The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has invited applications for the post of Director (Corporate Planning & Personnel) at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL). The vacancy notification was issued on February 20, 2026. The last date for submission of applications through the PESB portal is March 13, 2026.
The post will fall vacant on January 1, 2027, following the retirement of the incumbent Cdr. Vasudev Ranganath Puranik on December 31, 2026. He has been serving in the position since June 2022.
The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has invited applications for the post of Director (Operations) at Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL). The vacancy notification was issued on February 20, 2026. The last date for submission of applications through the PESB portal is March 13, 2026.
The post will fall vacant on November 1, 2026, following the retirement of the incumbent P Kannan on October 30, 2026. He has been serving as Director (Operations) since August 2023.
In a fresh development, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has appointed Sandip Janardanpant Sagale (IAS:2007:GJ) as the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Gujarat.
A notification issued by ECI on February 23, 2026 said Sagale has been appointed under Section 13A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. He will take charge from the day he assumes office and will continue until further orders. He is currently serving as Director General of the Sports Authority of Gujarat, a role he took on following a major state government reshuffle in early 2025.
Sagale replaces Hareet Shukla (IAS:1999:GJ), who had been serving as CEO since July 2024.
The Commission has said that before taking over as CEO, Sandip Janardanpant Sagale must hand over any other posts he is holding under the Gujarat government. While serving as CEO, he may also be given the charge of Secretary to the Government, Election Department, in the State Secretariat.
The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has invited applications for the post of Director (Finance) at Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). The vacancy notification was issued on February 20, 2026, and the last date for submission of applications through the PESB portal is March 13, 2026.
The post will fall vacant on January 1, 2027, following the retirement of the incumbent S Damodar Battad on December 31, 2026. He has been serving as Director (Finance) since January 2023. Prior to his elevation to the Board-level position, he was serving as General Manager in BEL.
The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has invited applications for the post of Director (Personnel) at Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL). The vacancy notification was issued on February 20, 2026. The last date for submission of applications through the PESB portal is March 13, 2026.
The post will fall vacant on July 1, 2026, following the retirement of the incumbent Keshav Raoon June 30, 2026. Rao has been serving as Director (Personnel) since December 18, 2019. His original five-year tenure was scheduled to conclude on December 17, 2024; however, he was granted an extension until his superannuation on June 30, 2026.
In a significant career advancement, 22 officers of the State Civil Service (SCS) from the UT Segment of the Joint AGMUT Cadre have been promoted to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) against the Select List of 2025.
The appointments were notified by the Government of India on February 19, 2026, under the provisions of the IAS (Recruitment) Rules, 1954 and the IAS (Appointment by Promotion) Regulations, 1955. The officers have been appointed on probation and allocated to the AGMUT Cadre under the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In a noble gesture that will go down into the annals of the state’s policing history, Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav went out of his way to extend his greetings to a 1951-batch retired IPS officer, Jagjit Singh Bawa, on the occasion of his 100th birthday on Saturday.
Lauding Baba as a towering figure of the Punjab cadre IPS, the DGP said Bawa represents a generation of officers who laid the strongest foundations of professional, principled, and fearless policing. DGP Yadav shared his feelings about the old veteran on X.
Special Punjab DGP SS Srivastava and DIG Personnel Amneet Kondal met the veteran officer at his residence to personally convey the respect and greetings on behalf of the entire force.
Bawa was enlisted in the service on July 13, 1951, and served the state in various capacities, from ASP, SP, and SSP Ferozepur to DIG and IGP, before moving to the Centre on deputation as Director of the CBI on September 27, 1977. He retired from service on February 28, 1985, after being granted a one-year extension beyond the age of superannuation.
Bawa served as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director during one of the most turbulent phases of the independent Indian governance during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s regime. He still remembers how his life collided with key turning points in the life of the country, including the time he decided to pay his last respects to Indira Gandhi, when Delhi crowds clamoured for the Sikhs’ blood in the wake of her assassination in October 1984.
He vividly remembers that evening when he was repeatedly diverted from Khan Market, Lodhi Road, and other roads close to Gandhi’s residence. It was after the Delhi Police Commissioner sent a vehicle with an escort that Bawa could reach home in the dead of the night.
And how his visit at Gandhi’s residence made headlines and spread like wildfire.
Despite being 100-year-old, Bawa still recalls his first meeting with Indira Gandhi after her return to power in 1980 and how the former PM ordered him to disband the CBI. Bawa claimed he convinced the PM against that move, and thus the institution was saved.
