Hard at work

Head of Indian climate team at Doha and special secretary in the environment ministry Mera Mehrishi was missing at the meeting of negotiators from India, China, South Africa and Brazil in Chennai, triggering speculation that new environment secretary V Rajagopalan would head the Indian team in climate negotiations.

Spl secy missing in action
Head of Indian climate team at Doha and special secretary in the environment ministry Mera Mehrishi was missing at the meeting of negotiators from India, China, South Africa and Brazil in Chennai, triggering speculation that new environment secretary V Rajagopalan would head the Indian team in climate negotiations. If that happens, it would be after two years that a secretary will be leading the climate negotiations. Last secretary to lead the talks from the Indian side was Vijai Sharma, now an information commission with the Central Information Commission

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No meeting with PM, please!
Politicians generally lap up opportunities to discuss issues with the Prime Minister. But last week, Union labour secretary Mrutyunjay Sarangi found it to be different. At a meeting with trade union leaders, Sarangi said he can convey to the PM that union leaders want to meet him to discuss labour issues. INTUC chief Sanjeeva Reddy told him, "Please don't do it. We don't want to meet him for mere assurances."

Opinion poll on road safety
In an attempt to come up with effective solutions to check road accidents, the road ministry, apart from addressing technical glitches on accident prone sites, has now come up with a novel idea to get feedback on such sites. It has started an online opinion poll of road users on road safety issues specifically for identification of accident prone sites. Those who want to give their views can log on to www.morth.nic.in and fill the online form which has a series of questions, including how safe one feels on roads in their locality, accident prone sites in one's localities, etc.