Tech savvy Maharashtra CM Fadnavis gives iPads to ministers to ensure cabinet agenda secrecy
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He expressed strong displeasure over the manner in which the media released the agenda.
Later, Fadnavis found that in the past too, the entire agenda was available to the media, despite best efforts by the CM concerned to ensure secrecy. During the tenure of Vilasrao Deshmukh, the agenda used to be circulated a few minutes before the cabinet. However, when a section of the cabinet members lodged a protest, the old system of submitting the agenda a day before the cabinet was restored.
Fadnavis has decided to use technology for maintaining secrecy, confirmed a section of bureaucrats. They said that he has taken the leakage of cabinet agenda very seriously as it has caused embarrassment. All cabinet members are given a state-of-art iPad and a few hours before the cabinet, they get the one-time-password to access the cabinet notes on them.
Most of the cabinet members are, however, unhappy with the new system, since they are not well versed with the new technology.
Pointing out that it is never too late to learn something new, a top bureaucrat said as many cabinet members are young it is not difficult for them to adopt the new technology.
For Congress induction event, Durrani rents civic parking lot
It is difficult to believe, but it is true. A veteran politician from Marathwada, Babajani Durrani, took BMC's entire parking lot in central Mumbai on rent to accommodate visitors' vehicles so that locals were not inconvenienced when he officially joined Congress in a grand event at the party headquarters in Dadar.
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The entire rent was paid in advance, according to a senior Congress leader.
Durrani was a popular NCP (SP) leader from Marathwada, particularly Parbhani district. He was being lured by prominent politicians to join their party, including BJP and Shiv Sena. Durrani took the view that in the ultimate process, only two parties – Congress and BJP will remain in the country, then after a prolonged thought he decided to join Congress.
Grand preparations were made for his entry in Congress in the presence of state party president Harshawardhan Sapkal and former minister Amit Deshmukh at Tilak Bhavan.
Whenever there is a big event in Tilak Bhavan, traffic movement in the entire area comes to a halt and locals complain about being inconvenienced. Taking note of these issues, Durrani decided to rent the civic parking lot to ensure proper arrangement for vehicles.
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