Spilling the beans

Ministers have a habit of concealing things in the belief that they will never be revealed. But in this age of transparency, it is difficult to keep things under wraps. This is precisely what happened recently when a senior minister insisted that the Forest Rights Act would not be diluted and the consent of the gram sabhas would be needed to clear infrastructure projects in the area. Another senior minister of the Cabinet spilled the beans when he disclosed that the same minister had written a letter on January 21, agreeing to bypass the gram sabhas. That was just days before the former minister denied that he had advocated diluting the Act.