Dance CM, dance

Farooq Abdullah on the dance floor has always been a source of admiration and comment, since the J & K chief minister displays a natural sense of rhythm, joie de vivre and an eye for the prettiest partner in the room. Now Abdullah is learning a new form of dancing, Kathak. He is so taken up with Indian dancing that for the last six months a dance teacher from the state academy of art and culture travels to Srinagar once or twice a week to give the chief minister dancing lessons.

No sun block

CONSIDERING that Sun TV is owned by M Karunanidhi’s nephew Murasoli Maran’s family, it is not surprising that the network provided a blow by blow footage of the DMK leaders arrest much to Jayalalitha’s discomfiture. But the next day the state government produced separate video clips of the arrests which sought to justify the police action. Surely the Tamil Nadu police does not habitually take a video cameraman along with them? It seems that Jayalalitha’s minions after seeing the impact of Sun TV clips televised nationally commandeered the entire footage taken by Sun TV and did their own editing. There was a veiled warning to national channels to use their visuals.

Jayalalitha can do little about Sun TV. Under the law only the central government can censor a TV channel, while the state government has control over the local cable channels. This distinction between a cable channel and a regional TV network was built into the law during Arun Jaitley’s tenure as I & B minister at the suggestion of Shabana Azmi. The activist actress had warned of the possibility of state governments misusing their powers to harass regional channels ill-disposed to them.

Internal sabotage

BEHIND the scenes there is a constant tug-of-war between the PMO and the MEA over the Vajpayee-Musharraf summit. Foreign minister Jaswant Singh may be backing Vajpayee but most officials in South Block, peeved at being cut out of the loop, would like to downplay the visit’s significance. In round three of the ongoing tussle, the PMO has succeeded in extending Musharraf’s stay in Agra so that a fresh round of talks is scheduled for July 16. And the venue of the banquet for Musharraf in Delhi has been changed from Hyderabad House, which is an MEA territory, to the Taj Palace hotel. The MEA, meanwhile has rejected requests from the world press to allow live coverage of the general’s visit. As of now DD has not been permitted to uplink live. An MEA official remarked cynically, ‘‘Why are you press people making so much of the visit, heads of state come and go. This is not Clinton.’’

Jobs for underemployed

THE government’s recent tendency to bestow post retirement sinecures as ambassadors and advisers — Lalit Mansingh, K Raghunath, K V Rajan, Kamlesh Sharma and Dayal are some of the beneficiaries — has resulted in a surfeit of senior level bureaucrats in the foreign office without much work. Unlike the IAS, the IFS does not believe in blocking a post every time an outsider is inducted.
At present there are seven additional secretaries at the headquarters while usually there are only three. One additional secretary has been made in charge of NRIs, with a joint secretary, director and a full division under him, though his job is superfluous considering the department of economic affairs has a full-fledged NRI division of its own. The number of joint secretaries is also proliferating. Until a few years back the desk of welfare was handled by a section officer, now a joint secretary has been put in charge. Considering the number of underemployed joint secretaries they say, only half in jest, that the MEA might soon depute a joint secretary apiece for handling, the diplomatic bag section, canteen, transport cell and for the parking cell at their headquarters at South Block.

Separate and unequal

THE spat between the Prasar Bharati CEO Anil Baijal and ADG Deepak Sandhu was in full public view. Baijal objected to Sandhu making bookings in four separate hotels, with room prices ranging from Rs 4,500 to Rs 350 a night for the huge DD contingent to Agra. While senior DD officials with little to do with the actual TV coverage of the summit will be put up in the Mughal Sheraton, the camera crew which actually shoots the visuals will stay at a more downmarket address. Baijal felt that all DD staff should be treated equally.
Junior’s woes

HIS detractors describe Omar Abdullah as the government’s showpiece Muslim who gets far more prominence than would normally be accorded to a mere junior minister. So why did the younger Abdullah hit out at the Vajpayee government recently and accuse the Centre of encouraging elements trying to create fissures in the National Conference? Abdullah is peeved with his senior minister Murasoli Maran for delegating him very little work in the industries ministry. Earlier another dynastic heir Sukhbir Singh Badal as junior minister had chafed in a similar fashion over his senior minister Sikander Bakht.

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