No harmonious affair

Mukherjee refused to be drawn into a discussion, he had taken a tough stand as Defence Minister when he insisted on an authentication of troop positions as a starting point for talks on a Siachen resolution. Clearly, the new EAM is not impressed by the once famed Kasuri-Natwar jhappa-jhappi bonhomie. All Mukherjee declared was that he would go to Pakistan in January to invite Musharraf for the SAARC Summit, as part of the host’s tour to member countries to invite their heads of state.

Fuelling speculation

Spot the captain—just days before the Government announced a rollback of petrol and diesel prices, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had told Left leaders on November 13, during the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting, that such a step was just not possible. In fact, he asked Left leaders not to push the demand because he was in no position to oblige. The comrades have always been told that the government earns a huge revenue from oil and if reduced, it would be difficult to fund social programmes, which the Left demands. However, what the PM did not know was that the Congress High Command (no prizes for guessing), with an ear for a junior minister in the Cabinet, had other plans. The deed was done. There used to be a message on media mogul Ted Turner’s desk that said, “Either lead or get out of the way.” The way things are going between party and government in recent days, the words seem to indicate something.

Truth behind columns

Director Intelligence Bureau (DIB) ESL Narasimhan has identified the provocateur for the storm over his remark that the law needed to be strengthened to fight terror: the media. Worse, the hacks were not supposed to have been present to cover the DGP conference in the first place. Narasimhan says the top police conclave was to have been an internal meeting and it was well within his brief to have made the suggestion. In fact, several influential top cops from Karnataka, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir had also backed him. Now Home Minister Shivraj Patil also seems to be gunning for the media over some other remarks, contained in paragraph 14 of his speech, that coastal areas are in the terrorists’ plan to infiltrate into India. The remarks were cited by the Opposition during the debate on internal security to expose the government’s handling of internal security threats. But with everyone keen to give the media a good hiding for being “irresponsible” and rushing in where they should not tread, it appears no one is interested in standing up to see the truth.

In camera

There is now a suggestion to stop direct telecast during Parliament’s Question Hour and Zero Hour so that MPs do not take playing to the gallery very seriously. The suggestion came from a top Left leader during the Business Advisory Meeting of the Rajya Sabha last week. The leader pointed out that there were a number of issues that required urgent discussion in Parliament: the M.S. Swaminathan report on the agrarian crisis, the Sachar report on minorities and the special economic zones. It was also pointed out that expunging remarks from House records made little sense since the sequences had already been telecast. The restrictions seemed to apply only to the print media. According to some members, direct telecast from Parliament ought to have shown members being a little less vociferous in voicing their concerns, but quite the opposite has happened.

Hidden funds

The National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation requires some urgent publicity overdrive. Union Minorities Affairs Minister A R Antulay confessed to a gathering of top officials of the Corporation last week that he learnt about the existence of this exclusive lending institution for minorities only after becoming minister. Officials were shocked to learn this, considering the body has helped more than three lakh persons and that a leader like Antulay, champion of the minorities, was in the dark. Now, Antulay is talking tough, highlighting the “inefficient” functioning of the Corporation, and has constituted a high level panel for professional management of the body.

Bigger summons

It was a tough call for Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed, given the importance he puts on fostering a personal relationship with leaders in the Gulf. Though he was instrumental, in 2004, in inviting Jordan’s King Abdullah II for his first visit to India, he could not be in Delhi when the King and Queen visited India last week. Ahamed requested the PM for permission to be in Kerala to campaign for his party candidate in the prestigious Thiruvambadi bye-election scheduled for December 4, a seat his party, the Indian Union Muslim League, had lost for the first time to the Left recently. As the party “strategist,” he was also asked to counter the Left’s plan to make Saddam Hussein’s death sentence an emotive issue to win votes in this Muslim-dominated constituency.

Bowled over

The Left parties have greeted Sourav Ganguly’s return to the Indian team as a political victory. In the Rajya Sabha, the CPI(M)’s Brinda Karat was locked in a pitched battle with the lone Trinamool Congress member when Congress member Rajiv Shukla, a key official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India , whispered the news of Ganguly’s selection to her. The comrade’s face was so lit up and eyes so wide over the news that some even suspected a proletariat revolution had finally come. In the afternoon it was the turn of CPI leader Gururdas Dasgupta to congratulate the Bengal Tiger. At any rate, this is the first demand of the Left that has been fully met in the last two-and-a half years in power.

Lessons all round

These are interesting times in Arjun Singh’s HRD Ministry. Former Higher Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee, a long-time Singh loyalist, has been inducted into the ministry as an “advisor” and it seems like new secretary R P Agrawal will have a monitor in Banerjee, who is also Chancellor of National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Last week also saw a beat reshuffle for the two Ministers of State in the ministry: RJD’s M A Fatmi and NTR’s daughter D Purandeswari swapped each other’s charges. Purandeswari now looks after higher education, Fatmi after school education. It seems Singh wasn’t quite happy with Fatmi’s “performance” in higher education. Given the fact that Singh himself so tightly controls his turf, it remains to see what interesting things are to unfold later.

Schools of thought

There was one more round of muscle flexing by two competing ministries last week over the Foreign Universities Bill. While the Commerce Minister spilled the beans at an eco-summit saying the decks have been cleared for FDI in education, the HRD Ministry promptly rebutted him the next day declaring the HRD’s stance had prevailed. The truth, it seems, lies somewhere in between. There will be control for B-grade institutions, but a free run for A-grade schools. But with Arjun Singh at the helm, will Harvard be interested? Kamal Nath, probably, will have the answer.

Tailpiece

The BJP’s trophy Muslim, Shahnawaz Hussain, was much in demand from the media last week. He had just won a by-election in Bhagalpur and was seen preening around Parliament House all day. But the saffron party’s perception of him was given away by none other than party president Rajnath Singh. Seeing Hussain walk into Central Hall, Singh quipped to his companions. “Here comes our Sachar panel.”