OFF THE RECORD review on some of the headlines…
“Maharashtra government is expected to make an announcement regarding an upcoming announcement about whether or not they have decided to make a decision on deciding how to announce their decision on deciding how and when to announce the announcement. The announcement comes after the decision to make an announcement was postponed in favor of deciding to announce the announcement for the announcement decision in advance”. Did you all understand a word of what’s written? No nah…. This is a forward I received on whatsapp after CM Uddhav Thackeray made his Facebook Live, or rather, such memes/forwards are common every-time CM addresses the state. Being from media, I would like to really appreciate the efforts of the Chief Secretary and the DGIPR team for making press notes for us; which we then forward to various whatsapp groups for easy understanding, as nowadays no one has the patience to wait for the papers to come next day. Secondly CM sir, in your address it is observed you try to simplify things and make an emotional appeal, but sir, if I can be completely honest, it adds more to the confusion. Thirdly, Mumbai and Maharashtra are a predominate Marathi speaking city/state, I agree, but then sir we even have a lot of non-Marathi speaking population residing here as ‘Maharashtrians’ who find it very difficult to understand of what you are speaking about. So, offering a simple solution, if you may please, don’t go Live at all on any social media; stick to a written speech and make use of teleprompter and the second option is to call Doordarshan channel with a cameraman, let them divide the screen for us (It’s an editor’s job). One part of the screen will be having your visibility and speech in Marathi and on the second part of the screen, bullet points can be put of whatever you speak in either English/ Hindi. Other TV channels can take feed from Doordarshan.
OFF THE RECORD on IPS: 3 major changes were done in the Home Department. Vineet Agrawal replaced Jaijeet Singh as ATS chief, Jaijeet Singh went as Thane Police Commissioner and Sanjay Saxena is appointed as Principal Secretary (Special) Home Department. Tried to dig some information of these 3 people getting such prestigious postings, all I could find from all my sources was they are extremely low profile, gentleman type of officers and selection is purely on merit. They are friendly with everyone.
OFF THE RECORD on IAS: I love officers with attitude. And if their (moral) character matches the attitude and the personality with intelligence with some social & common sense, he immediately becomes my favorite and I befriend him. But officers with only attitude and ‘I know everything kind’ of people come across as arrogant and brash to everyone, and my job is to bring it to their notice even if they don’t like it. They may feel they are invincible but my dear readers, has circle of life spared anyone till date? No nah…then why unnecessarily to behave pricey? I am talking about a young & dynamic IAS officer of our state now in Tourism department, Ashutosh Saleel. It is really OK my dear, if a ‘scion’ loves you and listens to you or an ex municipal commissioner had taken you on his head during your BMC days, but my dear, ask ex best friends (I ‘m talking only political friends here) of the ‘scion’ how he dumps them after he has finished his work… and believe me senior IAS officers are not having a good opinion about you, even if you are a performer and hard-worker. You need to practice Gratitude. End of the day, seniors are seniors and yes, being approachable and polite won’t hamper you. The advice is free, take it or leave it…if you take it with your intelligence & pace of work you will go places.
Now MMRDA posting: Don’t as of yet count R A Rajeev out! He is on extension after being retired in February 2021, but if luck prevails and the ‘scion’ has his way, he might get an extension for another 3 months. If and only If, R A Rajeev does not continue as MMRDA Commissioner, my bet is he would be heading a special vertical of MMRDA which will be only for Metro Projects. R A Rajeev can head that. But if he goes out, a lot of other IAS’s are eyeing for the post. Anil Diggikar is the front-runner, as Mhada was his stop gap arrangement, then if he goes to Mhada, Sanjeev Jaiswal might come to Mhada; Sonia Sethi is also trying her luck to for the MMRDA commissioner post, but readers, don’t be surprised if a Milind Mhaiskar or SVR Sriniwas gets the post of MMRDA Commissioner.
OFF THE RECORD on a Journalist: Heard but not confirmed, a journalist (from a credible, no not Times) English paper who was covering the Mantralaya beat and bureaucracy in particular, has been asked to get out with immediate effect. The reason attributed for this ouster is due to a serious complaint of two senior IAS officers to the management of the paper. So, this journalist who had a good rapport with many IAS officers, used to do a lot of here and there while talking. He would listen to one officer, and immediately gossip about it to the second officer he met. This one particular episode led to a major misunderstanding between two senior IAS officers (due to the antics of this journalist) and once they both (IAS officers) confronted with each other, it was found that this journalist was responsible for creating the misunderstanding. They immediately decided to complain and an ex-CS too, used his ‘weight’ to get this boy out!
Vikrant Hemant Joshi
