Clean-up acts

Officers in Maneka Gandhi's women and child development ministry may have worked over the weekend to clean out the offices of detritus, according to a press release it issued, but Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has been no slouch on this score either. His ministry, too, has let journalists know that it has been weeding out unwanted files, documents, furniture, appliances and so on. In fact, around 35 steel cupboards, three water coolers, around 40 chairs and other obsolete material lying in the corridors have been collected and are awaiting auctioning. Plus, one of the priority jobs assigned to the public works department is to renovate the washrooms in the building, a much-needed exercise as long-suffering visitors will confirm.