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Indian Express
9 minutes ago
- Indian Express
North Block is leaving the building, with files, stationery and nostalgia
In its 94-year existence, North Block has seen a lot. It was the seat of power of the colonial British government, the site of spontaneous celebrations when India became Independent in 1947, and, ever since, has been a witness to successive governments shaping policy for the nation. These days, however, the corridors of the building are nearly deserted, with sections roped off, and locks hanging on doors that till recently hid a flurry of activity. The building is in the process of being emptied as part of the government's plan to redevelop the Central Vista area – the stretch from India Gate to Rashtrapati Bhawan. North Block now is to be repurposed as a museum, with key ministries that have operated out of it since 1931 when its construction finished – including Union Ministries of Home Affairs and Finance, and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) – to be moved to a set of 'Kartavya Bhawan' buildings down the road. However, the work of shifting a government can't be hurried up. And in this case is being coordinated by a ministry – Housing and Urban Affairs, which is also spearheading the Central Vista redevelopment. Other ministries have appointed a nodal officer each for the exercise, which began around a month ago. Under their watch, files are being sorted into marked boxes, computers are being packed, and office supplies are going into cardboard containers. Artwork, including many, many photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, is being bubble-wrapped. The packing is being done by office staff, aided by a team of workers hired for the job. Once packed, the boxes are carried by workers down the stairs to a side entrance, and loaded onto tempos and government cars. These then cover the short distance to the new address. An official working in North Block says the move has been fairly smooth so far, particularly when it comes to files, given that nearly all, save the sensitive ones, are now on the government's E-Office portal. Officials in the know say the DoPT has almost entirely moved out. Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Prime Ministers' Office, Science and Technology and Personnel, is expected to shift soon, sources said. The Home Ministry has been allotted Kartavya Bhawan 3, and Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan and the Intelligence Bureau were some of the first ones to shift. According to sources, the shifting of some offices to KB3, as the building is referred to, began before its formal inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 6. The Finance Ministry, however, is yet to begin shifting. An officer in the middle of shifting says: 'I'm soaking in the last few days at this building. Many of my former colleagues who have worked here have been dropping by to see the offices one last time.' Like the South Block that stands across it, North Block, designed by British architect Herbert Baker in red sandstone, incorporating Indian features like jaali, chajja and chhattri, is as much a regal structure as a functional one, with plenty of light and ventilation. The new buildings, in comparison, look like any modern corporate office, with glass cabins for officers, open plan seating for most employees and access-control systems. Offices in the South Block, which houses the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs, have not started moving out yet. Once both the buildings are emptied, they are to be restored and refurbished, before reopening as Yuge Yugeen National Museum. The government claims it will be the largest museum in the world. The 'charm' of North Block is what those who have worked here keep coming back to in conversations. G K Pillai, who spent seven years in North Block, first as Joint Secretary from 1996 to 2001 and then as Union Home Secretary from 2009 to 2011, recalls the sense of history that permeates the rooms. 'Stalwarts, including Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, worked here. Old-timers would tell us about important meetings that took place in the past,' Pillai, who is now retired, says. The former IAS officer adds that he personally believes that not all the ministries from North Block and South Block should have been shifted to the new quarters. 'Some of them could have stayed. The next generation of officers will lose that sense of history,' says Pillai. Durga Shanker Mishra, a 1984-batch IAS officer who retired as Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary last year, recalls his time in a ground-floor North Block office as Director (Personnel) in the Home Ministry in 2002-2004. 'I have good memories of that office. Though I was a director in Home, I had been given a room on the Finance Ministry's side. It was a well-sized room.' However, Mishra says: 'As is the case with old buildings, there were challenges. It needed more maintenance over the years.' As Secretary, Housing and Urban Affairs, Mishra was, in fact, part of the deliberations when the Central Vista project was planned and started. He says the new Central Secretariat buildings will change the way the government works, in terms of efficiency and coordination. In fact, while senior officers – who along with ministers had large airy offices – are understandably nostalgic about the high-ceilinged large rooms that they are leaving behind, not all in the North Block will regret the change. A majority of its employees worked in cramped spaces, with partitions created within dingy rooms to accommodate more officials over the years. Mezzanine levels were also added to create space, with the temporary additions doubling the number of rooms in both North and South Blocks over the years. A section official says: 'We are looking forward to the new building. I've heard that the canteen is very nice.' But true to form, the open-plan layout of the new Secretariat also has its share of detractors. On August 5, the Central Secretariat Service Forum, which represents around 13,000 employees, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister's Office expressing concerns about 'the lack of privacy and confidentiality' in the new arrangement.
