Turnaround story

At a recent meeting of the technology wings of the government, Union minister for information technology and telecom Ravi Shankar Prasad narrated an incident from his tenure in the previous National Democratic Alliance government, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister, to motivate the bureaucrats present. After the allocation of Cabinet portfolios, in which he was given the ministry of coal and mines, he went to meet Vajpayee to perhaps express his desire for a more key ministry like finance. Vajpayee simply told him that as a minister his aim should be to make a mark in the coal sector without any "kalik" (blemish). Prasad is often quoted these days as stating that he will revive MTNL and BSNL, the public-sector companies in his charge as telecom minister, in the same way he says he turned around Coal India.