HOME | NEWS | CAPITAL BUZZ
		Virendra Kapoor

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is busy brandishing his broom, in a bid to clean up his administrative set-up. Thus, Brajesh Mishra will be given an ambassador's hat and packed off to distant climes -- the main objective being to bring in some live-wire IAS official as principal secretary to the prime minister. Vajpayee is reportedly looking at someone who can keep tabs on the entire administration, and not merely oversee the ministry of external affairs, as Mishra has been doing. Vajpayee is also keen, insiders say, to sweep out a few of the non-performers in his council of ministers. Slated for the axe are Minister for Agriculture Som Pal, for his failure to check the machinations of the Congress-controlled NAFED; Minister for Labour Satyanarain Jatiya, who has become an embarrassment; and Food Minister Surjeet Singh Barnala, the target of many plaints from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham in particular, and so on. Of these, Barnala could be the hardest to axe, since the Akalis are hardly likely to stand by while a senior leader gets the chop. So stand by, folks, for more storms within an alliance that has been about as 'pacific' as the Pacific Ocean. Belling the cat Scenes like this happen on street-corners throughout India every day. Little boys playing cricket with ball and improvised bat, unwittingly breaking a window, then standing shuffle-footed before the irate house-owner, unwilling to admit who hit the ball that broke the window, afraid of the punishment to follow. Only, you don't expect to see the prime minister and home minister of the country behaving like those apocryphal schoolboys, now do you? Yet that is precisely how Vajpayee and Lal Kishenchand Advani are acting, in the aftermath of the Central Bureau of Investigation raids on Reliance. Having broken the metaphorical window, neither worthy is prepared to admit who hit the ball. Technically speaking, the CBI is under the department of personnel, which is under the prime minister. Which means the raids can be conducted only with his knowledge and assent. As it turned out, though, Vajpayee came to know of the raids on Reliance premises in Delhi and Bombay only ex-post facto. So who, then, 'broke the window'? Yes, say people in the know -- but the home minister for his part has been scrambling to distance himself from the act. One indicator of his involvement is the fact that it was Union Home Secretary B P Singh who telephonically instructed CBI Director Trinath Mishra to undertake the raids. And the Union home secretary takes his orders from the Union home minister, right? But why should Mishra take orders from the home secretary, considering the CBI comes under the purview of the department of personnel? Ah, thereby hangs a tale -- Mishra, you see, has only temporary charge of the CBI for now, and is hell bent on having the appointment ratified. And who appoints the CBI director? Simple -- the Union home secretary, along with the secretary of personnel and the chief of the Central Vigilance Commission. So, for obvious reasons, when the home secretary gives an order, Mishra is only too willing to jump. Thing is, he just may have jumped too far, too soon, this time. The PMO was in fact keen to regularise Mishra's appointment as director, CBI -- but that was before the raids on Reliance. In the aftermath of the raids, Mishra suddenly finds himself anathema for the PMO, which is now backing R K Raghavan, a 1963 batch IPS officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre, for the prime post. What's in a raid? Takes more than a CBI raid or three, it would seem, to faze the Ambanis. While the CBI action did undermine their reputation as the most influential industrial house in the country, Reliance Chairman Dhirubhai Ambani's reaction is surprisingly low key. It is not, the senior Ambani says, that the BJP government has some kind of animus against him, and his industrial empire. "I am an unwitting victim of the power struggle within the BJP," Dhirubhai recently told some friends. "The two senior leaders are at loggerheads, and I became the fall guy." In passing, a journalist who is on buddy terms with a senior Reliance official was among those who found the CBI on his doorstep, with a warrant. The journo says the search of his South Delhi house did not turn up anything incriminating. Oh well, he can now write a first person account of the functioning of a CBI raiding party -- should make for a nice page one byline. Pressing matters And while on journalists, there is this owner-editor of a newspaper who apparently imagines that laws are not made for such as he. The said editor recently threw a lavish party at a five star hotel in Gandhinagar, in connection with the launch of the paper's Ahmedabad edition (just where this paper is getting its funds from is another mystery, for another day). Back to the party, meanwhile, where booze was flowing like the proverbial H2O when the prohibition enforcement wing of the excise department raided the hotel. The editor let out an outraged squawk. Didn't they know who he was, he demanded. Sure do, the leader of the raiding party replied, but it doesn't make a difference, rules are for everybody! You can find needles in haystacks. You can even find the odd honest cop or excise officer. But you can't find an honest politician, period. Thus, while the excise team was only too ready to take action against the editor for flouting the prohibition laws, a bevy of local BJP politicians stepped in to hush things up. So now you know how well the BJP government in Gujarat has been enforcing prohibition in the land of the Mahatma. Up for grabs As of now, we have vacancies for around 120 high court judges, and about a dozen Supreme Court judges. Only Indian nationals need apply! Actually, it is no laughing matter. Even with the judiciary at full strength, justice tends to move at snail's pace -- given the present situation, the administration of justice is pretty much at a standstill. The vacancies remained unfilled for long, thanks to the standoff between the Vajpayee government and the then Chief Justice of India, M M Punchhi, leading to a situation where, over the last eight months, not one single judge was appointed. That situation is due for change any time now. Buzz is that acting Chief Justice of the Delhi high court Y K Sabharwal will shortly take over as chief justice of the Bombay high court. Justice S N Variava of the Bombay high court, who presided over the investigations into the securities scam, will meanwhile be transferred to the Delhi high court. Additional Solicitor General Santosh Hegde will move upstairs, to the Supreme Court bench. All this is merely a drop in the ocean, when you think of the number of vacancies remaining -- but at the least, a start is being made, amen! Birds of a feather... Where there is money, can Murli Deora be far behind? No way, Jose! Sure enough, the glad-handing Congress MP from South Bombay recently feted the richest Indian on the planet, Laxmi Narain Mittal. Murli's parties are legendary, and getting an invitation to one is considered a cachet of sorts. But even Murli was zapped by the response to his bash for Mittal -- so keen was the Delhi glitterati to rub shoulders with the London-based magnate, that the Lodhi Estate bungalow that formed the venue was crammed with guests from lawn to ceiling. Then again, given that it was money calling the tune, why would the turnout surprise anyone? Capital Buzz

HOME | NEWS | BUSINESS | SPORTS | MOVIES | CHAT | INFOTECH | TRAVEL SHOPPING HOME | BOOK SHOP | MUSIC SHOP | HOTEL RESERVATIONS PERSONAL HOMEPAGES | FREE EMAIL | FEEDBACK