The name of Ms. Soma Mondal, Director (Commercial), SAIL, is being bandied around as next Chairperson, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) , falling vacant on January 1, 2021.

Ajay Jain has been appointed new Member of the CBIC. He is  1985 batch IRS (C&CE) officer and presently posted in Ahemdabad.

(We said this on November 13, 2019 and April 9 )

Vivek Johri as expected has been appointed new Member of the CBIC. He is  1985 batch IRS (C&CE) officer .

(We said this on April 8 )

Sungita Sharma as expected has been appointed new Member of the CBIC. She is  1986 batch IRS (C&CE) officer .

(We said this on May 1)

One post of Member Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is going to vacant on August 7. Who will make it IAS, IPS, IFS or from other services ? Several names  have started doing the round.

More than one dozen officials, including IAS and IPS officers, have reportedly applied for the post of the Chairman, Petroleum & Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). PSEB is yet to arrange an interview for the post. Some of the important officials who  have applied include -L N Gupta, ex-IAS and currently Member(Technical),NCLAT, L K Verma, ex- IAS, Jaideep Govind, Secretary General, NHRC, Ravi Kanth, ex-IAS, Ravi Capoor, Secretary, Ministry of Textile, A K Srivastava,ex-IAS, J K Sharma, ex-IPS and Member, Delhi Disaster Management Authority, S K Goyal, ex- ICAS officer, K C Das,ex-Director, Pers, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, V K Gupta, ED, ONGC, Gajendra Singh, ex- Director, marketing, GAIL, Biswajit Roy, Director, OIL and Rajiv Sharma, Chairman, Power Finance Corporation. Incidentally, Venkatesh, MD, MRPL, has not applied for the post of Chairman, PNGRB ?

IRS-IT officer P Srinivasa Murthy has resigned from Service.

Rakesh Kumar Vijay has been granted voluntary retirement w.e.f. August 31, 2020. He is posted as Asstt Commissioner, Jaipur. He is an IRS officer.

Rakesh Mittal has been posted as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence on deputation for five years. He is a 1995 batch IDES officer.

The Prasar Bharti Board has reconstituted the Screening-cum-Selection Committee (ScSC) of Prasar Bharati Secretariat for engagement/extension of term of contract of personnel in Prasar Bharati Secretariat. Ms Mukta Goel, ADG(HR), will the Chairman of the Committee.

Lok Sabha TV is presently headless. CEO Ashish Joshi was not given any extension on July 31.

As many as 4.83 lakh direct tax cases with a revenue worth Rs 9.32 lakh crore locked up in litigation, pending at various appellate forums such as the commissioner (appeals), ITATs, High Courts and the Supreme Court.

An MBBS doctor by profession, Dr Rajesh Kumar has succeeded Dr J Suresh Babu, an MBBS doctor by profession, as Chief Secretary of Manipur. Dr Babu is a 1986 batch retired IAS officer while Dr Rajesh Kumar is a 1988 batch IAS officer.

Ms. Surabhi Sharma, Director, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade has been given premature repatriation to her parent cadre on personal grounds. She is a 2006 batch IRS-IT officer.

Ms. Shalini Pandey has been appointed Director in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. She is a 2004 batch IDES officer.

Raman R, Additional GM (Internal Audit), BEL, has taken over the charge as General Manager (Internal Audit) of Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

Sushil Sharma has been appointed as Whole Time Director (Electrical) of SJVN Limited.

Ramji Rao Pantula Lella has been appointed as CIT(OSD) in the office of Principal CCIT, Mumbai. He is an IRS-IT officer.

Poojan Rana, Deputy Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, has been repatriated to his parent cadre on personal grounds. He is a 2009 batch IRS-IT officer.

P Chaitanya has been appointed as General Manager, CONCOR, Hyderabad on deputation basis for a period of three years. He is an IRTS officer.

Chetram has been appointed Additional Member (Production Units), Railway Board. He is an IRSME officer.

O P Singh has been appointed Additional Member (Land & Amenities), Railway Board. He is an IRSE officer.

Devendra Kumar Sonkaria has been appointed Additional Member (Traffic Restoration and Crew Management) in Railway Board. He is an IRSME officer.

Siva Harsha Karra has been relieved to join as Under Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). He is an IRTS officer.

Anand Mohan,a 1994 batch AGMUT cadre IPS officer has been promoted to ADGP Grade w e f August 1, 2020. He is posted in the cadre

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT has been continuously growing month over month to perform its responsibilities of a strategic contributor to nation building even during this pandemic. Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust registered a throughput of 344,316 TEUs in container handling, which is 19% higher as compared to June 2020. The port handled total of 196 vessels and the overall traffic handled in July was 4.85 Million Tonnes which is an increase of 19% as against 4.07 Million Tonnes handled in June 2020. In another major accomplishment, JNPT received the operational status for India’s First Port Based Special Economic Zone, JNPT SEZ. The multi-product port based SEZ aims to boost exports by enabling port-led industrialization under Sagarmala initiative of Ministry of Shipping. 5 units have started their construction activities and amongst them, 2 units have recently started their operations in SEZ successfully. All three units are granted operational status by Development Commissioner, SEEPZ, SEZ. JNPT is leaving no stone unturned to ensure world class infrastructure and facilities to units in the SEZ. Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT said, “JNPT will continue to extend support for the country’s economic growth and perform its duties to steadfast growth trajectory of the Port sector. In July we have seen Exports increasing and expect even the Imports to get back to normal by the end of this month. 

