Ministers vie for top finance job

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Manmohan Singh

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to keep the finance portfolio with himself and steer the country’s economy to a comfortable zone with the help of his trusted lieutenants like deputy chairman of planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and PMEAC chairman C. Rangarajan, many of his ministerial colleagues appeared to have joined the race to capture the coveted job at the North Block office.

At a time when home minister P. Chidambram and commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma have strongly defended the state of affairs in Indian economy by quoting investment figures, another minister Jairam Ramesh has written to the Prime Minister suggesting measures to be taken to bring things back on the track.
But union urban development minister Kamal Nath, who is considered to be one of the front-runners in the race, has curiously chosen not to speak on the subject. The grapevine in the corridors of power, however, suggests that Mr Nath believes more in the deeds than in words.

Singh notifies striking pilots to join work
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh’s firm resolve not to bow before the striking pilots of Air India has made the pilots more desperate by the day. The pilots, who have tried all tactics to make the minister relent, have drawn a blank so far. The pilots first threatened to stage a march in front of the minister’s residence. When that did not work, they tried to appeal to the PMO to intervene.
Finally, the pilots resorted to a hunger strike. As a last resort, the striking pilots asked their parents to mediate. “The minister’s stand has been consistent. He has asked the pilots to rejoin duty first. That stand will not change,” said an official.
It is a hard lesson the pilots have learnt, much to their dismay.

Congress tries to pacify Didi
Despite Mamata Banerjee’s stiff resistance to Congress and UPA’s Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress is still going out of the way to pacify angry Didi.
The general buzz these days in the AICC is that no Congress leader should make any comment against Didi or her party. Even when Pranab da described the West Bengal chief minister as her younger sister, it was actually an exercise to woo her.
This is perhaps what explains the Congress party’s rebuff to senior leader Digvijay Singh when he made some “politically incorrect” comments against Ms Banerjee. But since that episode party leaders are being extremely cautious.

Poets head to mall for joint session
What was gathering of scholarly Hindi poets doing at a mall in Ghaziabad recently ? No, they were on a group shopping spree. Rather, they were participating in a programme (Kavi Sammelan) at the glitzy mall, where English or Hinglish is the language of communication. The question was put to one of the organisers and pat came the reply, “Yeh India hai, yahan sab chalta hai (This is India, everything goes)”. On second thoughts, however, he had a “serious” explanation, “This is the best place to inform people about Hindi and its importance.” Well, not quite off the mark given that a generation coming up on “jeans and burger” was least likely to leave the glitz and comfort of a mall to hear high quality Hindi poetry at some simple, non-descript venue.

UPA plans to reach to junta
The UPA government had constituted a GoM on Media to enhance the image of the government and create mass awareness regarding government policies. While earlier this GoM was focussing on reaching out to the media in the national capital, over the past few weeks the operating area of the group has been enlarged.
The GoM, on media which consists of seven senior ministers in the UPA cabinet, has now started visiting various parts of the country to reach out to the masses. With several states scheduled for assembly polls in the upcoming few months, these GoM visits are being seen as an attempt at reaching out to the population of these states through the media. Some quarters are also viewing it as a preparatory exercise for UPA ministers on reaching out to the common man for the next general elections.