Internal circulars indicate govt to lift lockdown by mid-June

The Department of Personnel and Training issued a notice that announced postponing the start of a post-graduate degree course for senior bureaucrats at IIM Bangalore

Lockdown revelations

Many social organisations and activist groups, including those affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as also ones that profess Leftist ideology, have found the lockdown a revelation. On April 14, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), which is the trade union arm of the RSS, organised a lecture by Krishna Gopal on the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar. Gopal is one of the top leaders of the RSS and has handled its Dalit outreach over the years. According to the BMS, the lecture was streamed live on its Facebook page, and as many as 6,000 of its workers across India watched it. One of the organisers quipped that organising such a lecture with this kind of attendance would have required significant planning and expenditure in normal times, and might not have ensured such good attendance. Similarly, Anhad, a socio-cultural organisation, has taken to organising recitals, concerts, even performances by actors such as Naseeruddin Shah on its Facebook page, and has found tremendous response.

Fill in the blanks

The current Lok Sabha will complete a year in two months’ time, but some of its members are yet to send their biographical details to the Lok Sabha secretariat. The “who’s who cell” of the secretariat’s research and information division updates and uploads the biographical information as given by the members on the Lok Sabha website. Over the last few months, it has repeatedly asked errant members to send the soft copy of their respective “bio-profiles”. A format has also been uploaded on the Lok Sabha website. The secretariat recently also put out a list of all those who were yet to send their details.

June 15?

Some recent internal government circulars indicate the Centre foresees a complete lifting of the lockdown only by the middle of June. On Wednesday, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) issued a notice that announced postponing the start of a post-graduate degree course for senior bureaucrats at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore. The DoPT said the post- graduate degree programme in public policy and management for 2020-21 at IIM Bangalore “has been tentatively rescheduled to commence in the middle of June, 2020”. It would intimate the fresh dates as soon they are finalised, the DoPT said. The course was earlier scheduled to begin on April 24. Similarly, the last date for receiving applications for several similar courses for bureaucrats has been extended until June 15.