Manmohan Singh’s PMO was dominated by officials from Kerala, including T K A Nair, Shivshankar Menon and M K Narayanan. The buzz in South Block is that, in the new regime, it’s Orissa that dominates. P K Mishra, Additional Principal Secretary in the PMO, who is from the Gujarat cadre, belongs to Orissa and is in charge of appointments. In the past few months, there have been a large number of appointments in the Central Government of officers belonging to either Orissa or the Orissa cadre. G Mohan Kumar is the new Secretary, Defence Production; Shaktikanta Das is Secretary, Revenue; Prakash Misra, Special Secretary, Internal Security; S K Panda, Textile Secretary; H K Das, Inter-State Council Secretariat Secretary; Jugal Kishore Mohapatra, Secretary, Fertilisers; Satyanarayan Mohanty, Secretary, Department of Higher Education; and Shubha Sarma is Secretary, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/inside-track-the-orissa-era/#sthash.GbRZsEiV.dpuf