Protests by some IAS officers over the appointment of Shashank Shekhar Singh as cabinet secretary to the UP government are totally futile. There can be no questioning Singh’s seniority, as he worked as principal secretary when the outgoing cabinet secretary of India, B.K. Chaturvedi, worked as secretary in the state.

On the contrary, Singh’s position has created a peculiar situation in UP. For the first time the cabinet secretary of a state is senior to the cabinet secretary of India. Singh attained chief secretary rank in 1986 and has been principal secretary for 17 years, holding all key positions in the government. A separate order has always been issued to nominate him to the designation. Pointing fingers at Mayawati for appointing a non-IAS cabinet secretary is equally futile. Singh has enjoyed the trust of several UP chief ministers right from N.D. Tiwari, V.P. Singh, Veer Bahadur Singh to Mulayam Singh Yadav, and even Romesh Bhandari as UP governor, who found him competent enough to be promoted to a higher rank on several occasions. There is no point in keeping this debate alive. We must let the chief minister’s order prevail.

Call of the wild

Although the Indian Parliament has passed the new forest bill — giving tribal settlers ownership rights to property in forests — legislation alone is not going to help tribal inhabitants much unless it is implemented with the participation of the local population.

It is high time India adopts the African model of managing forests, which has already become popular worldwide. If we are not willing to hand over our forests to the private sector to be developed into game sanctuaries or safaris, we could at least develop a model in which public-private partnerships can be forged, by seeking the guidance of well-known international companies who have experience in developing safaris, sanctuaries and dense forests.

... contd.