By Dilip Cherian
How an Education Ministry worthy wins a new post will be a tale told later. But for now, the signs of a shakeup at Doordarshan are everywhere. A public broadcaster is often the first place where governments signal a shift in communication strategy.
Rina Sonowal, a 1994-batch Indian Information Service (IIS) officer, has been elevated to the rank of Director General and named the new head of Doordarshan. She is presently serving on deputation as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Higher Education and will take charge after returning to her parent cadre.
The appointment of a new Director General, coming close on the heels of wider reshuffles, suggests that the government may be preparing to recalibrate not just leadership but also the role of the national broadcaster. Whether that means sharper messaging, a stronger digital push, or a fresh editorial direction remains to be seen. But seasoned bureaucratic watchers know that personnel changes are rarely just about personnel.
Doordarshan today is no longer the lumbering state broadcaster of the past. It remains a crucial arm of Prasar Bharati, reaching audiences that many private networks still cannot, while simultaneously trying to compete in an increasingly fragmented digital media landscape. The person at its helm matters because the institution still shapes how the government communicates with millions of Indians.
In Delhi’s bureaucracy, the real story is often not the transfer itself but the pattern it fits into. And if this is indeed the beginning of a larger reset at Doordarshan, the consequences may extend well beyond Mandi House. We’ll be watching closely.
So should all those watching for tremors below the surface.
Uncomfortable questions
Five senior Railway officers shown the door before retirement should ordinarily be read as evidence that the system is finally getting serious about cleaning house. Instead, it raises an equally uncomfortable question: what took so long?
The government says the officers were eased out in the public interest after their performance and integrity came under the scanner. If that is indeed the case, the real story is not that five officers have retired prematurely but that they stayed in the system long enough for such action to become necessary.
This should worry everyone.
The Railways is one of India’s largest public institutions, handling enormous budgets, complex contracts and millions of passengers every day. If officers considered unfit for service were occupying senior positions until now, it raises uncomfortable questions about the effectiveness of vigilance, performance reviews and internal oversight.
Compulsory retirement under service rules is a blunt instrument. It removes an officer without the prolonged spectacle of a departmental inquiry, but it also arrives at the end of the chain, after years of service have already been rendered. It is corrective, not preventive.
That is where the concern lies. Governance cannot depend on periodic purges. The real test is whether questionable conduct is identified early, acted upon swiftly and prevented from becoming institutional baggage.
Five retirements may make headlines today. But the bigger question is how many similar cases never reach this stage or why they do only after decades in office. Until that question is answered, every ‘clean-up’ will also be an admission that the dirt was allowed to accumulate for far too long.
One car, no excuses
The Centre has recently announced a deceptively simple rule: one officer, one official car. Even if an officer holds an additional charge of another ministry, department, PSU or autonomous body, that doesn’t mean another vehicle. Nor can officers casually retain vehicles belonging to PSUs or autonomous bodies, except while on official tours.
This is where it gets entertaining. Actually monitoring this will provide a lot of fun to general administration officials who will have to figure out how high up the totem pole they can go. On the other hand, this will also give both the commentariat and watchful whistleblowers new opportunities to impale those who flout the rules. A simpler method might, of course, be to just maintain a strict car count, including vehicles that need to be garaged. That would make both drivers and those in charge of maintenance more watchful.
All in all, this new regulation will result in a mix of hilarity, high-handedness, and cost savings on the convoy of cars that several worthies have gotten used to. This may now come to an end, but unfortunately, this rule is only for officers and doesn’t extend upwards to those who rule us on our own behalf.