But the government doesn’t want to merely frame Baba Ramdev. They also want to keep a door open for him. The central government is well aware of the fact that for now the baba is the centre of public aspirations and to mess with him would be go against public emotions. So several others are coming forward as a means of solace. Sri Sri Ravishankar’s offer of mediating may not have weightage, but the real job is being done by Mukesh Ambani, who is doing his best to get the government out of the rough patch. For this he is taking the services of his family guru Murari Bapu. It is worth noting that Murari Bapu and baba share a good bond and the former may play a big role in convincing baba. For now the government is trying all it can for baba to break his fast and is ready to make new associations for the same.

It seems the Congress has gotten over the black-shades clad Baba and Baba Ramdev’s complicated moves. That is why Sonia took a flight to Italy without a doubt. So now consider the Cabinet expansion postponed for 10-12 days. It will all happen only when madam is back in the country. For now the Congress is trying to deal with the Babe episode as best as it can. The ED and the CBDT are doing their work and apart from the purchase of Astha-Jaagran channels, the sale and purchase of an island in Scotland is also being keenly looked at. Baba had bought this island from an NRI Poddar family. It is the controlling office for all the programmes that are conducted overseas. It is also being said that the atmosphere of the place is such that if homosexual couples come to this island and live here, their homosexual habits change.

News is baking in the scorching Delhi sun, every moment is a breaking news time. We hear that the 10, Janpath and 7, Racecourse Road are getting new excuses for their undeclared war every day. So if in such a scenario, Sonia Gandhi decides to take a flight to Dubai without showing any emotions, what would you call it? From there she will take a direct flight to Italy and it is possible that Priyanka and Rahul also meet their mother and nani there in a couple of days. This is nothing new since Sonia has an unsaid arrangement with her mother where she will come to India for Christmas holidays and Sonia will make a trip to Italy for summers with the family.

Be it the BJP or the Congress, both parties have several lawyers. While the Congress has Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Jayanthi Natarajan, Salman Khurshid and so on, the BJP has Arun Jaitely, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ram Jethmalani. While the BJP has created a storm in the Parliament about the 2G scam, BJP’s Rajya Sabha member and Advani-aide Jethmalani is the lawyer for Kanhimozhi in the 2G scam and is saying in the court that the 2G matter isn’t a scam at all. Jaswant Singh also refuses to call it a scam. Which means lawyers from both parties are being allowed to take a line of thinking on the contrary to the party stance. Mahatma Gandhi had also amply promoted a lawyer Jawahar Lal Nehru but it is worth mentioning that Nehru was a non-practising lawyer. Times have changed and so have politics and its rules. So today parties give full freedom to its lawyer party members to fight a case in the court, and also thumb its nose at the party.

BJP’s reply to the prime minister’s press conference came from party President Nitish Gadkari. Advani and his troupe is miffed that all the issues were Parliamentary, then why the need for Gadkari to counter them? Is Gadkari the true counterpart to the prime minister in the truest sense? That is: BJP’s new PM-in-waiting – Mister Gadkari.

A small issue prevented Munde’s admission into the Congress, otherwise the party strategists were ready to give a big shock to the BJP in Maharashtra. Manik Rao and Prithviraj Chavan were leading the issue from the front and Digvijay Singh from the Congress was bargaining and brokering the deal. Vilasrao Deshmukh has been kept away from the entire plot although Deshmukh and Munde live adjacent to each other in the same building in Worli, Mumbai. Actually, Munde wanted a seat in the Cabinet the minute he joined the Congress, while Congress didn’t think it would be appropriate, and so we would have to wait awhile. And in any case, people from outside the party have always gained more. Take Beni Prasad Verma (who might get a new post in the Cabinet reshuffle) as also Sanjay Nirupam, Mohan Prakash, Madhusudan Mistry, for instance.

The way private airlines IndiGo have taken over the skies is nothing less than a miracle. The company has not only made a profit of Rs 700 crore, but has also placed a big order for purchasing 180 aircraft. Where companies such as Kingfisher owe crore to the Airport Authority of India, IndiGo is paying the authority money in advance and enjoying a rebate of upto 30 per cent. It has paid Indian Oil money in advance for a year for air turbine fuel and is enjoying hefty discounts as a result. The company was started by a travel agent Rahul Bhatia in 2006, who had a travel agency by the name of Globe Enterprises. Bhatia has connections in the political circles and it is believed that he has the blessings of two heavyweight Cabinet minister of the Manmohan Singh government, which could be the possible explanation for his company being so cash rich. It is being said that IndiGo has got permission to fly to Dubai and this permission has allegedly been granted by overlooking several rules by the home ministry. According to the home ministry guidelines, any private airlines wishing to conduct flights overseas should have its own security staff, but IndiGo has outsourced the function to another price security agency for the Dubai flights.

Air India is in as bad a shape as it can be. The staff hasn’t been paid for two months, although most are working at half their salaries and this month, they will be paid only 30 per cent of it. Most senior pilots have already quit the airlines. Currently, nearly 110 captains are leaving Air Indian and joining IndiGo. The Cabinet has been given a proposal that the airlines should be given Rs 800 crore relief package. And what does the Aviation Minister Vyalar Ravi have to say in such a scenario? Sources reveal that his priority is to direct as many flights as he can to Kerala. Now the minister has given a new order that the flights to Lucknow, Delhi and Patna be cancelled and those to Kottayam be started. When Prafful Patel was the aviation minister, his sole attention was on how to get maximum profits for private operators, and the new minister wastes most of his time in the company of trade union leaders.

The biggest miracle by the Mallu lobby was Ranjan Mathai’s becoming the country’s new foreign secretary, who is currently the Indian ambassador in France. The most surprising bit is that Mathai has never been posted to any neighbouring country, but his current appointment at a powerful position as that of a foreign secretary is a reflection of the Mallu lobby’s clout. This was something that irked 10, Janpath. While the names in the race for the post included Vivek Katju, Sharad Sabharwal and Hardeep Puri, but because Puri had expressed a desire to contest elections on a BJP ticket from Delhi, his name was already struck off. In terms of capabilities, Katju was better because his role as the Indian ambassador in Afghanistan had been commendable.

Pradeep Kumar’s appointment as the new CVC speaks about the Malayali lobby losing its clout. The entire Malayali lobby was trying its best to push retired Home Secretary G K Pillai, however Bijoy Chatterjee, Naresh Dayal, Alka Sirohi, R P Agarwal, Vijaylakshmi Gupta R S Pandey were among the 28 who were in the fray, most of whom were from the IAS or former IAS officers. An IAS from the 1972 Haryana cadre and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar and G K Pillai were neck to neck. But Pranab Mukherjee and 10, Janpath, came in the way of Pillai. Pranab da bore a grouse against Pillai that he had tried to spy on him on Chidambaram’s behest, while 10, Janpath wanted to stop the monopoly of Malayali lobby. So Pradeep Kumar was preferred over Pillai. It is likely that Sushma Swaraj’s Haryana connection may have something to do with this.