This must be the bad-hair season for the Manmohan Singh government. It seems whatever the government touches turns out to be a scorcher.

After a series of roundly-criticised highhanded measures to curb demonstrations against the Delhi gangrape and demands for women’s safety at India Gate and thereabouts and even more perilous, foot-in-mouth comments by ministers to criticise the violence at the protest venues, Doordarshan today did something that has again raised eyebrows.

According to a PTI report, the state-run broadcaster has ordered an inquiry and put five employees under suspension. Reason: they apparently failed to reach Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence in time on Monday to record his 2-minute-15-second speech in connection with the gangrape.

Incredibly, the DD crew reached Singh’s 7-Race Course Road residence late by a few minutes due to traffic restrictions on several central Delhi roads, primarily in a bid to thwart the protesters from assembling at India Gate.

The telecast of the speech in its unedited form on Monday had triggered severe criticism, as Singh was heard saying “theek hai” (all right) at the end of his address to the nation. While the editing error was later corrected, it was enough for social media and the common citizen alike to slam the PM’s apparent indifference.

While sources in the national broadcaster today said the suspension of the five staffers was not related to the telecast of the unedited speech, but in fact for not reaching the venue on time, it was already being mocked on social media by Tuesday evening.

Quoting sources, PTI reported that two camerapersons and three staff members from the engineering wing of DD have been placed under suspension.

With the DD team late on reaching the PM’s official residence, the speech was recorded by television news agency ANI, which was also present for the purpose.

The speech was recorded around 9.30 am. The DD camera crew reached at 9.40 am, while the engineering staff reportedly arrived a few minutes after 10 am on Monday.