The rule giving two year term to the Cabinet Secretary was made during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure when AK Agarwal was Secretary Personnel.  “Two year term in central government would be applicable if considered necessary in public interest due extension in service to CS for such period as deemed fit subject to the condition that the total period of CS shall not exceed two years.”

Once bitten, twice shy. PM Narendra Modi is, this time, very cautious in selecting the new CBI boss. After enquiries from certain quarters, the PMO has called  some IPS officers to know their mind. A couple of IPS officers have already been interviewed by the PMO.

Whispers has it that a Selection Panel set up by the Government of India will select an officer of Indian Police Service (IPS) for the post of Director, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at a selection meeting being held on January 24, 2019.

Sanjiv Arora, currently Indian Ambassador to Lebanon, is likely to succeed  Dnyaneshwar Mulay (IFS 1983) as Secretary, Consular, Passport and Visa or CPV division, in the External Affairs Ministry this month end. He is 1984 batch IFS officer.

Amulya Patnaik, Delhi Police Commissioner, is likely to move as  Director General, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). He is a 1985 batch IPS officer of AGMUT cadre.

The tenure of Suresh Arora, presently Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab has been extended for an overall period of 12 months beyond the day of his retirement September 30, 2018. He is a 1982 batch IPS officer of Punjab cadre.

Three posts of General Managers - GM East, GM ICF and GM Northern - in Indian Railways are currently vacant.

Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of Delhi High Court   have been appointed judges of the Supreme Court .

2008 batch IPS officer of Odisha cadre Satyajit Naik has been  appointed as the SP of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The cadre restructuring proposal in the Indian Army reportedly requires consent of chiefs of all the three wings of Defence forces before the proposals could be moved to the Ministry of Defence for consideration. 

Two posts of Members are presently vacant in NHRC. The Commission has four Members strength. Sharat Chandra Sinha< IPS and former  DG, NIA, demit office as Member on April 7, 2018 and Justive D. Murugesan, ex-CJI, Delhi HC retired as Member on Sept 20 last year.

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) is whispered to have postponed the interviews for the post of Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Powergrid Corporation of India Limited and scrapped the panels of short-listed candidates ?

Subhash Chandra Gupta, GGM, RITES has taken over the charge as Director (Way & Works), Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL).

The tenure of V Udaya Bhaskar, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) is ending in February. CMDE Siddhart Mishra, GM, ECIL is expected to succeed him in March.

Gajendra Singh, Director (Marketing), GAIL (India) Ltd, has taken over an additional responsibility as Chairman of Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL).

From Civil Servant to Cultural Conductor: The successful Bhopal Literature Festival held between 12-14th January 2019 at the prestigious Bharat Bhawan has demonstrated that brilliance is absolute and reveals itself no matter what the field of activity.

Raghav Chandra, who retired recently as Secretary in the Government of India and who is known for the stellar work, especially in the field of infrastructure – as Chairman NHAI, Principal Secretary Urban Development, Managing Director Industrial Development Corporation, and as Commissioner of the MP Housing Board, aptly proved his all-round competence in the cultural sphere as well. He conceptualized the Bhopal Literature and Art Festival, created a core team, planned it carefully and executed it meticulously. The three-day festival with three parallel sessions each day, a cultural-spiritual immersion program in the morning and a cultural program in the evening attracted about 70 authors, discussants and artists from across India and abroad and hundreds of cognoscenti from Bhopal and its environs. The fragrance of this provocative and enticing event will resonate wide and far for a long time to come.

