Voluntary 'retirement'

Bureaucrats at the Centre appear to be taking a cue from the Gujarat model of governance and Modi's single-window approval system. Now that there are talks of streamlining ministries under the new Modi-led government, some officials have already deserted their turfs. The Department of Pharma, which operates under the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers and is likely to be merged into health, is already functioning without a single joint secretary. One went back to his Tamil Nadu cadre around two months ago, and the other has been on long leave since then. The buzz is that both of them had strong differences with the secretary Aradhana Johri, who took charge around December last year.