Tee diplomacy

Home Secretary V K Duggal’s new obsession is golf, and the Delhi Golf Club has made him a forceful promoter of the game—even in his work. Duggal has now decided to use the fairway as the perfect neutraliser for hard negotiations with troubled states and niggling neighbours. Recently, Duggal had a freewheeling chat with Myanmar’s Deputy Home Minister Phone Swe on the rolling greens of DGC, using the long walks to talk and make sense of intelligence matters. By the way, Phone Swe also travelled to Leh during his visit to get a flavour of how the security mechanism works on the India-China border. Has golf driven home the point, only Duggal can tell.

It wasn’t me

Can a minister actually plead that an important legislation passed by his Ministry was cleared under pressure from his “more influential’’ colleagues in the Cabinet? This week, the much-awaited notification on Environment Impact Assesment (EIA) was signed by the Environment and Forests Ministry. It deals with rules on how infrastructure projects get environmental clearance in the country. The NGOs have consistently alleged it is pro-industry and that vital consultation from civil society is missing. So when CPI leader D Raja went to meet MoEF A Raja with these grievances just hours before the minister signed on the notification, the latter reportedly told him he was helpless—the real people to approach were Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, he said. Apparently, the draft notification was changed substantially outside the Ministry.

Eco for the Left

Meanwhile, the Left has finally discovered the fashionable green cause, a cause celebre with left-wingers in the rest of the world. The CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and Forward Bloc’s Debrata Biswas have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warning against any move to relax the building bylaws governing the environmentally sensitive coastal and tribal/forest areas. If the PM fails to respond, the Left parties, Biswas has threatened, will take up the issue at the next UPA-Left coordination committee meeting.

Mother’s diary

Poor Varun Baba, looks like Mummy Maneka is going to blow it for him. For Maneka Gandhi has already embarked on a demolition course following the buzz that the Big Ticket from Vidisha may elude her son. She has got in touch with her long-lost friend Uma Bharati and asked her to contest from Vidisha to knock out any other BJP contestant who would dare replace Varun Gandhi. Maneka wants Bharati to give her the pleasure of teaching the party leadership a lesson. But Bharati’s workers wonder where it would leave the fiery sanyasin if Varun were to get the ticket.

NPAs

The BJP may go on a Vastu overdrive, constantly shifting its gates at party headquarters, but can its Vastu experts do something to bring officebearers back to office? The rooms of general secretaries are unlocked, cleaned and dusted every morning without fail six days a week but their allottees rarely show up. No one can recall if Ananth Kumar or Om Prakash Mathur were ever seen occupying their chairs. Vinay Katiyar and Thavar Chand are a shade better, coming to their offices at least once a while. Sanjay Joshi and Arun Jaitley are in a different category altogether. Joshi is a resident of the building so at least he’s spotted in the compound, Jaitley operates from an adjacent house allotted to him as an MP.

Political tourism

The Uttaranchal Tourism Board must be delirious about the political tourism the state is attracting—there has been a series of party conferences in its salubrious environs. First it was the BJP national executive on September 8-10, followed by the NCP national convention on September 16-17. Next week it will be the two-day Congress Chief Ministers Conclave. An NCP delegate who came all the way from Nashik was elated about the choice of venue—he discovered that Hardwar was close to Dehradun and said he would stay an extra 10 days before returning. Political parties are, however, calculating the gains of publicity for the forthcoming assembly election. Wonder if all this will thaw the chill of the Himalayan foothills?

Back, for a while

Will PA Sangma ever settle down? He was among the NCP’s founders with Sharad Pawar and Tariq Anwar. But given his eccentricities, it was surprising when he parted ways and joined Mamata Banarjee. It was not long before he left the Bengal Didi and then toyed with the idea of joining the Congress again. Finally, he is back in the NCP. Sangma was on the dais at the NCP national convention in Dehradun and Pawar was seen happily embracing him back. Sangma’s return could have one man anxious—Praful Patel, who has risen to become Number Two in the party.

