Social Media Corridor: Which bureaucrat is a bird watcher and sky gazer?

Anil Trigunayat: What's his latest passion?

WITH social media users in urban areas becoming India’s newest voting bloc, a study by IRIS Knowledge Foundation says social media is likely to influence politics and elections in 160 of India’s 543 Parliament constituencies. While more and more netas are joining the bandwagon of Facebook, Twitter and Google plus, the bureaucrats too are cautiously testing social media platforms to get their voices heard and tell people a little more about themselves. BoI here presents a few offbeat taglines that civil servants are using in their social media profiles.
1) Nirupama Rao, India’s Ambassador to US, describes herself as an “occasional poet” and “music lover”. Of course, she has given her formal designation too.
2) Srivatsa Krishna, an IAS and MBA from Harvard, is calling himself a “Proud Modernite”. He also mentions in his Twitter profile that he is a vocalist, writer and a PhD student.
3) A venture into social media will tell you that IRS officer BVS Saikrishna is also a PhD student. He follows money laundering, cross border flows and tax havens. But his social media profile will also tell you that he is a “bird watcher” and “sky gazer”!
4) 1995 batch IAS officer Varsha Joshi is highly active in Twitter. She is director, Census operations in Delhi. But her profile will also tell you that she is a “pathological reader” and “question asker”.
5) Anil Trigunayat is an IFS officer currently serving as India’s ambassador to Libya. But his social media profile goes beyond his official bio. He calls himself “an optimist to the core”. And golf is becoming “yet another interest”.

Action and Appointments
a) The government has rejected the proposal of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas for extension of Central deputation tenure of LN Gupta, a 1986 batch Orissa cadre IAS and joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, for a period of three months beyond June 5, 2013.
b) The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of R Vijaykumar, a 1978 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, at present in the cadre, as secretary, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, in the rank and pay of a secretary.