The Literary Festival was a buzzing cornucopia of Padma Shri and National awardees. While all 56 sessions were curated thoughtfully some of the popular and more notable authors and discussants who attended this literary and artistic extravaganza were: environmentalists Pradeep Krishen, Bittu Sahgal, Pranay Lal and Vivek Menon; diplomat/civil servants Pavan Varma, TCA Raghavan,Amar Sinha, Rajiv Mehrishi, Amitabh Kant, Anthony de Sa, Rajni Sekhri Sibal and SY Quraishi; military, intelligence and diplomacy experts General Ata Hasnain, General Mohinder Puri, Shiv Kunal Verma and AS Dulat (an international expert on South Asia, Professor Barnett Rubin came all the way from the United States to listen to the discussions); social commentators Keki Daruwalla, Bachi Karkaria, Vinita Dawra Nangia, Anil Dharker, Seema Goswami, Vinita Bakshi, Ashali Verma and Koral Dasgupta; historians/mythologists  Shonaleeka Kaul, Ashali Verma, KK Chakravarty, Rima Hooja, Christopher Doyle; researcher/scholars like Madhavi Menon who is an authority on human behavior and sexuality, Radhakrishan Pillai who has written extensively on the learnings from Chanakya, Babli Moitra Saraf who has written literature keeping children in mind, Santosh Mehrotra Professor of Economics in JNU, Ila Pattnaik Professor in NIFP, Simran Chadha who has analysed the conversion of literature into cinema; management experts like Sachit Jain, Ashwini Lohani, V Kumaraswamy and Animesh Parihar; art scholars and artists like Manish Pushkale, Akhilesh, Bhajju Shyam, Jyotindra Jain, Alka Pande, Anubhav Nath, Tara Douglas, Gita Wolf, Vivek Tembe, John Bowles, Erwin and Christine Newumeyer; Hindi poets and writers like Udayan Vajpeyi, Ashok Chakradhar, Nandkishore Acharya, Arun Kamal, Ratan Thiyam, Ramesh Chandra Shah, Santosh Chaubey, Purushottam Agarwal. There were sessions on food and fitness as well with the noted architect Sunita Kohli talking about her book on Awadhi Cuisine, Kavita Devgan discussing from her book Ultimate Grandmother Hacks and Meera Das narrating the discovery of Neematnama which travelled from Mandu to Tipu Sultan’s court in the seventeenth century.

There was also involvement of young and old civil servants and writers: Hariranjan Rao, Pallavi Govil, Tejaswi Naik, Sufiyah Quraishi, SC Behar and R Parasuram and most importantly of civil servant wives: Seema Raizada, Suchita Malik, Preeti Chandra and Atima Mankotia.

What distinguished this literature and art event from others of this ilk were the unremitting timelines, the overall gravitas and the conformity to discussions based on literature and art. Therefore, even when cinema was discussed, it was done without depending on film stars to give it additional glamour.

Javed Akhtar has been appointed as Additional Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT)/ OSD in TPL-III division in Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). He is an IRS-IT officer.

Shemsingh Alexander Bathew, Director General of Audit, South Western Railway, Hubli, has been transferred and posted as Director General of Audit, Eastern Railway, Kolkata. He is a 1990 batch IA&AS officer.

Vivek Srivastava has been empanelled for holding Additional Director General (ADG) and Additional Director General (ADG) equivalent post in Government of India. He is a 1989 batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre.

Ms Jaya Dubey has been transferred from Ministry of Textiles and posted as JS in the Ministry of Tourism . She is a CSS officer. 

Aman Sharma has reportedly  joined at his new posting as Director in the Ministry of Steel without relieving orders of the previous Ministry of Commerce and Industries. The  2002 batch Indian Postal  Service officer was Director ,GeM in the Ministry of Commerce and Industries.

More than two dozen officers of Indian Supply Service(ISS) were reportedly not considered for Central Staffing Scheme(CSS) for the reasons best known to DoPT. Sources blame the concerning Ministry for this fiasco.  

Rajat Kumar Mishra has been assigned an additional charge of Principal Resident Commissioner, New Delhi. He is a 1992 batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre.

Anurag Sharma has been appointed as Deputy Secretary, DoPT while Jitender Malik was posted as Deputy Secretary in Home Affairs upon return from deputation.