Naval Kishore Ram has been appointed as Deputy Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). He is a 2008 batch IAS officer of Maharashtra cadre.

As many as 11 officers of Indian Economic Service (IES) have been shifted to different Departments. Accordingly, Ms Priya Nair has been posted as Director, Economic Affairs, while Ms Shefali Dhingra posted as Director, Economic Affairs and Ms Anshika Arora is Deputy Director, Economic Affairs. Similarly, Ms Remya Prabha has been appointed as Deputy Director, Economic Affairs; Bikram Nath as Deputy Director, Rural Development; Harish Kumar Khallega as Deputy Director, Economic Division; Akhilesh Kumar as Deputy Director, Economics & Statistics, Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare; Ms Mamta Meena as Deputy Director, MEA; Dr Sriramappa as Deputy Director, Panchayati Raj; Abhishek Meena as Assistant Director, Skill Development and Ms Aishwarya Menon was posted as Assistant Director, Department of Economic Affairs.

Mrs. Preeti Saran, former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India has been appointed as an Independent Director the Board of PTC India Ltd.

Mahendra C Shah has been re-appointed Chairman and Managing Director of Globus Corporation Limited for a period of five years.

Navin Agarwal has been appointed Managing Director (MD) & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Motilal Oswal.

Mrs. Sujata Chatterjee has been appointed Non-Executive, Independent, Additional Director.

Ms. Malvika Sinha has been appointed Non-Executive Independent Director on the Board of Mahindra Logistics.

M M L Verma has been appointed Additional Director on the Board of IFCI Ltd.

"New Draft Education Policy"

Draft of New Education policy 2020,is highly ambitious, focussing on promoting multi-dimensional development of personality of students from school to college level.

Doing post graduation would be almost history under the new dispensation. One has to complete graduation, pursue studies further, if interested, and go straight for the Research. M Phil would be redundant.

Introducing 360 degree assessment system for students is fantastic. The students will have to self-assess their performance before getting assessed by the peer groups.

Will the students be intelligent and fair enough to grade their assessment. A plebeian suggestion, that needs a re-think.

Learning music, painting, sculpturing and other works of Art etc. with Science and humanities subjects, no doubt, will give flexibility to students to fine-tune and promote their hobbies and educational predilections.

Another noteworthy feature of new policy is to make it mandatory for students to study upto class 5th in their mother tongues. During my schooling in a sarkari school, I started learning English language from class 6th onwards.

Earmarking 6% of GDP for Educational sector, as against 4% at present, was long overdue. Fair enough. But, the first priority remains jobs creation. A multi- faceted personality and absence of jobs, will lead to a contradictory situation like : “Padhey Farsi, Bechey Tel”.

Do we have trained teachers and infrastructure to cope up with new Education policy, which will have to pass through many tests and hurdles.

Keeping standards of new education policy at par in all States is not so easy as perceived by the draft New Education policy. This has anti- rural bias.

Success of the new policy will depend how soon we overcome the Implementational road blocks. Possibility of chaos. A mechanism will be needed to bring order into chaos by grasping the inherent factors, harmonise them in right proportion to achieve the objective.

The outcome of the new policy will determine its success or failure.

The policy will take several years to operationalise. Not a matter of one or two years.

As stated earlier, we are living in a highly competitive world. Knowledge of English is the sine qua non in global jobs competition.

Changing Syllabii of subjects will require substantive efforts. This will remain a subject of perennial controversy between the elite schools and sarkari- schools and will further sharpen the urban divide. The impact on municipal schools in rural areas will be disastrous.

All things considered , the new draft Education policy is a welcome change for the sake of change. Fulfillment of BJP Manifesto promised in 2014, is , no doubt, creditable. But, it could be fraught with political undertones and overtones.

A K Saxena (A former civil servant)

Has Modi govt gone intellectually bankrupt ?

What is the urgency for any extensions ? So, the bankruptcy of ideas in Modi Govt is to the extent of (1) second extension to the incumbent, (2) extension to new chap even before vacancy arises. Aren’t there others ? No wonder this govt is earning epithets and ridicules.

Vijay Kumar

Congrats – new DG, AIR News

Congratulations Sir. I hope you will give a new dimension to All India Radio

Matosh Chander

Disclosure of vigilance file after filing of charge sheet 

Information pertaining to sanction of prosecution against the appellant by his department on CVC’s advice, was denied under section 8(1)(h) of the RTI Act. The appellant submitted that a charge sheet has been filed against him in ACB Court, Kota in August 2016, and hence, the denial of information under Section 8(1)(h) will not apply in the case because the investigation has been completed. The PIO agreed to abide by the CIC’s verdict. The denial of information under Section 8(1)(h) in the matter was rejected by the CIC.

Comments

There has been a contradictory view regarding disclosure of documents relating to a vigilance inquiry after the charge sheet has been filed while the enquiry is still pending. Whenever the information is denied u/s 8(1)(h), the PIO must inform how the disclosure of information would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders. It is not merely a perception or an assumption, but a burden on the public authority to show in what manner the disclosure of such information would 'impede' the process.

Citation: Manvendra Singh Raghav v. Central Vigilance Commission in File No : CIC/CVCOM/A/2018/164901, Date of Decision: 06/07/2020.

Dr. Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is an expert on RTI matters and has co-authored the books RIGHT TO INFORMATION - LAW AND PRACTICE and PIO’s guide to RTI. Apart from her weekly article here, her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation of India at the link: www.rtifoundationofindia.com

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