'5 per cent meddling by netas in CBI,' says its director

NEW DELHI: India's premier investigating agency, CBI, has 5% political interference. At least that's what its director, Ranjit Sinha, said on Thursday at a leadership summit in Shri Ram College of Commerce. However, the CBI boss justified this interference on the ground that "politicians also need to be heard".

Although 'leadership' was the theme of the summit, Sinha didn't really speak on it. Instead, he showed an eight-minute film on CBI. It traced the journey of CBI right from its inception till today and also had testimonials of officers, including Sinha himself. He opened the floor to questions after the video ended.

There were two questions for him: one about his education, the other about political interference in CBI. "95% of the time, we don't entertain political interference. But we are also human beings and 5% interference does happen. However, there is nothing wrong in that as we also need to speak to the politicians and take their versions," Sinha answered a student.

DCP (North) Madhur Verma also spoke to the students on the occasion. However, it was Congress's Shashi Tharoor who stole the show. He arrived late, as his flight was delayed, and didn't meet Sinha or Verma; but, he spoke for almost half an hour and talked about the Greek civilization to Napoleon and Hitler.

Tharoor said that a good leader is the one who is inclusive in approach, one who gives a sense of belonging and participation to his followers.