As District Collector in Dhenkanal District in 1985, I was entrusted with an unusual task. I was made the Administrator of the District Central Co-operative Bank (DCCB). Such contingency arises when a...

When I joined as sub-collector Jajpur, my first posting in August 1982, I was full of various theoretical ideas learnt at Mussoorie as well as at IIT Bombay, my alma mater. My handling of the annual...

Decades ago in 1998, I attended another round table on nutrition in the same premises. A chance meeting and a leisurely evening stroll in the garden with Dr M K Bhan, an ace pediatrician, resulted in an...

Cuttack was an old, congested but important city. Bidanasi project conceived quite some time ago was not making much headway. It was a chicken-and-egg situation. The Authority could spend money on...

A Vikasit Bharat is a Bharat where every child is healthy and bubbly. An undernourished child cannot play with the lion cubs as the legendary King Bharat did. How do we reach there again?

I was shifted from the position of Secretary Women and Child Development and posted as Transport Commissioner, Odisha. One reasons of this shift was my strong difference of opinion with the Minister on...

Cabinet Secretariat is a compact but effective office. Not a great deal is known about it when we work in the States. In the Centre as well, it is more of a backend entity, but a powerful one....

It was certainly a big accident – perhaps the biggest in shipping history in Indian waters. Two ships collided blocking the navigation channel stalling any ship movement from Mumbai and JNPT, which...

As recounted in another episode, my tenure as Director General Shipping was fraught with unusual crises, making a close friend of mine accuse me jokingly that I was engineering all these for TRP....

There was a meeting of all Secretaries to Government of India at the Prime Minister’s residence. It was a meeting with some difference; no agenda, no work-related discussion. The Prime Minister...

After the general elections in 2009, I requested then Cabinet Secretary for a posting to Mumbai for certain personal reasons. He was sympathetic and as chance would have it, the post of Joint DG...

Recently, Coal India Limited won a global award for their initiative on helping children with Thalassemia get cured for life with Bone Marrow Transplant – a costly procedure indeed. Five years ago,...