Media acknowledges with pride the entry of a new foreign Secretary, who has installed an unlikely piece of furniture in one corner of his office in Delhi’s stately South Block: a divan.It’s not an indulgence, or a vanity. The divan doubles up as a bed when Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has to catch some shut-eye, because his schedule sometimes doesn’t allow him to go home.India's top foreign service officer has to be on tap for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and this means late nights at work, as well as Sundays.
Welcome to life in the Modi administration. Since the workaholic PM came to power a year ago, key bureaucrats and some ministers have started putting in extra hours and sacrificing their weekends in a bid to keep up with their “top boss”.
Modi, who sleeps only five to six hours a day, doesn’t go slow on weekends. “He keeps mostly political engagements on Sundays. Official meetings also take place, as and when necessary,” said a PMO source.With Modi in the office, his core team, too, works during the entire weekend. “Officers of the rank of director and above in the PMO remain available to work on Sundays
The PM’s principal secretary Nripendra Mishra, additional principal secretary PK Mishra and public relations officer of the PMO Jagdish Thakkar have not had a single Sunday off since they joined the highest executive office,” added another source.
Railway minister Suresh Prabhu comes to office on some Sundays and keeps official engagements even on non-working days. On some Sundays, the chairman and other members of the railway board are asked to attend office.
The new culture of being always switched on is yet to hit all sections of the government. Parliamentary affairs and urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu, defence minister Manohar Parrikar and defence secretary RK Mathur usually do not attend on Sundays. Top human resource development ministry officials, too, prefer to enjoy a weekend break.
Jaishankar’s superior, our foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, prefers to remain behind the scenes and away from the glare of media, but she’s taken to the new way of working effortlessly.An official confirmed, “On addressing consular issues, she is 24/7. Indian missions can get instructions anytime from her, including on Sundays, to help an Indian in distress,”.
And her ministry’s new spokesperson, Vikas Swarup, has been thrown in at the deep end.Just before taking over, he travelled to Turkmenistan with Swaraj. He didn’t go home from the airport when he landed in Delhi; instead, he went with Modi on his trip to Germany, France and Canada. Once back from the trip, he started his new job and then he was off to Indonesia. On his return from that trip, he was driven straight back to South Block for a Nepal crisis management group meeting.
India Honest is proud that nation has got a real fighter in the PM. Narendra Modi, who sleeps only five to six hours a day,and has fully endured himself , from the day one, in the task of nation building,as that has suffered enough of neglect in last decades.
The workaholic and tough task master Modi doesn’t go slow even on weekends, as he knows well he has to cover lots of ground. He has travelled nearly twenty nations abroad in the short period,and within the nation, the Government under him has switched on to a 24x7 style working ,while he was seen as a General leading from front by the entire world in the recent Nepal crisis, along with his round the clock working @PMOIndia .