Sundar Pichai’s elevation as CEO of Google is being seen as a logical extension of his rapid ascent at the search giant: a protégé of current CEO Larry Page who had been groomed for the job with increasing responsibilities in recent years. The 43-year-old IIT alumnus joins the growing list of Indian-born executives to reach the top ranks of tech companies in the U.S.   read more

The former UN climate change panel (IPCC) chief, Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, has been removed from his post as head of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi. The move came days after a court allowed Pachauri to return to his office while facing sexual harassment allegations.   read more

Poor Ashish Khetan. The AAP leader first announced that he had got the status of a cabinet minister as the vice-chairman of the newly instituted Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC). But once the political implications of this largesse became evident, the AAP government quickly denied that he had ministerial status. But it nevertheless let him keep all the goodies entitled to a state cabinet minister.   read more

The Congress has decided to again postpone its organisational elections, after the opposition party was forced to extend its membership drive four times since last October due to poor response. The internal elections were scheduled to be over by December 31, but the party now wants this to be completed by December 2016 instead.   read more

India has named ICICI Bank chairman KV Kamath as the first president of the New Development Bank being set up by the BRICS countries. The $100 billion development bank will fund infrastructure projects in developing nations. To be headquartered in Shanghai, it was agreed to be headed by an Indian for the first five-year term.   read more

The Haryana state government has decided to give "status equivalent to Cabinet Minister" to Baba Ramdev, who has been appointed as the state's brand ambassador for the promotion of yoga and ayurveda. He will now be entitled to a ministerial bungalow and salary.   read more

The March 31 deadline set by regulators for boosting gender diversity in boardrooms has passed, but more than 100 firms have not complied. As for those that have, many have reportedly installed the female relatives of company bosses with no professional experience.   read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cracked the whip over Home Secretary Anil Goswami’s alleged attempt to stall the arrest of Saradha scam accused Matang Sinh, a former Congress minister. Following media reports that Goswami had tried to prevent CBI officers from arresting Sinh last weekend, the government asked the home secretary to step down.   read more

The government has upturned the normally staid ministry of external affairs by replacing Sujatha Singh about seven months before her tenure as foreign secretary was to end. Dr S. Jaishankar has been appointed in her place, having impressed in his role in rebuilding India-U.S. ties as ambassador to the U.S.   read more

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has begun putting his stamp on the key personnel in his team, with DRDO chief Avinash Chander the first to go. The government has terminated Chander’s contract more than a year before the 64-year old's tenure was to end, ostensibly to make way for a “slightly younger generation”.   read more

US-based economist Arvind Panagariya has reportedly been picked as vice-chairman of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog that the government is setting up to replace the Planning Commission. He is a staunch advocate of free-market economics and is considered close to the ruling BJP.   read more

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in last May, he promised “minimum government, maximum governance”. But his first cabinet reshuffle last month belied this expectation, with his council of ministers expanded by 21 new members to a mammoth 66 ministers. These include one for the newly created ministry of AAYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy). While yoga and traditional medicine could do with government support, does this justify a separate ministry?   read more

Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit resigned on Tuesday, two days after another UPA-appointee K Shankaranarayanan quit as governor of Maharashtra. This has cleared most of the key governors appointed by the previous UPA administration, allowing the NDA a free hand to appoint its aging leaders to the plum posts. 82-year old Kalyan Singh was appointed as governor of Rajasthan on Monday, along with three others for Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa.   read more

India is currently the only country in the world where judges appoint judges. This opaque collegium system is set to be modified after recent allegations of corruption by retired Justice Markandey Katju. The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday, with the proposed JAC to include the executive in the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts. Yet it's not clear if this will provide a balance between transparency and judicial independence.   read more

The Modi administration’s move to transfer some of the remaining state governors appointed by the previous UPA administration took its first victim on Friday, with newly transferred Nagaland Governor Vakkom Purushothaman preferring to resign rather than move there from Mizoram.   read more

The NDA administration seems to be following in the footsteps of the previous UPA administration when it comes to appointing ministers with a communal past. If the Congress gave cabinet berths to Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and Kamal Nath, who were allegedly involved in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the new administration’s Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, had been booked for inciting communal enmity in Uttar Pradesh in 2013.   read more