Sriprakash Jaiswal faces coal fire

Sriprakash Jaiswal faces coal fire

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal faced some tough questions from his own party MPs at a meeting on Tuesday at Jawahar Bhawan. The meeting was meant to brief MPs on the line of defence to be taken by them on the coal block allocation issue. When Jaiswal began to speak, an MP from Rajasthan interrupted and demanded to know the 'real beneficiaries' of coal allocation. Soon, other MPs, mostly the younger ones, joined her. After a while, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal intervened to say the purpose of the meeting was to defend the government and party and asked the participants not to behave like television anchors and Opposition members on television shows.

Whose home ground is it?

Former cricketer and MP Mohammad Azharuddin was curious to know why BJP MP Kirti Azad spent so much time talking to Sonia Gandhi in the treasury bench. Kirti Azad, also a former cricketer, immediately shot back at his friend Azhar, "This is my home ground" and walked off. Some of the Congress MPs are still guessing what Azad meant when he said "home ground".

More extensions for IAS officer

The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, recently wrote to the Department of Personnel and Training, requesting it to extend tenure of P Sampath Kumar, a 1997-batch IAS officer of the Assam and Meghalaya cadre. Following the request, DoPT, which in August had rejected his plea for extension for two years, has now sought the State Government's advice. Kumar, who joined RGF in 2007, has already enjoyed an uninterrupted tenure of five years, which includes two extensions granted earlier. The high-profile Foundation's trustees included Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

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