All's in a name: Now, BJP's Giriraj Singh wants to rename Bhakhtiyarpur

Bhakhtiyarpur is supposedly named after Afghan military general Bakhityar Khilji, who is believed to have conquered the region nine centuries ago

Union minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Giriraj Singh (pictured) is known for making controversial statements. On Monday, Singh sought the renaming of Bihar town Bakhtiyarpur, supposedly named after Afghan military general Bakhityar Khilji, who is believed to have conquered the region nine centuries ago. Situated on the outskirts of Patna, Bakhtiyarpur is the place where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was born and had spent his childhood. Singh's comment was disapproved by the Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) [ JD(U)]. The JD (U) shares power with the BJP in the state. Opposition parties such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Hindustani Awam Morcha also slammed Singh. The minister also wanted the name of Akbarpur in his Lok Sabha constituency of Nawada to be changed.  

Purifying the CBI building
 

There is much speculation about the reasons behind the current imbroglio at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). While some put it down to a power struggle in the topmost leadership in the government, there are others within the CBI who believe the new building of the investigating agency has proved to be a bad omen for its chiefs, both past and present. The CBI moved to its new building in early 2016. Since then, there have been cases implicating many of its recent directors in criminal cases. These include former directors A P Singh and Ranjit Sinha, former acting director Rakesh Asthana and now, incumbent Alok Verma. On Monday, officers mooted a shuddhi puja of the building to rid it of the "evil influence". Incidentally, all four have found themselves embroiled in a case related to alleged tax evader Moin Qureshi.

Sad commentary
 

Sixteen of the 25 in the 2018 batch of the Indian Foreign Services currently undergoing training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie are engineers and two are doctors. This has led to at least one former diplomat to wonder why these candidates were so willing to take up a profession not directly related to their field of study. “It is not that they cannot make good diplomats, but how warped is the Indian socio-economic system that engineers would abandon their primary skill — that is, make, invent or shape infrastructure/

manufacturing?” asked former diplomat K C Singh in a tweet.