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Hard at work

DG (forest) seeks voluntary retirement
India’s Director General of Forests, PJ Dalip Kumar, a 1974 batch Indian Forest Service official, has decided to shorten his service by a month after being at odds with Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan on various wildlife and forest issues. Kumar’s tenure was set to end by the end of November, but he has decided to take voluntary retirement. The Karnataka cadre officer, who was brought to the ministry on recommendation of former environment minister Jairam Ramesh, had been overruled by Natarajan on several occasions, including use of compensatory afforestation funds for setting up new forest institutes and not allowing gram sabha to harvest minor forest produce.

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IAS officer quits to contest Himachal assembly polls
A 2000 batch Indian Administrative Service official Prem Singh Draik has quit the civil service to contest Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. The BJP has given him ticket from Rampur, a seat reserved for scheduled caste candidates and considered a strong-hold of former chief minister and Congress leader Virbadhra Singh. Winning from Rampur will not be easy for Draik, a Himachal cadre promote IAS officer, as BJP has a poor record from the constituency.

Prez Mukherjee’s aides say no to houses in Rashtrapati Bhavan
Two key personal aides of President Pranab Mukherjee have refused to take quarters inside the Rashtrapati Bhavan estate. M K Mukherjee and Heeralal, two of the most trusted and long-time aides of Mukherjee preferred to stay back at their earlier houses as they had been their home for few decades. Heeralal, President's personal staff, even refused to take a car and rides a bicycle to work.

DoPT settles for biometric attendance system
The department of personnel and training (DoPT) has decided to settle for a standard biometric attendance system that will capture fingerprints of its employees to identify them. The department had earlier this year flirted with the idea of installing a more sophisticated system with face recognition features as well.