Queen of hearts

The Bhutanese Queen charmed many during her visit and interaction at the President's 'At Home' function in Rashtrapati Bhavan. National Commission for Minorities chairman Wajahat Habibullah, who had a brief chat with her on the occasion, told her he had been to Bhutan to talk about the Right to Information experience. Jetsun Pema, the Bhutanese queen, told him that he had visited her country for work, and now should come back to the pristine Himalayan country for a vacation.

MINISTRY VERSUS STATE

THE ban on Kamal Haasan's movie Vishwaroopam is not the first time that the Tamil Nadu government has created trouble for the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Earlier, the state had refused to abide by the ministry's deadline to implement digitisation of cable television in Chennai. The matter is still pending in court. This time too the ministry is finding itself helpless. This issue has reached the courts and the I&B Ministry is not in a position to get the clearance of its own Censor Board implemented in the state.

CLUB CLASH

A TUG of war has long been going on between Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and the leadership of the Constitution Club over control of the Mavalankar Hall, which is situated within the premises of the club meant for MPs. Now, the secretary of the club, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, has gone public hitting out at Kumar. In the club's official magazine 'Central Hall', Rudy has written that it was regrettable that the Speaker did not find it worthy that Mavalankar Hall become part of the club despite leaders like L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Rajiv Shukla requesting her to extend support. "The Mavalankar Hall remains an eyesore," he has written.

RETIRING ROOM

THE highest body of the Indian Railways, the Railway Board, will, as a matter of coincidence, be overhauled completely as almost all the members are retiring one after the other making this a year of high-level retirements. Starting with Member (Engineering) AP Mishra, who retires on Thursday, the next in line will be Member (Staff) AK Vohra, who retires at the end of April along with his colleague, Member (Mechanical) Keshav Chandra. This will be followed by the retirement of Member (Traffic) KK Srivastava on May 5. Chairman, Railway Board, Vinay Mittal, the topmost officer, is next in line, superannuating in the first week of September. Only Kul Bhushan, Member (Electrical), will continue till 2015. Officials in the ministry say they don't remember a year when the entire Railway Board got changed because of retirements. For Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, it means getting a brand new set of top officials who would all be new to their assignments.

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