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Tweeting the blues away

It's two months since Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has been inducted into the council of ministers, but he is still to get into a ministerial bungalow.

The reason: the bungalow in Lodi Estate that has been allotted to him needs a lot of dismantling of walls and reconstruction because its previous occupant, a minister in the previous government, effectively used it as a guest house for his voters. Government engineers found it full of illegal construction and cubby holes built to accommodate as many house guests as possible.

Tharoor, who lives alone in New Delhi as his wife is still in New York while his children study in Europe, continues to operate out of his Taj Mahal hotel suite -tweeting away the blues.

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At ease in Delhi

Talking of tweeting, Shashi Tharoor continues to follow his passion for social networking - and amazingly finds time for it despite his packed ministerial duties. He is up early, spends a lot of time communicating with the outside world through e-mail, Facebook and Twitter, eats frugally (he is a vegetarian) and insists to his aides that as far as possible they should communicate to him through e-mail, reducing paperwork to the bureaucratic minimum.

Tharoor seems to be enjoying his transition from New York's high life to New Delhi's bureaucracy and finds himself with a constant stream of visitors from morning to evening wanting to interact with this versatile diplomat, author, communicator and rookie politician.

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Shutterbug politician

BJP leader Vijay Goel, who lost the recent poll from the New Delhi constituency, believes there is a life beyond politics. Normally in the forefront of all agitations in the city, be it on water, metro and power problems, Goel decided to take a break and head off for a 45-day family vacation to South Africa.

His passion for photography is high and he made the best use of his sojourn capturing that country's wildlife. Back now after the break, Goel is holding an exhibition to showcase his photographic talent.

This is not Goel's first photo showing. Apparently his fascination for photography was kindled while restoring his haveli in Anandpur village near Sonepat in Haryana.

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Out in the cold

Former home minister Shivraj Patil, who had to resign from the union cabinet following criticism in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, was expected to be back in the reckoning and be appointed a governor. But the list announced last week had Margaret Alva, Jagannath Pahadia and Devendra Nath Dwivedi only.

The sartorially elegant Patil, once known for his proximity to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is still hoping to be rehabilitated. Patil, 73, is currently a Rajya Sabha MP from Maharashtra and has only one year left of his current term in the upper house. The grapevine has it that a desperate Patil is now sending feelers to 10 Janpath.

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Iron curtain at Marxist bastion

After their crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and the existential crisis within the party, the Communists, one would have thought, would be humbled and on the mend. But no such luck.

In their latest diktat, the party leadership has put a blanket ban on cameramen entering the party headquarters at A.K. Gopalan Bhavan in the capital before crucial meetings. The apparent reason is that at a politburo meeting last month an industrious cameraman videographed a member reading some important papers.

The information in the document was relayed to the press corps standing outside and several reporters in the 24x7 business, thirsty for any morsel, ran it as breaking news. This infuriated the senior guard when they came to know about the leak. Since then, the politburo has decided not to allow any photojournalist before their meetings, fearing further leaks.