The merger of the Jammu & Kashmir cadre into the UT cadre, among other things, is meant to address the old problem of acute shortage of IAS officers in the union territory. The erstwhile J&K cadre had a stipulated strength of 137 IAS officers but currently has merely 58, of which nine are on Central […]
The Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab is getting flak from the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the issue has ramifications across the country. The court has directed the state government to explain how and why it has chosen to appoint Punjab Police Service (PPS) officers to IPS-cadre posts of SSPs in the state. […]
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been quite keen to add more joint secretaries to the diplomatic pool to staff new embassies and consulates being set up in various countries. Now, after some wait, headway has been made in this direction with the government planning to empanel eight IFS officers of the 2003 batch […]
The capital’s Gymkhana Club, the 107-year-old watering hole favoured by the high and mighty of Lutyens’ Delhi, is back in the news with its seemingly endless saga of mismanagement and irregularities. The present crisis has emerged after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) dissolved the club’s governing council and appointed M.M. Juneja, director-general of […]
In a major reshuffle, the Centre has transferred and posted 18 secretaries to different ministries and departments while several have been promoted. As is often the case, there is a story behind many of the babus involved in the reshuffle. The Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) has finally got a new secretary in Deepak […]
Perhaps service rules stopped them from airing their views but after retirement bureaucrats are not bound anymore and can voice their thoughts freely. This has led to the formation of pro-and anti-government groups among retired babus who jump into the fray at the behest of their conscience (or political leaning). In the most recent instance, […]
IPS officer D Roopa, who was the first woman home secretary of Karnataka has been transferred as the managing director of Karnataka State Handicrafts Development Corporation amid her public spat with another IPS officer Hemant Nimbalkar, who too also transferred. Nimbalkar was the additional commissioner (administration) in Bengaluru before being transferred to the internal security […]
Is the civil service no longer a dream career for aspiring youngsters in India? The recent survey of national school board toppers over 20 years suggests that it may be so. Of the 86 men and women who topped in their school board exams between 1995 and 2015, more than half live abroad, most are […]
Earlier this year, Arvind Panagariya, former vice-chief of the government NITI Aayog, wrote in his book “India Unlimited – Reclaiming the Lost Glory” that Indian babus suffered from the socialist hangover, which has slowed down the pace of reforms the Modi sarkar wishes to introduce (Dilli Ka Babu, April 16. 2020). To buttress his view, […]
The battle for the West Bengal assembly elections looms ahead but skirmishes have already started. After the attack on BJP president J.P. Nadda’s convoy in the state, the Centre retaliated against the TMC government by recalling 3 IPS officers from the state on Central deputation. Further, to perhaps underline the “message”, the Ministry of Home […]