Ø President Pranab Mukherjee reminded senior
Ministers of the Narendra Modi government that the validity of an ordinance was
for just six weeks after Parliament re-assembled. Mr Mukherjee’s comments came
when they called on him to explain the urgency for promulgating three ordinances.
This implies that the government will have to turn the ordinances into Bills
and get contentious legislation passed either through the Rajya Sabha, where it
doesn’t have the majority, or call a joint sitting of the two Houses. The
President told Ministers Arun Jaitley, D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Nitin Gadkari
at a recent meeting that it was up to the government to ensure that the life of
the ordinances extended beyond the mandated six weeks after Parliament resumed.
Ø The Union government appointed the former
Planning Commission Secretary Sindhushree Khullar the
first Chief Executive Officer of the National Institution for Transforming
India (NITI) Aayog. Ms. Khullar, a 1975-batch Union Territory-cadre IAS
officer, was appointed Planning Commission Secretary in April 2012. She
continued to hold the post after the the Cabinet resolution through which the
Planning Commission was set up was scrapped last year. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi appointed economist Arvind Panagariya Vice-Chairman of NITI
Aayog. Economist Bibek Debroy and former DRDO Chief V.K. Saraswat were
appointed full-time members. He appointed Union Home Minister Rajnath
Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu and
Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh ex-officio members. Union
Roads and National Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Union Human Resource
Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani and Union Social Justice and
Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot were appointed special invitees to the
Aayog.
Ø President
Maithripala Sirisena is to visit New Delhi next month on his first
State visit abroad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Mr. Sirisena
when he called to congratulate the latter on his election victory on Friday, a
political aide of the newly elected President said. Sri Lanka also plans to
release “soon” 15 Indian fishermen in its custody.
Ø For the first time in its 10-year history, the
Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015, will be used as a stage for business-related
diplomacy with the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon attending the high-profile event. Started as a
brainchild of Mr. Modi in 2003, the biennial event has been steadily rising in
stature with every edition. The seventh edition of the three-day Summit, is set
to get grander in terms of the sheer number of participants and the guests
involved. This year’s event will see eight countries, Canada, Japan,
China, Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa and the U.S.
partnering with the State. With aggressive campaigning, the government expects
participation from over 2,000 companies, two million-plus visitors and over
2,500 international delegates. In the last six Vibrant Gujarat Summits,
the States signed MoUs worth Rs. 48 lakh crore. However, the investment
generated has been way below the intention expressed in these summits. The
summit will have a series of seminars on various themes, prominently Mr. Modi’s
pet project of smart cities and Gujarat’s potential as a Defence production
hub. Other areas include water security, health, sustainable energy, innovation
and technology and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). However, amid
the tall claims of the government and the huge figures of MoUs signed at every
Summit, questions are getting louder about the actual impact of the event on
the ground. As per the figures collated by the Opposition Congress, a
total of 17,719 MoUs were signed in the last six Summits from 2003 to 2013. The
total worth of these MoUs was Rs. 39.6 lakh crore. However, only 9.14 per cent
of these intentions have materialised into actual investment.
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