Several challenging tasks are awaiting UPA II in the months to come. It has to identify a candidate for the post of election commissioner to fill the vacancy caused by Navin Chawla retirement on July 28.

In the last week of August, UPA will have to select three Central Vigilance Commissioners, of course with the active participation of the leaders of opposition, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitely, who are members of the search committee. Backroom work has already begun with T K A Nair has been meeting Sushma Swaraj over breakfast and dinner to select a acceptable name for CVC.

And then there will be the vacancy for the post of the central information commissioner when Wajahat Habibullah retires in September.

Race on for LS, RS posts

The secretaries general of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, PDT Acharya and Vivek Kumar Agnihotri respectively, will turn 65 this month and the race has begun for the two posts. Retired and retiring  secretaries are eager to know the mindset of the presiding officers. Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar wants to bring an Indian Foreign Service officer. While Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari wants to have a non-IAS, non-IFS officer.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal will have a major say in these appointments. He wishes to bring in a retired Punjab cadre IAS officer.

When Sharad met Jaya

JD-U leader Sharad Yadav recently paid a courtesy call on AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha in Chennai. Both spoke in chaste Hindi, as Jaya surprised and impressed Yadav with her fluency in that language. Yadav, in turn, impressed her by saying he had ignored the World Tamil Conference invitation where the DMK government had not invited the opposition leader. She appreciated the gesture. Jaya took yadav to show her Poes Garden house and served him hot uppuma and onion vada.  Needless to say, Yadav also enjoyed the filter coffee.

Jayalalitha said she had two friends with the first name Sharad. One is Pawar and the other is Yadav.

RBI writes to PM on Ulip ordinance

RBI governor D Subba Rao has written a six-page letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with copies to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on the need to revise the ordinance on ULIP. On reading this letter, the PM called some of the former RBI governors including C Rangarajan, Bimal Jalan and Y V Reddy for a meeting.

If sources are to be believed, both the PM and the PMO are undecided on the fate of a bill to be introduced to replace the ordinance.