The Indian Express : Tue Jan 07 2014, 01:06 hrs
While Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily maintains that there was no proposal before the government to increase the number of subsidised LPG cylinders from the present nine a year to 12, Food Minister K V Thomas is learnt to have shot off a letter to Moily and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi arguing that the frequent enhancement of gas prices and the subsidy linkage with Aadhaar has created a lot of public discontent, especially in his home state of Kerala. He is learnt to have demanded increasing of the number of subsidised cylinders to 12 and stopping Aadhaar linkage for six months.
INTERIM MEASURES
Unable to finalise the name of a senior IPS officer for the post of special director and additional director, CBI director Ranjit Sinha has now distributed the work between special director Anil Kumar Sinha and additional director R K Dutta. Special director Sinha, a Bihar cadre officer, has been given the economic offence Mumbai zone besides sensitive unit of MDMA, special crime, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Kolkata zones. His deputy Dutta has retained economic offence at Delhi probing coal block cases and anti-corruption at headquarters which handles all big ticket corruption cases apart from Hyderabad and Chennai zones.
PLAN HURDLES
With the 12th Plan clearly ruling out setting up of any prominent education central educational institute like IITs, IIMs or Central Universities, there is very little scope for the Pallam Raju-led HRD Ministry to roll out the goodies ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. They are, however, making do with whatever is possible within financial constraints. It is learnt that as many as 54 Kendriya Vidyalayas will be doled out before the polls with one each in the Gandhi stronghold Amethi and another in Raju's constituency Kakinada among others. That apart, while the ministry has quite a list of pending Bills, it will also make special effort to try and push through the Bill in the Lok Sabha to set up a Women's University in Rae Bareli — Sonia Gandhi's constituency — when the House meets next.
THE MODI CONNECTION
Seated in the audience and listening to Narendra Modi with rapt attention at the 5th anniversary of Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth on Sunday was Gaurav Bakshi, a prominent face of Team Anna during the Lokpal movement who fell out with Kejriwal and has since moved on to acting — he featured in an episode of '24'. Little wonder that AAP's internal assessment shows many of its supporters actually want to see Modi as the prime minister. The seating arrangement at the do in Talkatora Stadium meanwhile was interesting with women herded into a single stand. Ramdev's earlier outings at Ramlila Maidan and Parliament Street were more inclusive.
DOUBTFUL CLAIM
While the West Bengal government is under fire from all quarters including the city's intellectuals for gangrape of a 16-year-old girl, a section of the Trinamool Congress has chanced upon an article in The Guardian, which lists Kolkata as one of the top five places to visit in 2014. A few TMC functionaries have shared the article on social networking websites including Twitter and Facebook. The unofficial internet space of the party, Maamatimanush.tv has tweeted it with a line from the article: "Change is stirring in the city". The first comment to the post, however, was unflattering, as is not uncommon on Twitter. It said, "Lawlessness, Unsafe neighbourhoods, goons — you are like SP now". The comment also tagged Derek O'Brien, the party's popular twitterati.