M A I N   N E W S

Clinton’s visit from March 20
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Feb 1 — United States President Bill Clinton will arrive here on a five-day official visit on March 20 to hold wide-ranging discussions on a wide spectrum of issues and themes with Indian leaders.

Announcing Mr Clinton’s visit, a spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs said at the invitation of the President of India, Mr Clinton would visit India from March 20 for approximately five days.

The visit of the US President is expected to pave for qualitatively new and closer relationship between the two democracies, the spokesman said.

When asked whether Mr Clinton would also go to Pakistan, the spokesman said “it is not appropriate for me to comment on visit of a dignitary of another country to a third country”.

Asked if the CTBT would figure during Mr Clinton’s discussions with the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and other leaders, the spokesman said “it will be a mistake to link the visit with any issue”.

Vittal’s move angers IAS lobby
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Feb 1 — Resentment is brewing among officers of the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service over the move by the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), Mr N. Vittal, to make public names of some of their colleagues against whom the commission has advised proceedings for major penalty.

Understandably no one is willing to go on record against the move, which they feel is ‘‘unfair’’ especially as they see it being against only two streams of service.

However, Mr Vittal, when contacted today appeared unfazed by the controversy the move has generated and defended it by stating that CVC had not ‘‘branded any person and that there was no act of defamation’’.

The CVC web site (cvc.nic.in) has put up a list of 74 IAS and 22 IPS officers against whom it said the CVC had advised initiation of criminal/departmental proceedings for major penalty since January 1, 1990.

It contained names of some top officers including Mr D.K. Rao the Ministry of Surface Transport, former Secretary Beck Julius, senior police officials Ujjwal Mishra, R.C. Kohli and others.

Mr Vittal’s move has, of course, got the backing of senior officials in the CBI, the premier agency to check graft in the government.

A senior official of the CBI said today that there was nothing wrong in the move especially since the names of these officials had been on the files. ‘‘By making it public it exposes people and this is one way of checking corruption’’, the officer said.

However, some IAS officers felt that by making a list public of just one or two streams was not proper since it was a question of ‘‘system’’. The CBI official said the rule should be applied uniformly to all services.

Soon after Mr Vittal made the names public, its credibility was questioned when it came to light that it contained name of a person who is dead (former Secretary Suresh Kumar) and another was a case of mistaken identity (former Information and Broadcasting Secretary Mahesh Prasad).