Poised for the budget session?
Insiders say that there will be yoga sessions in the morning to de-stress officials. Also, there will be games like tug-of-war and a cricket match among officials. “The idea is to refresh them ahead of their hectic schedule before the Budget,” a finance ministry official commented.

Didi still miffed at Pranabda
Mambata and Pranab da- Bhai Phonta (Brother’s Day) is over, and the warmth seems to have faded from the ties that bind Pranabda and Didi. Here’s why. Pranab Mukherjee was searching for a private secretary and was keen to have someone from the West Bengal cadre to fill the vacancy. The man he had in mind was Saumitra Mohan, who had served in Mukherjee’s home constituency. But Mamata Banerjee, miffed with Mukherjee’s response to her demands for a financial package for Bengal, put a spanner in the works and sent Mohan away with a posting in the hills. Now when will this Cold War end?

NEW DELHI: A drama of resignation played out by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee lies behind Congress President Sonia Gandhi hustling to make Home Minister P Chidambaram enter into an uneasy truce with him.
Mukherjee had, in fact, gone to New York to tell Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of his decision to resign over a note on the 2G case against Chidambaram, which seemed to originate from the Finance Ministry. The resignation news was, however, kept under wraps by the diplomatic staff led by India’s ambassador, the 63-year old Nirupama Rao, a former foreign secretary who pleaded and persuaded Mukherjee to hold back any such announcement.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, a close confidante of Sonia Gandhi, has been authorised by the Union Council of Ministers to brief ‘Madam’ on Lokpal, Anna Hazare, the controversy over the death sentence of three Tamils, Afzal Guru, and other political developments.

Nervous Congress leaders are getting ready to welcome their chief, who had been abroad for treatment. Some Union Ministers and the All India Congress Committee functionaries want to maintain a semblance of normalcy to suggest that the Congress is doing fine, despite the drubbing it suffered at the hands of Team Anna. Party managers want to pass a number of legislations — the land acquisition bill, seeds bill, whistle blowers’ bill — in an effort to retrieve lost political ground. But will this be enough to hide the warts from Madam’s hawk-eye? Remains to be seen.