Red reels

Bollywood, watch out. The Left has designs on you. The main hall of AK Gopalan Bhavan, the CPI(M) headquarters, is also the venue for regular film screenings organised by the Ritwik Ghatak Film Club, started by the party’s cadres. The first screening, under the gaze of portraits of pensive party stalwarts, was of the 2003 film Khamosh Paani, which was attended by its music composer Madan Gopal. But as a member pointed out, the club was also about entertainment, so there should be screenings of Bollywood hits as well. The film club is a first for the CPI(M), but the comrades are dusting the “cultural thesis” written by Ghatak himself in the 1950s lamenting the absence of leftists in the field of culture. He had sagely suggested that popular art and culture would always serve the party.

Via media

The clash between the Defence Minister’s Scientific Advisor M Natarajan and his second-in-command at DRDO, M Sivathanu Pillai, has taken confidentiality at the organisation to bizarre levels. Insiders say Natarajan has made it unofficially known that he is uncomfortable with Pillai’s informal interactions with the media, especially following a year of relentless DRDO-bashing in the Press. Pillai, on the other hand, also had the challenging role of heading BrahMos, the country’s corporate cruise missile joint venture with Russia, which has received relatively glowing coverage. Though he finds the muzzle bemusing, Pillais hasn’t dared put his unhappiness on record. Now that he has moved from being Chief Controller of Missiles & Strategic Systems to the much less prestigious Naval Systems, DRDO stays mum.

Khaki blues

The Home Guards are a neglected lot. They are poorly paid and, in cases of the lower ranks, are actually daily wagers. But so dismal is their situation that even the post of director-general has no willing takers. After Kiran Bedi, its first DG was moved to the Bureau of Police Research and Training two months ago, the post is wanting. The first choice, Y S Dadwal, Additional Commissioner of Police (DG rank) in Delhi, was not too keen on the post. Then two other senior officers managed to wriggle out of their appointment. Finally, the Home Ministry found the candidate in Neeraj Kumar, an IG-rank IPS officer, who wanted to come back to Delhi from Goa. The Deputy Secretary (Home) issued transfer orders for Kumar last Friday, but one wonders how long the officer stays in the department once he arrives to Delhi.

Lecturing/hectoring

Now that his pet peeve, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has reportedly been invited by IIM-Ahmedabad to give a talk, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad is not pleased at all. Lalu, who is all set to deliver a lecture on Indian Railway’s turnaround story to the students at Ahmedabad, has huffed to all and sundry saying, “We have a success story to narrate. What can the Bihar CM enlighten the audience about? Non-governance in the state?” he complained. “This just goes on to show the desperation of Laluji’s detractors,” said a Lalu groupie in Rail Bhavan. However, the RJD leader’s only consolation is that he will get the first applause as Nitish Kumar’s invitation is slated for November.

Godsend

Every bureaucrat who takes charge of a new department has grand schemes and makes extravagant purchases. In the case of the Central Bureau of Investigation, one official decided to order a huge microfilm camera for Rs 25 lakh. The purpose was to do some specialty photography but nobody in the organisation knew how to use it. After lying in its storeroom for a couple of years, it has finally decided to present it to the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library for free. The Nehru Museum, which is perpetually short of funds, of course, has grabbed the offer.

Lingua fracas

The first time former Culture Minister Jaipal Reddy addressed the committee that oversees implementation of the Hindi language, he was admonished by a member from the cow belt for starting the session in English. But the incumbent, Ambika Soni, drew silent praises for recently addressing a routine committee meeting in shudh Hindi. Soni even took up issues relating to negligible purchases of Hindi books by public libraries. An official who attended the meeting later sniggered and said there are not too many academic publications worth displaying. Mercifully, an NGO is taking an interest in translating English books into Hindi.

Tailpiece

Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to find a Brazilian coach for the Indian football team. Manmohan took up the issue during his visit to Brazil. In fact, it’s not surprising Dasmunsi has made this request. A while ago, he wistfully told some scribes that had he become the foreign minister the cause of Indian football would have been served better. Is there a self goal here?