Stephanians hold top 4 govt jobs

Though Delhi's prestigious St Stephen's College has produced scores of famous personalities in diverse fields since it was founded in 1881, it has long been known as a stepping stone to the citadels of power - the IAS, IPS and IFS.

Though Delhi's prestigious St Stephen's College has produced scores of famous personalities in diverse fields since it was founded in 1881, it has long been known as a stepping stone to the citadels of power - the IAS, IPS and IFS.

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But for the first time in many years, the two top posts in the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service are today held by Stephanians.

IAS officers Pulok Chatterjee, the PM's principal secretary and Ajit Seth, cabinet secretary, and IPS officers Nehchal Sandhu, IB chief, and AP Singh, CBI chief, are from Stephen's.

"We are very proud of this fact as well as the achievements of these four officers. It also shows that the values and education they received in college have helped them reach these milestones," said expenditure secretary and Stephen's alumnus Sumit Bose.

And like many birds of a feather, Stephanian officers in key positions get together once a month. Interestingly, the previous UPA-1 regime was dominated by civil servants from Kerala working together - TKA Nair (principal secretary to the PM), KM Chandrasekhar (cabinet secretary), Shivshankar Menon (foreign secretary), GK Pillai (home secretary) and MK Narayanan (national security advisor).

But UPA-2 shows a northward shift. While Chatterjee is a 1974-batch officer from the UP cadre, Seth is from the Bihar cadre like defence secretary Shashikant Sharma and home secretary RK Singh.