By the book

At the Ganga Manthan - a national dialogue on cleaning the Ganga - held on Monday in Delhi, Union Water Resources Minister
Uma Bharti had a piece of advice for top bureaucrats in her ministry. Taking a possible jibe at former coal secretary P C Parakh, who wrote an account of the coal block allocation controversy, Bharti told her officials that good suggestions from ministry officials would be appreciated only while they served in office and not after they retired. "Don't write books to give suggestions after your retirement but give it to us while in office," Bharti told the gathering. No doubt, she is unaware that Parakh's recommendations for transparent coal block auctions instead of opaque allocations were made when he was very much in office and was ignored by the ruling dispensation then.