IAS officers across almost all departments in Andhra Pradesh have been keeping their phones on silent mode all day. They respond to all inter-departmental queries promptly, but only on WhatsApp.
State IAS officers and even ministers, now accustomed to seeing a number of missed calls on their phones, shared that they return only important calls and respond to others through SMS or WhatsApp. With Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu chairing review meetings with every department on a daily basis, this approach has helped ward off scornful glares.
So where did this idea come from? They have drawn their inspiration from the CM himself, who often talks about ‘maximum governance, minimum government’. The CM, it is learnt, has suggested that the AP secretariat be free from sound pollution, as it also moves towards going paper-free.
TMC ‘mole’ in CPI(M)
Over the past few days, a senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader in West Bengal has come under fire from party workers and supporters over his alleged role in leaking information about internal developments to the ruling Trinamool Congress.
The controversy erupted after TMC leader Kunal Ghosh posted on Facebook, on 16 February, the resignation letter of Pratik Ur Rahaman—a former CPI(M) Young Turk who switched to the ruling party on Saturday. Ghosh, a former journalist who continues to edit a leading TMC-leaning daily, suggested he had received the letter from a senior CPI(M) functionary.
Beyond the resignation letter, details of the CPI(M) leadership’s alleged efforts to persuade Rahaman—who had unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections against TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee—to reconsider, including a purported phone call from party stalwart Biman Bose, were also leaked, leaving the Left red-faced ahead of state assembly polls.
Why Siddaramaiah fondly remembers Parameshwara
One fine sunny day, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had just given a byte to news cameras, responding to persistent questioning over a possible leadership change in the state. His principal challenger and deputy D. K. Shivakumar had made a statement on the topic and news channels had made a beeline towards Siddaramaiah to get his viewpoint. Once the cameras left, the CM was furious, people aware of the developments say.
“That (G) Parameshwara was PCC president for eight years but he never troubled me or gave statements like this. But this Shivakumar is going on and on,” a person directly aware of the developments quoted the CM as saying, requesting anonymity.
Parameshwara, currently the state home minister, has been one of the Karnataka Congress’s longest serving presidents. He served as chief of the state unit between 2010 and 2018. Shivakumar has been KPCC president since 2020.
Shivakumar, it is learnt, has been turning up the heat on the Congress high command, demanding to replace Siddaramaiah at the earliest. Statements and reactions on the leadership issue have become a daily fixture in news cycles, overshadowing other key developments in the southern state.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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