The appointment of Mumbai Police Commissioner Javed Ahmad as India’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia is a rare assignment for an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. The last time an IPS officer was made ambassador was Julio Ribeiro when he was sent to Romania. Mr Ribeiro too had been Mumbai Police Commissioner from 1982 to 1985.
Mr Ahmad seems to have struck a purple patch quite late in his career. Though eligible to become police commissioner, he was pipped to the post by Rakesh Maria, who was a favourite of the earlier Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government in Maharashtra. Fortunately for Mr Ahmad, BJP chief minister Devendra Fadnavis shifted Mr Maria out and brought him in as Mumbai’s top cop, just four months before he was due for retirement. To do so, he also upgraded the post to the rank of director-general. Sources say that Mr Fadnavis also pushed for Mr Ahmad’s nomination as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a post which has been vacant since April 2015.
MEA’s expanding role After foreign secretary S. Jaishankar took over last year, the ministry of external affairs has been slowly expanding its domestic influence. While diplomacy and engagement with foreign countries obviously remains its mainstay, it is also placing Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers in other government ministries and departments. Actually that’s an old practice, especially in the ministries of petroleum and commerce, where some posts were kept for MEA officials. But these had fallen into disuse over the years due to paucity of IFS officers. That’s no longer the case.
The Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) will now add a joint secretary-level IFS officer to its spy ranks, bringing a diplomatic touch to the agency’s covert operations abroad. Babu watchers say that A.G. Sarma, a 1986-batch IFS officer, is a frontrunner for this new position. Similarly, Shambu Kumaran is slated to join the ministry of defence to look after international cooperation, a post held by the IAS cadre for nearly a decade. Further, there is talk that a post will be also be filled by an IFS in the ministry of finance.
Raid politics The latest outburst of hostilities between Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Modi sarkar is over the Central Bureau of Investigation raid on the chief minister’s office. While Mr Kejriwal claimed that his office was raided, the CBI has maintained that the raid was not targeted at the chief minister but his principal secretary, Rajendra Kumar. The 1989-batch IAS officer is an IIT alumnus and was secretary to Mr Kejriwal during his earlier brief stint as chief minister.
The CBI says that it registered a case against Mr Kumar following allegations of “abuse of official power” during the period 2002-2005, made by another senior bureaucrat Ashish Joshi, former member secretary of the Delhi Dialogue Commission.
The political sound and fury apart, in recent days several babus in the Delhi government have been making news. The CBI recently arrested a senior IAS officer, Sanjay Pratap Singh, principal secretary in the department of SC, ST and minorities, for allegedly demanding a bribe. At the time, however, the agency had kept the chief minister’s office in the loop and there was no uproar. In Mr Kumar’s case too, Mr Joshi had initially complained to the anti-corruption branch chief M.K. Meena. But given the animosity between the AAP government and the Centre, the CBI move has now become politicised.
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