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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 Shipping was getting vacant in Mumbai. “It is a light posting. Go join there. You have had your plate full for a while. You can have some work – life balance.”
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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, they had won a national award for this initiative. As we speak, over 1000 children have availed this support – a remarkable achievement by any objective standards.
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I used to travel frequently from Mumbai to Delhi as part of my supervision of the work done by C-TARA Fellows placed with UNICEF and other Ministries. C-TARA or the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas is an independent academic Centre at IIT Bombay where I had joined as a full-time Professor after my retirement from the Cabinet Secretariat as Secretary (Will narrate that story some other time. 😊)
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Bhuban village in the Dhenkanal district in Odisha was declared as a Notified Area Council (NAC) way back in 1972. Yet, in 1987, when I joined as the Collector, Dhenkanal, it was still a large village de facto. My joining as Collector got delayed due a large outbreak of fire in there. It may surprise the readers but that is what actually happened.
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I recently attended a stakeholder consultation on flood forecasting, risks and vulnerabilities at IIT Bombay. It brought back some humorous memories of a flood preparedness back in 1982 at Jajpur subdivision – my first place of posting. It was not an easy place to work – was the prevailing perception. I have alluded to it elsewhere.
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सिविल सर्विस परीक्षा के लिए मेरे इंटरव्यू में कई उतार-चढ़ाव आए, लेकिन आखिरकार मुझे इंडियन एडमिनिस्ट्रेटिव सर्विस (IAS) में जाने लायक ज़रूरी रैंक मिल ही गई। मैंने इंटरव्यू में काफी अच्छे नंबर हासिल किए थे, लेकिन मुझे इसका पता तब चला जब मसूरी में हमारे एक इंस्ट्रक्टर, डॉ. मुत्तुस्वामी (भगवान उनका भला करे) ने पूछा, "ओह, तो तुम वही अग्निहोत्री हो?"
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“Tickets for Wimbledon in the month of May or June? Are you kidding Satish?” Julia’s nose went further up in the air as she glanced at me and said, “Satish, people plan for it right since September the previous year. Not at the spur of the moment.”
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During my UPSC interview (described in an earlier blog), one question that was asked, did bother me for a while. ‘Was I not wasting a seat in IIT by getting into the civil service?’
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My interview for the Civil Service examination had its own share of twists and turns, but it got me the requisite rank to get into the Indian Administrative Service. I did score fairly high marks in it, but realized this only when Dr Muttuswami, one of our instructors, (may God bless his soul) asked “Oh, so you are that Agnihotri?”
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This is a brief insider story of my small role in nudging the system to increase the frequency of the National Family and Health survey from once in 10 years to once in five years. It is an interesting case study in public policy where a combination chance and homework, and some perseverance, can lead to a public policy initiative.