Jayant N. Khobragade,  a 1995 batch IFS officer has been appointed as Joint Secretary in the Dept of Atomic Energy. Prior to this he was posted as OSD in the same Department of Atomic Energy.

The 2002 batch IAS officer of Telangana cadre, C. Sudarshan Reddy has been appointed as Director in the Ministry of Defence, Govt of Indi, for a period ending April 26, 2020.

Reddy is presently on ‘Compulsory Wait’ in the M/o Labour & Employment.

Vipul Bansal has been appointed as Private Secretary to the Defence Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, for a period up to January 26, 2022.

The appointment of the Karnatka cadre IAS officer of 2005 batch as PS to the Defence Minister is at the Deputy Secretary level on lateral shift basis.

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval for implementation of umbrella scheme of “Modernisation of Police Forces (MPF)” for years 2017-18 to 2019-20. The financial outlay for the scheme over the three year’s period is Rs.25,060 crore, out of which the Central Government share will be Rs.18,636 crore and the States’ share will be Rs.6,424 crore.

Salient Features of Umbrella Scheme:

o Special provision has been made under the Scheme for internal security, law and order, women security, availability of modern weapons, mobility of police forces, logistics support, hiring of helicopters, upgradation of police wireless, National Satellite Network, CCTNS project, E-prison project etc.

o Under the umbrella scheme, central budget outlay of Rs.10,132 crore has been earmarked for internal security related expenditure for Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States and left wing extremism affected States.

o Scheme of Special Central Assistance (SCA) for 35 worst LWE affected districts has been introduced with an outlay of Rs.3,000 crore to tackle the issue of underdevelopment in these district.

o An outlay of Rs.100 crore has been earmarked in the North Eastern States for police infrastructure upgradation, training institutes, investigation facilities etc.

o Implementation of this scheme would bolster the Government’s ability to address challenges faced in different theatres such as areas affected by LWE, Jammu and Kashmir and North East effectively and undertake development interventions which will catalyze in improving the quality of life in these areas and help combat these challenges effectively at the same time.

o New initiatives are being introduced to provide assistance to States for upgradation of police infrastructure, forensic science laboratories, institutions and the equipment available with them to plug critical gaps in the criminal justice system. Police Stations will be integrated to set up a national data base of crime and criminals’ records. It will be linked with other pillars of criminal justice system such as ‘prisons, forensic science laboratories and prosecution offices.

o The umbrella scheme also provides for setting up of a State-of Art forensic science laboratory in Amravati, Andhra Pradesh and upgradation of Sardar Patel Global Centre for Security, Counter Terrorism and Anti Insurgency in Jaipur and Gujarat Forensic Science University in Gandhi Nagar.

It is expected that the umbrella scheme, “Modernisation of Police Forces (MPF)” will go a long way to boost the capability and efficiency of Central and State Police Forces by modernizing them.

Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) to the Finance Ministry Arvind Subramanian has been given a one-year extension and will continue in office till October 2018.

Subramanian’s three-year term was to end on October 16, 2017.

“His first three year tenure ends on October 16 this year. He has been given an extension for one year. A formal announcement will be made soon,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

The extension of Subramanian comes at a time when the government is working on measures to support economic growth, after GDP growth fell to 5.7 per cent in April-June – the lowest in at least five quarters.

Sources said Subramanian had been keen to leave for the US, where his family resides, but was requested to stay back.

He is currently on leave for “public service” from his position as the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington.

Arvind Subramanian had taken over as CEA in October 2014, soon after the NDA came to power.

The office of the CEA had remained vacant for over a year after Raghuram Rajan was appointed Reserve Bank of India Governor in September 2013.

Subramanian has, over the last three years, brought new ideas in public discourse such as the JAM–Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile–trinity. He was closely involved in drafting the Goods and Services Tax Act and had also authored the ‘Report on the Revenue Neutral Rate and Structure of Rates for the GST’ in December 2015.

He has also put up various ideas for discussion at the policy and popular level such as his recent proposal for Universal Basic Income.

Around 20 IAS officers from various cadre are going to retire this month. Among them Rudra Pratap Singh and Ajay kumar Singh of Uttar Pradesh, Snehlata Srivastava and SK Mishra of Madhya Pradesh, Hanumant Singh Bhati from Rajasthan and Dr P Ram Mohan Rao from Tamilnadu.

The deputation tenure of Limatula Yaden as Director in the Department of Health and Family Welfare has been extended by one more year. Therefore, she will continue as Director for another term of one more year.

The 1996 batch IRS(C&CE) officer, Limatula Yaden has been given the extension for the period of one year beyond 30 July 2017 to 30 July 2018, 2018.

Amitabh Prasad, IA&AS (2001), has been appointed as Private Secretary (PS) to the Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on a co-terminus basis.

He is also the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the Coal Minister.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved appointment of Prasad as PS to the railways minister in addition to his duties as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the Minister of Coal, it said. Goyal is also the Coal Minister.

The government has curtailed the tenure of Kashish Mittal as private secretary to Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the curtailment of tenure of Mittal, an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

Mittal, a 2011 batch IAS officer of union territories cadre, was in August 2016 appointed as the PS to the minister for a five-year term.

The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister on September 18 cleared the appointment of 18 Joint Secretaties.

Of these, 11 officers are from Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and six from other civil services. The appointments are as follows:

(1) Anil Malik (IAS-1991; HY) will be Joint Secretary in Ministry of Home Affairs.

(2) Vivek Bharadwaj (IAS-1990; WB)has been appointed as Joint Secretary in Ministry of Home Affairs.

(3) Anurag Agarwal (IAS-1990; PB), also from the same service, has been appointed Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs.

(4) Dr. N Sarvana Kumar (IAS-2000; BH), appointed as Joint Secretary, Department of Higher Education..

(5) Ruchika Chaudhry Govil (IRS IT-1990), an officer of Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre), has been named Joint Secretary, Ministry of Steel.

(6) Manohar Agnani (IAS-1993; MP) will be Joint Secretary in Department of Health and Family Welfare.

(7) Vijoy Kumar Singh (IAS-1990; PB) has been named as Joint Secretary, DoPT

(8) Amit Sahai (IFoS-1987; AM), an Indian Forest Service officer, will be Joint Secretary, Department of Defence Production.

(9) Ravinesh Kumar (IDAS-1994), an officer of Indian Defence Accounts Service, has been named Financial Advisor (JS Level), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), under Ministry of Home Affairs.

(10) Sanjay Goel (IRTS-1991) has been appointed Joint Secretary in Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.

(11) Gopalakrishnan S (IAS-1991; TN) has been appointed Joint Secretary in Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.

(12) Anuradha Thakur (IAS-1994; HP) will be Joint Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management.

(13) Kalpana Rajsinghot (IPoS-1992) have been appointed Joint Secretary in Ministry of Labour and Employment

(14) Manju Pandey (IPoS-1989) appointed as Joint Secretary , Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

(15) Niranjan Kumar Sudhansu (IAS-2000; MH) will be Joint Secretary, Ministry of Coal.

(16) S Suresh Kumar (IAS-2000; AP) has been appointed Additional CEO ( JS Level), Government e-marketplace Special Purpose Vehicle— a portal to procure goods and services by all government departments and public sector undertakings, under Department of Commerce.

(17) IAS officer Rajiv Arora, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment has been sent back to his cadre state Haryana before completion of his central deputation tenure.