Creative shift

Creative shift

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal is making a progression from writing poems to penning ghazals now. The busy minister, who juggles two important ministries, has already published two anthologies of his poems that have been written on his mobile phone in his spare time. The graduation to ghazal would also involve shifting from English to Hindi, making it difficult for him to use his mobile phone for his passion. Sibal, however, seems convinced he would be able to churn out quality stuff.

Waiting Game

THE withdrawal of the Trinamool Congress from the Union Council of Ministers has left the fate of private secretaries of the party's erstwhile ministers a little uncertain. Many of the IAS officers serving as private secretaries to those ministers are yet to find alternative positions in their central deputations. A few of them have found temporary positions within the ministries they were serving, but most of them are still awaiting permanent postings.

Studied Silence

IT was in December last year that 11 ministers and MPs had been roped in to a Group of Ministers, headed by P Chidambaram, to articulate government's policies and counter the Opposition's attacks on different issues. These included Milind Deora, D Purandeswari, Krishna Tirath, Ajay Maken, Jyotiraditya Scindia, R P N Singh, M M Pallam Raju, Jitin Prasada and Sachin Pilot among others. While the government is under constant attack over corruption issues from the Opposition as also India Against Corruption activists like Arvind Kejriwal, most of these junior ministers are keeping quiet. While veterans like Chidambaram, Ambika Soni and Kapil Sibal are the ones doing the firefighting, their junior colleagues obviously are keeping a distance from any controversial issue. Not surprisingly, they were looking the other way even when Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra came under Opposition's attack over his land deals with the DLF.

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