New Delhi, Nov 1 (IANS) Winter is in the air, so is a cabinet reshuffle. The murmur in the corridors of power is that some cabinet ministers may be given new berths and replacements could possibly be sought for key but unhappy ally DMK.
The reshuffle is expected before the winter session of parliament beginning Nov 19. Unlike UPA-1. which was smooth-sailing for the important southern partner, some key DMK ministers are having a tough time now and not enjoying the space and freedom they had in their previous avatar.

Ministers are reportedly complaining of interference by powerful bureaucrats and how even their ministry’s activities were being supervised by a Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

The party’s patriarch and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi is reportedly under pressure by his son and union Fertilizers Minister M.K. Azhagiri that the DMK should quit the cabinet and back the government from the outside.

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Fake twitter accounts stump politicos

An impersonation bug on Twitter has hit Indian politicians. First there was ‘tweeting minister’ Shashi Tharoor who was told about ‘ShashitharoorMP’, which positioned itself as a satirical version of his account.

It was closed down after Tharoor’s office complained to those who manage the social networking and micro-blogging device. Twitter happy Tharoor later said in answer to a query that while he did not have a problem with satire, he was strongly against imposturing.

Then, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Vasundhara Raje, in the news last week over her resignation as leader of opposition in the Rajasthan assembly, also became a victim. A Twitter account ‘Vasuraje’ appeared online and started to talk about the injustice meted out to her.

Some senior scribes on Twitter even became followers of the account, till one of them decided to to call up Raje herself. The account was fake and was suspended within days!

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The twain shall never meet

Tigers can change their stripes, but comrades don’t shed their hatred of America. Communist leader Sitaram Yechury, whose party once threatened to topple the Manmohan Singh government over the nuclear deal with the US, was not amused by all the attention former American president George Bush was getting in India.

Bush was the keynote speaker at the same Hindustan Times conclave where Yechury spoke a few hours later. When someone in the audience asked him about Bush’s praise of the nuclear deal as India’s passport to the world, Yechury could hardly disguise his venom.

With a smile on his face, Yechury said he had asked the organisers to keep Bush at “a safe distance” from him.

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Wit outweighs Farooq Abdullah

National Conference patron and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah is known for his sharp wit, but sometimes even the witty can be outwitted - especially if it’s a weighty matter.

At an international conference in the capital, he sounded worried about Pakistan senator Mushahid Hussain’s increasing waistline. Though not a health freak himself, Abdullah, 73, took upon it himself to approach Hussain’s wife, asking her to get hubby to lose those extra kilos. “His torso is getting huge. He is gaining too much weight,” remarked Abdullah.

But Hussain, who was within earshot, quickly stepped in. “He (Abdullah) is talking about the political weight I am constantly gaining.” Hussain recently proclaimed that India was promoting and aiding the Taliban in Pakistan.

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Bush, the ladies man!

Former US president George W. Bush may not exactly be a favourite with the fairer sex, with all his tough 9/11 talk and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan during his presidency. But women’s issues dominated his talk during his first visit to India after leaving the White House.

In India, his host was Shobhna Bhartiya, the proprietor of Hindustan Times who had invited him for the annual leadership summit. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosted lunch for this “great friend of India” at his residence, Bush was seated between two women - Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar. Bush sounded genuinely curious when Kumar mentioned the women’s reservation bill.

Speaking at the conclave, Bush invoked the Taliban’s tyranny over women as one of the reasons to justify the US war in Afghanistan. “They won’t let girls go to school, what kind of people are these?” he queried.

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Information overload, say bureaucrats

Has the Right to Information (RTI) become a double-edged sword? So say many bureaucrats, who complain that they spend half their working hours trying to answer inane queries from the chief information commissioner’s office.

One senior bureaucrat said he had to answer frivolous queries regarding whom he entertained in his official capacity, what he spent and how many packets of napkins had his office used in a year!

Often, many bureaucrats suspect, some of the queries are instigated by subordinates in their own department or ministry in order to get even with their bosses.

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Environment minister missing in action

Both Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and the prime minister’s special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran were conspicuous by their absence at an international conference for environmental journalists in the capital.

Scribes from over a dozen countries were keen to know what India’s stand was ahead of the crucial Copenhagen meeting, especially after it announced that reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions was as much as a part of its climate change strategy as adaptation efforts.

Was India willing to walk the talk on its nuanced shift - this was the million-dollar question scribes had. However, after articulating India’s position at various international forums, Ramesh and Saran made themselves scarce.

The buzz, though, is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to convene an all-party meeting and that of chief ministers to enunciate the country’s nuanced shift.

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Exorcising evil spirits

The petroleum ministry is worried about bad spirits, and it is not a reference to the fight between the Ambani brothers. The ministry had conducted a ceremony to purify the atmosphere in Shastri Bhavan, where it is housed.

The provocation was reportedly a couple of suicides in the office complex of the building and the ministry wanted to remove the influence of any lingering spirit.

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