Vaastu powers

Bureaucrats are always powerful, and the ancient doctrine of vaastu just proved it in Chhattisgarh. When the state secretariat was recently shifted to Naya Raipur – the new administrative capital of the mineral-rich state – Chief Minister Raman Singh took special attention to ensure that everything was vaastu compliant. The chamber designed for the chief minister, however, had many vaastu-related problems, so seating plans were realigned. The chief minister will now sit in the office allotted to his principal secretary and the huge chief ministerial chamber will be occupied by the principal secretary. This apart, a three-day yagya was performed in the new building premises before its inauguration. But things did not start off on the right track, in spite of all these precautions. The chief minister’s first Cabinet meeting in the new building has been rescheduled twice in the last four days for one reason or the other.