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Business Standard
9 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Vikram Misri holds talks with Nepal's top leadership on boosting ties
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Sunday called on Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli and President Ramchandra Paudel and discussed ways to further strengthen bilateral ties across various sectors. Misri arrived here earlier in the day for a two-day visit to the Himalayan nation on the invitation of his Nepalese counterpart Amrit Bahadur Rai. During his meeting with Oli, which took place at the Prime Minister's Office at Singhdurbar, matters of mutual interest were discussed to further deepen bilateral relations. Misri reaffirmed the deep civilizational ties and strong IndiaNepal partnership, and discussed ways to further strengthen cooperation across various sectors, the Indian embassy here said in an X post. Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava was also present at the meeting. The foreign secretary separately called on President Paudel and conveyed greetings of the Indian leadership, apart from briefing Hon'ble President on the progress in bilateral ties, the embassy said in a separate post. He will meet Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba and also hold a bilateral meeting with Nepalese Foreign Secretary Rai later in the day. Misri will also meet top leaders of major political parties including Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda. His visit reflects the tradition of regular high-level exchanges between India and Nepal, and reaffirms the commitment to the #NeighbourhoodFirst policy, the Indian embassy said in a social media post. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs here said in a statement on Saturday that connectivity, development cooperation and other issues will be discussed during his visit. Misri will return home on Monday after wrapping up his visit. People familiar with the matter said the main focus of Misri's engagements in Kathmandu will be on preparing the ground for Prime Minister Oli's trip to New Delhi next month. Oli is likely to visit India around September 16, according to diplomatic sources. However, the official announcement is yet to be made. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mint
34 minutes ago
- Mint
Manu Joseph: Why the poor remain unseen casualties amid India's raging dog debate
Reformers take too much credit for reform. So often, good happens when upper classes collide in self-interest but ostensibly for a good cause. As we will get to see once again when the Supreme Court decides the fate of stray dogs in the National Capital Region. Awaiting the order are two warring sides. One group of people believes that stray dogs belong on the streets, with humans, free and fed by their lovers. The other group seems to despise stray dogs but I think their real bone to pick is with dog-lovers. They want the dogs removed from the roads, and for this they have discovered a sudden and uncharacteristic love for India's poor, who are the primary victims of dog bites as they are fully exposed to Indian street life. Also Read: Indian sophistication on stray dogs can be confusing Most civilian wars in societies across the world are between these two kinds of people. Those who stand for values, who have moral clarity on the matter because they will face no consequences, and who are thus able to say all the right things, which are easy to defend on camera. And the other side that is practical, and wants to live in a convenient way and for which they know that some values need to be compromised. They cannot easily argue their moral ambiguity in public and have to deploy the plight of the poor. But what they believe in is usually what many people say privately. They want stray dogs gone but do not want to be directly responsible for that because they don't want to pay a price for it in the afterlife. The second group might well be most of India. The first makes most of the noise. Also Read: The mean streets are no happy home for stray dogs The stray dog issue has appeared in Indian courts for years, with the victories mostly going the way of stray dogs. But a few days ago, a Supreme Court bench on its own accord took up the matter of the dangers of stray dogs, especially deaths from rabies, and ruled that all strays, probably a million, in the National Capital Region must be taken off the roads and put in shelters, which do not exist today in sufficient numbers. The problem is that if stray dogs do have a right to life, then they belong on the roads. As in, they are not meant to be in shelters with hundreds of other dogs—that would be a brutally feral world. Another bench heard an appeal and, at the time of writing this piece, was yet to announce its decision. Also Read: Manu Joseph: Can anything save Indians from miserable urban lives? By the standards of conflicts in Indian middle-class society, this is one with useful consequences for the poor. Usually, Indians waste a lot of emotion on useless things, by which I mean issues that will not improve the abysmal quality of life in India. The issue is morally complex. Guardians of stray dogs deny the scale of the problem. They say the numbers of dog bites and rabies deaths are exaggerated, and that stray dogs don't attack without reason. But this is unlikely to be the view of most Indians. Dogs are a danger, especially to children, disabled and the old. Like people, they are endearing when powerless. But, at the slightest whiff of an upper hand, as in the presence of a scared child, they are beasts. Also, Indians have died from dog bites despite being administered the anti-rabies vaccine. This could be because of the inconsistent refrigeration of vaccines. So, if you are a person who has to walk home down narrow lanes, especially at night, or go on a bike, there is a real fear of death upon the sight of half a dozen dogs sitting peacefully at a road junction. It really is not about the chances of dog bite, but about the miasma of a reasonable fear. Seen this way, stray dogs don't belong on the roads. But then, seen from the point of view of dogs, they belong out in the open. To an extent, they have better lives than house pets that are locked up most of the time and whose only luxury is that they are fed well. I have seen house dogs moan in envy, perhaps, at stray dogs. Also Read: What protects us from being stabbed in our own homes? The government has failed to do the humane thing to reduce the population of strays—sterilization. In any case, sterilization works best for pets, or on a small scale, and not for a city-wide reduction of the canine population. Besides, the government can barely fix roads; we cannot expect it to do difficult things, like finding humane ways to keep the number of urban dogs down. This leaves us with inhumane solutions, like dumping them all in something that we call a 'shelter' for our own comfort. As of now, stray dogs are protected by exemplary laws. This has angered people. I feel many developed a greater anger for stray dogs chiefly because of their annoyance with the moral swag of some animal activists. Usually, when a moral idea irritates people, only politicians speak for them. So, in the past few days, politicians have raged against dogs. Some, like Rahul Gandhi, had the courage to take a political risk and say that 'voiceless souls" are 'not the problems to be erased." He said, 'Blanket removals are cruel, short-sighted, and strip us of compassion. We can ensure public safety and animal welfare go hand in hand." But there is no such solution, especially a short-term solution. In any moral debate, it would be very lazy not to factor in the incompetence of Indian local government officials. Sterilization is, therefore, just not practical. I feel that nothing will come of this issue immediately because India rarely solves its difficult problems. So the dogs are safe for now. And the core of the problem will continue—the poor will pay a price as one segment of the country's elite fight for the meaning of being human. The author is a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. His latest book is 'Why the Poor Don't Kill Us.'
