Whispers Forum

If indeed the Government is deciding to lower the retirement age of Government employees, it is a retrograde step. This again proves this Government is anti employees and does not care for the bodies like Pay Commission under whose recommendations the retirement age was increased from 58 to 60.With longevity having gone up and people remaining quite young even at the age of 60 there is actually a case for raising the retirement age and why not. If politicians can go up to 75 or even beyond it why the Govt. employees can not work up to 60 or even 62.
Aarti Khosla
Sandhu comes up with elegant anecdotes
Sandhu comes up with elegant anecdotes, that strikes a chord in many field officers. This putting 'topi' on the lower level field officers for splurging on the senior officers' visits and of ministers is widely prevalent in many states. One expects the PM, with his honesty worn on his sleeve, would put and end to this. This is happening in different ways even now, by the ruling party in the districts be it BJP or other parties. Kerala is somewhat of an exception, not so much. There, the lower level officers are blunt and direct. Even in Tamil Nadu it is that way. When I was in the field, I used to insist that whatever food expenses was met for me, I would pay. The officer demurred and said that it is a small amount and don’t worry. But I insisted. Then he said that sir, apart from you, your driver, your camp peon, other officers who come to meet you, all are being taken care of by us. I then said, that I will pay for me and my driver. He said sir you will not be able to afford it and came up with a high value. The break up included fire wood, chicken (I am vegetarian), booze, and said all this is expected. It is difficult to stem this. Sandhu should bring out more anecdotes like this.
Ravi Srinivasan

This year the Board of Direct taxes supported by senior IRS officers has taken two important steps to eradicate corruption in their department. First is the amendment to the law to the effect that cases more than four years old cannot be opened. More important is that dealing in these cases will be faceless. This means a permanent loss of power of harassment as also 'extra' income for the junior officers. But junior officers are smarter than the Board imagined them to be. To compensate for the forthcoming loss, the junior officers opened a large number of 5 to 10 year old cases before the four year rule came into force. Now they have time up to 31st December 2019 to harass the assessees either for extra income or for ego massage. Most of the victims are salaried persons. The loss of reputation to the Income tax department is immense but there is little the Board or the Minister can do about it.
Prof. N. C. Saxena

The Appellant sought the copies of all the official circulars, orders etc for ensuring “Adequate Safe Drinking Water to Public of Rajasthan in least minimum time” sent from time to time by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation to State of Rajasthan from 2002 till 29 March 2017. The PIO submitted that the desired information from the year 2011 onwards is available on the website of the concerned Ministry. However, before that the subject matter was handled by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and hence, all the physical records available with them which were transferred from MDWS, are not in a consolidated and a ready-made form. The CIC directed to provide an additional reply to the appellant giving him proper hyper-links and sub-links where the desired information from the year 2011 can be located. Further, the inspection of the records related to the period before 2011 was ordered.
Comments
Information of such nature should be suo-moto disclosed by the Public Authority on their website for the ease and convenience of the public at large as a part of their obligation under section 4 (2) of the RTI Act. The PIO should provide the proper hyper-links and sub-links where the information sought by an applicant is available instead of plainly referring to on the website.
Citation: Sunil Pareek v. Ministry of Jal Shakti Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Decision no.: CIC/MODWS/A/2017/606108/MODWS/02019, Date of Decision: 31/10/2019
Dr. Anuradha Verma (dranuradhaverma@yahoo.co.in) is an expert on RTI matters and has co-authored the books RIGHT TO INFORMATION - LAW AND PRACTICE and PIO’s guide to RTI. Her other articles can be read at the website of RTI Foundation of India at the link: - Right to Information Act 2005- RTI Foundation of India

India invites 27 members of European Union Parliamentarians to show normalcy in Kashmir. One wonders why so much hue and cry is being raised by the Opposition ?
It is India's sovereign right to invite anyone for mobilising international opinion. This will bolster up our stand on Kashmir especially as the EU had recently expressed concern about the situation in Kashmir. More importantly, India must gather support of as many countries as possible before embarking on legitimate annexation of POK including Gilgit and Baltistan.
The Congressmen and pseudo intellectuals were blocked from visiting Kashmir due to their unholy nexus with Kashmiri separatists and the ISI. It was , a clear threat to national Security at that point of time.
There could possibly be no issue with MEA's invite to the EU lawmakers to visit the valley, though selection of delegates could have been arbitrary, based on pick and choose. They allegedly belong to the right wing parties of Europe. The entire west is turning to right-wing ideology, anyway.
So far ,so good. But, I am somewhat perplexed by the private nature of the visit (not officially sponsored by the EU). Will the MPs influence their countries, back home ?
One hopes, the foreign jaunt does not end up as a 5-Star holiday, enjoying MEA’s hospitality. Surely, the decision on invite must have been taken by the MEA on holistic considerations after taking into account all secret aspects to which the critics are not privy.
PM will surely be able to convince the Indian Parliament, starting from Nov 18,2019.
A K Saxena (A former civil servant)

Day in and day out IAS officers are promoted on fastest track and boss over other Central Service officers even upto officers of 5 years senior batches. No one sees anything wrong here specially IAS who consider themselves God’s own creation. How demoralising it is for other Services, no one realises. Just to please one Service i.e. IAS, entire government machinery is relentlessly working. Why be then concerned with one IAS officer of a batch becoming boss of another IAS officer? When will anyone realise and end completely unjustified hegemony of IAS ? Their 87 batch got posted as a Secretary and 91 batch as Additional Secretary ? Will any one see situation in other Central Services ? Are those not doing important work ?
Devendra Sridhar