Delhi
Primus Inter Services
Of all the three all-India services, members of the Indian Police Service always had the grouse that they were let down by the politicos. They relentlessly complained about the IAS and the IFS mandarins shortchanging them and grabbing the most powerful posts, leaving the IPS to merely guard the bosses. All that has changed. With the NSA and the AfPak special envoy both being IPS officers and former directors of the IB, now no IAS or IFS officer wields as much clout on issues of national security or neighbourhood diplomacy as these former IPS officers do.
Uttar Pradesh
‘Outsider’ Bounces Back
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No politician or power broker has ever had a comeback like that of Amar Singh. For a man who was reviled, ridiculed and written off by fellow politicians and the media, Amar Singh’s political journey is nothing short of a miracle. He was the go-to man when Mulayam Singh Yadav was defence minister in the mid-1990s. But the falling out with Mulayam’s son Akhilesh seemed to have had put an end to this power ride. Well, not only is Amar Singh safe, he wields strength enough to still control the Yadav clan’s family feuds. Now, Akhilesh seems to be wary of even naming Amar Singh. He is merely referring to an outsider creating problems within the family.
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Bihar
Fire-Fighting
There seems no end to Laloo Prasad Yadav’s fire-fighting. He was first accused of patronising Shahabuddin and engineering his release. Then social media erupted over a photo of one of the don’s sharpshooters with the state’s Dy CM and Laloo’s younger son. And when a truck with a Haryana number and laden with liquor was detained and released, a whisper campaign held that the in-laws of one of his seven daughters have a bottling plant in Haryana. The latest ‘rumour’ is that a son-in-law of his has bagged the distributorship for Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali.
Heard Union finance minister Arun Jaitley seems to be missing his former deputy. Jaitley and Jayant Sinha, who was MoS in the finance ministry, apparently shared a good chemistry.
Overheard In a rejoinder to a legal portal, Bar Council of India chief Manan Kumar Mishra referred to it as a “small mosquito” that would be dealt with for “spreading dengue”.