Call it what you may: an informal Cabinet Committee on Security, a power lunch or a new experiment in governance. But these past few months, eight of the the country?s most powerful have been meeting over lunch once a month, informally, to sort out critical matters and speed up decision-making.
National security advisor Shiv Shanker Menon, General V K Singh, Air Chief Marshal PV Naik , Admiral Nirmal Verma, cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar, home secretary GK Pillai, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and defence secretary Pradeep Kumar sit together once a month. Rather than seek political intervention on every prickly issue, they try to sort it out amongst themselves.
Principal secretary to the PM TKA Kutty Nair, Intelligence Bureau director Rajiv Mathur and R&AW secretary KC Verma have been kept out of this new arrangement, probably because they are too close to the political leadership.
The rules of this cabal are simple. There are no notes, no minutes of meetings. Everything is off-the-record. The eight take turns to host a lunch, at home or office. The host coordinates the power lunch where all are equal. No one pulls rank?cadre, batch, proximity to political power centres don?t matter here.
Apart from inter-ministerial issues, even personal matters come up at the meetings with the focus being on resolution?be it related to China, Pakistan, terror or telecom security.
Sources said the NSA, chiefs of the Navy, IAF and Army have already hosted these luncheon meetings. In the last meeting at South Block, defence secretary Pradeep Kumar served continental fare. It is Nirupama Rao?s turn next month and China is likely to be on the table.