He describes Indira Gandhi as “very authoritative, very decisive, very straightforward, and at times very harsh and very angry.”
Bawa served as CBI Director during Operation Bluestar in June 1984 and says he repeatedly told the PM, “Do whatever you want—impose curfew, stop supplies, do anything, but don’t send the Army or the police into the Golden Temple.”
Bawa says Indira Gandhi seemed to have been misled by certain agencies into believing that ‘Khalistan’ could only be stopped through military action inside the shrine. “She was deeply concerned about Punjab and wanted to save it at any cost,” all he says.
In a novel move to bridge the rural-urban learning gap, the young Deoria District Magistrate, Divya Mittal (IAS:2013:UP), has co-developed a free mobile learning app called Kiki English to help countless first-generation learners in the rural parts of the state to speak English.
Mittal differentiates between a subject and a language by saying that she observed that students were treating English as a subject instead of a language, which does not come through rote learning but through speaking and listening.
She says she drew on her experience of learning French at Alliance Française, where the emphasis was heavily on conversation, after realizing the need for a similar tool tailored for early learners in UP’s rural belts.
The idea crossed Mittal’s mind during her years of field experience, where she realized that children in rural parts, despite being eager to learn, lacked the confidence and ease in English speaking. The initiative is widely held as being capable of becoming a major support system for government school students in the days to come.
The popularity of the app is so wide that it gained over 5,000 users within the first 18 hours of its launch. It also partially works offline—speech practice and spelling tasks do not require connectivity, while listening modules need only a one-time internet load.
Developing this unique work was not child’s play. She collaborated with her spouse, Gagandeep Singh, an ex-bureaucrat-turned-entrepreneur, and worked on it for over six months to turn Kiki English into a reality. While Mittal focused on the content—researching the first 500 essential words and crafting child-friendly, relatable vocabulary—the technical backbone and coding were led by her husband. Both are IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore alumni.
According to her, the app is designed primarily for children aged 3 to 6, though older learners with limited exposure can also benefit. It adopts a gamified format: children earn stars for completing activities, unlock badges as they progress, and appear on leaderboards that motivate consistent practice. Listening and speaking form the core of the curriculum that helps children to think in English even without a supportive home environment.
The app currently supports Hindi for limited assistance. Mittal intends to use it for students of govt school.
The public response on social media shows its impact, with many users from eastern UP sharing that they downloaded the app for children in their families, calling it useful, amazing, and a “blessing for poor families.”
Mittal said future expansion would depend on feedback from children, after which she plans to eventually add advanced language levels and additional foundational learning modules.
Mittal is also credited with bringing piped tap water to the water-scarce Lahuriya Deh village in the Mirzapur district in 2023, ending a 75-year crisis for 125 households.
The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has invited applications for the post of Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) at Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL). The vacancy notification was issued on February 20, 2026, and the last date for submission of applications through the PESB portal has been fixed as March 13, 2026.
The post fell vacant on December 16, 2025, after the then incumbent CMD, B Sairam, was appointed as Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Coal India Limited (CIL) with effect from December 15, 2025.
Subsequently, on December 16, 2025, Coal India Limited assigned the additional charge of CMD, NCL, to B Sairam, who is currently serving as CMD of CIL.
In an unusual development, 35 senior IAS officers in Rajasthan have been asked to man the government’s helpline call center and take at least 10 calls every day to ensure timely disposal of public grievances. The aim of this move is to bring in accountability among bureaucrats and ensure speedy resolution of public grievances.
According to the orders issued by Chief Secretary V. Shrinivas (IAS:1989:RJ), these 35 IAS officers manning the call centre will be from the Secretary and Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) ranks. They have been asked to sit at the Rajasthan Sampark Helpline 181 call center in the Secretariat on their assigned days and take at least 10 calls daily, listening to citizens’ complaints and, as far as possible, ensuring on-the-spot resolution of their grievances.
Besides, these officials will also be reviewing the average disposal time of grievances, long-pending complaints, grievances with low satisfaction levels, and the categories of grievances received at the helpline. These officers have to submit their visit report to the Chief Secretary’s office as well.
This decision was taken after the state Chief Minister, Bhajan Lal Sharma, was seen regularly visiting the 181 call center, personally taking calls from citizens and listening to their grievances for some time. The CM has also been holding continuous public hearings at his residence, focusing on resolving the problems of common people.
The Rajasthan Sampark is an online grievance redress portal and helpline of the state government where citizens are supposed to register their complaints, following which they are given a unique number through SMS in order to enable them to track the status of their complaints.
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