Smoking the peace pipe

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: The union budget process, as they say at North Block, integrates the whole of the finance ministry. This fact was evident the other day. Economic affairs secretary CM Vasudev and revenue secretary S Narayan came out from the finance minister Yashwant Sinha’s room after attending pre-budget consultations with railways minister Nitish Kumar in a cheerful mood (very different from the mood witnessed earlier). The spate of laughter continued in the corridors of ministry for about ten minutes in front of Mr Vasudev’s room. Advisor to the finance minister Dr Rakesh Mohan not to be left behind, also joined the two. Can this be taken as sign of a patch up between the two secretaries till the budget-making process is over?

Insurance cover

Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is certainly in the insurance mode nowadays. Not content with thrusting down the centre’s throat his gift of free land for the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority headquarters in Hyderabad, he seems intent on laying foundation stones for more institutions. Thus Irda will be entering into a memorandum of understanding soon with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation to set up a Global Insurance Research Institute in Hyderabad, eavesdropper learns. Who knows, these moves may well be Naidu’s way of buying insurance cover for the next elections!

Tailpiece

Boom times are in store for India’s legal eagles. The Chinese side of a recent Indo-Chinese lawyers delegation who visited the Rashtrapati Bhavan, in a meeting with President K R Narayanan, said that lawyers are a recent breed in post-communist China and therefore look for co-operation with India. The president said that Indian lawyers would be willing to provide guidance to their Chinese counterparts. Clearly, law is one area where the dragon can learn from the elephant.