Cloud over WCD ministry selections

Selection of a lost Congress candidate from Mumbai and former boss of Women and Child Development (WCD) minister Krishna Tirath's husband as members of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has resulted in further delay in having a full-fledged panel six years after being set up. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 3, 2010, 01:02:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Selection of a lost Congress candidate from Mumbai and former boss of Women and Child Development (WCD) minister Krishna Tirath's husband as members of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has resulted in further delay in having a full-fledged panel six years after being set up.

The WCD ministry had selected four persons as members of the commission to work with chairperson Shanta Sinha from November. Their appointment, however, is in a tizzy as new information revealed that at least two persons concealed vital information in their bio-data submitted to the ministry.

Vinod Kumar Tikoo, whose name was recommended for the panel by Rajya Sabha member Karan Singh, did not reveal that he was a banker and claimed to be a child-care specialist.

When confronted, Tikoo said he had worked in Indian Overseas Bank till his retirement after obtaining a master's degree in child and community development from Delhi University.

Tikoo was also manager of Rajendra Nagar branch of the bank, where Tirath's husband also worked. He did not reply to further queries.

Inquiries also revealed that Dr Yogesh Dube, who is among the six selected, had contested and lost the assembly elections from Mumbai on Congress ticket in 2009. Dube did not inform the ministry about this. In his resume, he claimed association with many child welfare associations in Maharashtra and UP.

The members' selection was challenged in Delhi High Court by NGO Pratidhi's Raj Mandal Prasad, who also applied for the post. The case was disposed off on Monday after the ministry citied conflict of interest but assured that fresh revelations against the selected members will be examined before notifying the final names.

Government officials on Tuesday did not rule out change in final panel of the selected members. "We are looking into the allegations," an official said.

While making the selection, the ministry overlooked suggestions made by chairperson Sinha. They included child right experts such as Harsh Mander, member of National Advisory Council, Dr Vinod Rainia, a child specialist and Dr Vandana Prasad, who works with Breastfeeding Network of India.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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