Love, marriage & Haryana postings
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions issued an order on 15 January transferring Utsav Anand, a 2022-batch IAS officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, to the Haryana cadre. The transfer was granted due to his marriage to his batchmate, Anjali Shrotriya, a Haryana cadre IAS officer currently serving as the Sub-Divisional Magistrate in Gohana, Sonipat district.
Currently serving as Joint Magistrate in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, Utsav Anand is set to join Haryana cadre as the 7th IAS officer from the state’s 2022 cadre.
In the past couple of years, several IAS officers have secured cadre transfers to Haryana, a state in close proximity to Delhi.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior IAS officer said Haryana is considered among the top choices by Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers primarily because of the state’s proximity to Delhi.
“Like any other parents, when our children seek admission to colleges and universities, we too want them to study at the best institutions in Delhi. For IAS officers from other state cadres, the only way to stay close to their children is by opting for central deputation. However, in Haryana, posting in any of the six or seven districts near Delhi is almost as convenient as being in the capital. Even for officers assigned to the farthest districts like Panchkula or Sirsa, the travel time by car is just about 4 hours,” the officer said.
Some senior bureaucrats secure official accommodation in Delhi by taking on additional responsibilities linked to postings based in the capital, he added.
Moreover, Haryana is regarded as a relatively peaceful posting, with no issues related to Naxalism or extremism.
The inter-cadre transfer of All India Service (AIS) officers, including IAS, IPS, and IFS officers, is governed by Rule 5(2) of their respective cadre rules. This rule allows the central government, with the agreement of the concerned state governments, to transfer an officer from one cadre to another.
One of the key grounds for such a transfer is marriage between two AIS officers, subject to specific conditions.
Among the several transfers in recent years, one took place in September 2023, when Rahul Modi, an IAS officer from the Tripura cadre, was reassigned to Haryana after marrying Deepti Garg, an IPS officer from the Haryana cadre.
In April 2023, the DoPT approved the cadre transfer of Anupama Anjali, a 2018-batch IAS officer from the Andhra Pradesh cadre, to Haryana following her marriage to Harshit Kumar, a 2020-batch IAS officer serving in the state.
Renu Sogan, a 2019-batch IAS officer from the West Bengal cadre, married her batchmate Hitesh Meena, an IAS counterpart from Haryana. Both originally hail from Rajasthan.
Dr Balpreet Singh, a 2019-batch IAS officer from Punjab, served in the Kerala cadre until 28 February, 2022, when the DoPT approved his transfer to the Haryana cadre following his marriage to Upasana, a 2017-batch IPS officer in Haryana.
In October 2021, Shantanu Sharma, an Assam-Meghalaya cadre IAS officer of 2015 batch was shifted to Haryana after his marriage to C. Jayashradha, a 2020-batch IAS officer from Haryana.
The most interesting case is of 2015 batch IAS officer Neha Singh who was transferred from the Gujarat cadre to Haryana on 27 December, 2021, following her marriage to her batchmate Rahul Hooda of the Haryana cadre.
Neha Singh, originally from Bihar, is Deputy Commissioner at Kurukshetra while Rahul Hooda who hails from Delhi is Director, Higher Education, in Haryana at Panchkula.
However, Rahul Hooda wasn’t originally from the Haryana cadre. His original cadre was Himachal Pradesh as per the official records.
In a meeting of the DoPT held on 6 October, 2015, his cadre was transferred to Haryana following his marriage with Manisha Choudhary, an IPS officer of the 2011 batch.
After their divorce, Rahul Hooda married Neha Singh, facilitating her transfer of cadre to Haryana.
Devendra Fadnavis’ childhood dream
What did Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wish for as a child? It wasn’t to lead the state or become a minister, but to escape to a land of ice creams and stay there for a month. And on Thursday, Fadnavis got a chance to live his childhood dream—if only for a moment—when he visited Lotte India’s Havmor ice cream manufacturing plant in Pune for a walkthrough.
Speaking at the plant’s launch, Fadnavis shared his childhood dream and said, “Now, I cannot stay here for a month, but at least my dream is fulfilled.”
That same day, he took another trip down memory lane—riding a bicycle around the Nibe Limited facility in Pune while attending its foundation day celebrations.
BJP MP Suresh Gopi’s ‘free’ service
Kerala’s first elected BJP MP, Suresh Gopi, is no stranger to controversy. The actor-politician frequently makes headlines with his emotional outbursts and contentious remarks. However, in the past week, he found himself at the center of two controversies in just three days. The first stemmed from his demand that an upper-caste individual be appointed to lead the Ministry of Tribal Welfare. The second involved a poster that appeared outside his office in Thrissur.
On Tuesday, a day after Gopi’s statement on the allocation of the tribal welfare department, a poster appeared outside his MP office in Thrissur, declaring that all services provided there would be free of cost.
As images of the poster circulated on social media, the public questioned whether other MPs were charging fees for their duties—or if Gopi himself had been doing so until that day.
In July 2024, just months after winning the Lok Sabha elections, Gopi stated that he would attend inauguration ceremonies in his capacity as an actor—not as an MP—and would require ‘proper’ payment for it.
Revanth Reddy’s wants KTR to be silent
Even as he mocks former CM K. Chandrashekar Rao for being absent from the Telangana Assembly, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy appears eager to silence his son, BRS leader K.T. Rama Rao, whenever he speaks in the House.
During a discussion earlier this week on the CM’s statement regarding the Socio, Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste Survey 2024—the official but cumbersome name for his government’s caste census—Revanth Reddy urged Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar to bar KTR from speaking.
Revanth’s reasoning? The MLA, a prominent state leader and former minister, had rejected the survey conducted in November-December, refusing to share his details or be counted among Telangana’s populace.
“Such people should be punished. I am saying you should not give them the mic. They should become part of our society, the social order,” CM said.
The speaker did not entertain the unusual request.
Revanth pointed out that KCR, KTR, and another senior BRS leader, Harish Rao, were among the few politicians who refused to participate in the survey, claiming they were unsettled by questions about land and property ownership.
KTR, however, didn’t hold back. He reminded Revanth that back in 2014, when he was a TDP MLA, he had also mocked the survey, questioning, “Why should we divulge 57 types of details just because CM KCR asks us to?”
Revanth dismissed the 2014 Samagra Kutumba Survey conducted under KCR’s regime, calling it a farcical, one-day exercise meant only for mention in the Limca Book of Records. In contrast, he defended his government’s months-long enumeration as a genuine effort to ensure the rightful distribution of welfare benefits to backward classes.
However, Revanth refrained from tabling the full survey report, which would have revealed the exact caste composition of Telangana. His stated reason? Concerns over data privacy.
When the CM noted that the report was over 1,000 pages long, AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi quipped, “Give it in a pen drive then. We’ll print the portions we need.”