NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday appointed senior IAS officers Lokhande Prashant Sitaram and Varun Bhardwaj as the new chairperson and secretary of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), respectively, amid a major row over the board’s new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.Lokhande Prashant Sitaram will succeed Rahul Singh, while Varun Bhardwaj will take over from Himanshu Gupta. Their appointments were announced hours after the government ordered the transfers of both Singh and Gupta.While Lokhande Prashant Sitaram is currently serving as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Varun Bhardwaj is already posted in the Ministry of Education as a Director.Singh has been transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture as an Additional Secretary. Gupta, on the other hand, has been prematurely repatriated and sent back to his parent cadre (MHA) on “administrative grounds” with an “extended cooling off” period, and will be ineligible for another central deputation before December 12, 2030.(This is a developing story)