Dilli Ka Babu
Welcome change
RTI activists often complain about the disproportionate number of former bureaucrats who become information commissioners after retirement. Ever since the Central Information Commission came into being in 2005, the tribesmen have bagged the key posts of information commissioners and even Central
Information Commissioner. The list includes such babu luminaries as Wajahat Habibullah, A.N. Tewari, Omita Paul, O.P. Kejariwal and present incumbent Satyanand Mishra, among others.
But things may be changing. According to sources, the department of personnel and training (DoPT) has, for the first time, tried to cast the net wider. To fill the current two vacancies for information commissioners, DoPT has decided to
make the process more transparent by putting up the names of applicants on its website. Also, we learn, care has been taken to encourage those other than babus to apply.
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Gyan baithak
Every year babus of the finance ministry break off from their routine for an offsite brainstorming session. The practice was started in 2008 by then finance secretary (and current Governor of the Reserve Bank of India) D. Subbarao with the nod of the then finance minister, P. Chidambaram. Since then, every year some 70-odd babus of the rank of deputy secretary and above get together in an informal atmosphere to hold freewheeling discussions with eminent persons from other walks of life.
This time, too, the “retreat” is planned to take place in early January 2012, near Sohna, Haryana. According to sources, the accent this time is more on entertainment than exercising the grey cells. Apparently, the babus wish to hang out with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and cricketer Sunil Gavaskar. Hopefully, this exercise should result in an inspired Budget next year.
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Show of solidarity
Help for the embattled Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, whose figures of the presumptive loss in the 2G scam have been challenged by the government itself, has finally come from former babus. Vinod Rai, they feel, is being made a “casualty” by a government which wishes to undermine the institution. According to S. Krishnan, former additional secretary in the finance ministry, who has signed a statement along with 19 others, including former water resources secretary Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former minister, audit, Indian High Commission, London, Nilambar Srivastava, ex-additional secretary B.S. Ramaswamy and former deputy CAGs S. Laxminarain, Dr B.P. Mathur, R. Parameswar, Dharam Vir, I.P. Singh and Vijay Kumar, among others, the dissensions among members of the ruling and Opposition parties have led to Mr Rai being damned for what would otherwise be a “routine practice of a superior correcting the work of a subordinate”.
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