Tihar jail inmates,have written to the court asking for permission to be allowed to attend Parliament daily when the monsoon session begins in August. The DMK believes parliamentary colleagues of the popular Kanimozhi,who has friends in every party,will sympathise with her plight. Ironically,during the budget session when A Raja was planning to apply to the court for permission to attend Parliament,the DMK high command had persuaded him not to do so. It was feared that the sight of Raja entering and leaving Parliament House captured by TV cameras would only further focus on the corruption issue on the eve of the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. Curiously,Raja still remains reluctant to enter Parliament even today and unlike the other two,has requested the Lok Sabha Speaker for leave of absence.
Dial the past
RAX (Restricted Exchange) is a top security phone exchange meant exclusively for the Prime Minister,his Cabinet colleagues and senior secretaries to the GoI. The original RAX phones were of the 1980s vintage,requiring you to use your finger to the circular dial. Such 21st century features as speed dialing and memory were not available. Since then,all the ministers have modernised their RAX systems by connecting them though the PBX box junction which allows them to use their own technically advanced telephone receivers. The only minister to still continue with the old fashioned RAX phone is Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister M K Alagiri. The minister is rarely in the Capital and does not communicate much with non-Tamil speaking colleagues,so he never felt the need to upgrade.
Conspicuous absence
Invitations were sent to all Central ministers and MPs to attend the 91st birth anniversary of the late Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao at Andhra Bhavan in Delhi. But the only person from the government to show up was PM Manmohan Singh,who stayed for barely five minutes. The only MP who came was Ponnam Prabhakar from Raos home state. One man from Raos past who loyally made an appearance was controversial godman Chandraswami,though it is not clear whether he was invited.
Hijacking audience
Last week,Jaya Jaitly organised a meeting at the Constitutional Clubs Deputy Speakers Hall to mark the 36th anniversary of Indira Gandhis Emergency rule. Although several old timers from the JP movement,including senior editor,Kuldip Nayar,were present,attendance was thin since the younger generation has no memory of this dark chapter of history. However,half way through the meet,attendance picked up with several youth who had come to attend a conference organised by RSS sympathiser Govindacharya on Baba Ramdev in the next door Speakers Hall,peeping in to see what was happening.
Share
