Its earnings seriously dented by the Covid-19 pandemic, the railways has announced a series of austerity measures. These range from a freeze on creation of new posts, rationalization of manpower at workshops, shifting outsources work to CSR and moving ceremonial events to digital platforms to cutting down on the use of stationary by half. According […]
The National Medical Commission (NMC) was created last year to replace the previous scam-tainted Medical Council of India (MCI) for the development and regulation of all aspects of medical education, profession and institutions. Yet despite the urgency displayed in the creating the new regulator, the government has still not issued a notification on the appointment […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has made friends of erstwhile foes! Urjit Patel, who left 18 months ago after a fractious tenure as RBI Governor, is back as chairman of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). In 2018, he had resigned barely four days before a crucial meeting of the board of RBI that […]
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet recently approved the empanelment of 28 IAS officers for holding Secretary-level posts at the Centre. Among them is Rajiv Bansal, Chairman and Managing Director of the ailing public carrier Air India which is still looking for a buyer. Bansal is in his second stint as CMD of the airline, […]
Under the ceaseless gaze of social media, it is increasingly difficult for babus to slip under the radar. Nothing escapes its stern scrutiny, as former DGP, Uttar Pradesh, O.P. Singh recently discovered. The former 1983-batch IPS officer has been unwilling to surrender his official bungalow even after retirement. Many others too have done this in […]
In a kind of action replay reminiscent of a similar instance in 2010 and also during Modi’s first tenure as PM, the appointment of Sanjay Kothari as the new Central Vigilance Commissioner and Bimal Julka as the new Central Information Commissioner has run into a controversy. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Congress member of the high-powered […]
Historically, since Warren Hastings introduced collectors for revenue collection in the 18th century, the term ‘collector’ has denoted the state’s power in the hinterlands. Since independence, the role of the District Collector has grown even more significant with multiple powers conferred upon the official under numerous Central and state laws on a wide range of […]
The Modi sarkar is likely to cut down on foreign training of bureaucrats under the Domestic Funding of Foreign Training (DFFT) policy due to the rising cost of sending babus abroad. In 2018-19, the government spent Rs 60 crores on training 332 bureaucrats, which is more than half of the annual training budget of the […]
The appointment of additional director general of police (ADGP) rank police officer O.P. Singh as Principal Secretary of Haryana’s Department of Sports and Youth Affairs has triggered off a turf war, with IAS officers questing the move for being “against civil service rules”. According to sources, Singh is the first IPS officer appointed to this […]