The last month of two zero one five has turned into nineteen eighty-four of George Orwell for India's ministers and senior civil servants. Observing that norms for foreign visits were not being followed, an official circular issued recently has mandated that clearances from PMO, Ministry of External Affairs and Home Ministry were necessary for going abroad and the details of such visits should be uploaded every quarter on the website of the ministries. All ministries have been asked to submit lists of foreign deputations and overseas training since April 2013 providing the size of delegation, purpose of each visit, countries visited, duration, names of delegates, estimated source of funding and the expenditure on each officer. They have also been asked to provide the PAN and Aaadhaar numbers of officers of deputy secretary and aboveranks and ministers undertaking these trips. Information has been sought for visits made during fiscal years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 (till end-September). There is also a separate column on "essentiality grading" to indicate if the officer or minister's inclusion was "mandatory, absolutely essential or essential". Each department also has to put down its remark on the outcome of the visit and submit the data to the Finance Ministry's expenditure division this month. In June last year, the government tightened the procedure for foreign visits for officials, mandating that each and every proposal go through the PMO and the Screening Committee of Secretaries for approval The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has since been rejecting proposals of ministers' foreign visits even after a go-ahead by the Ministry of External Affairs. It recently asked the ministers to be "judicious" before submitting such proposals for secretaries and additional secretaries of their department. Some one remarked "the PM is trying to protect his ministers and officers from getting the non-resident tag like himself." Report: Rakesh Ranjan (Editor-in-chief) Feedback: [email protected]