Governor in the middle

If the governor of a state does his job well, he is dubbed a political partisan. If he keeps a quiet profile, he is called submissive.

If the governor of a state does his job well, he is dubbed a political partisan. If he keeps a quiet profile, he is called submissive. There are few state governors doing as good a job as T. Rajeshwar Rao in Uttar Pradesh. He is never afraid of using his rights in order to discharge his duties, the reason exactly for the Mulayam Singh government to launch an unwarranted tirade against him.

Rao has an excellent record in office. He has been responsible for massive administration reforms in universities. He has been never shy of pointing out irregularities and wrongdoings by the state8217;s elected representatives or its bureaucracy. In the latest incident, he has raised a flag over obvious signs of large scale rigging of the recent municipal elections in UP, by producing evidence in the form of fake ballots.

What Rao gets in return for doing his job well is repeated accusations of being a stooge following a political agenda from Mulayam and his colleagues. Mulayam ought to realise that when he refuses to intervene when riots are burning the city of Mau, tries to dole out lifetime chancellorship of universities to his cronies, or fills up state jobs with people belonging to a single caste, any governor will object.

Mining interests

The new national mining policy is under preparation and in my view the recommendations of the report by the Hooda committee, set up to reform the mining industry of India, are best kept aside. The report is outrageously unfair in its recommendation that a state government should only have power to grant its mine reserves to factories within the state. The other recommendations of the report are equally detrimental to national interests, where export of raw minerals is preferred over trade and value addition within the country.

The report could even end up fueling unnecessary acrimony between the states. If mineral rich states like Jharkhand and Orissa do not give iron ore to Maharashtra, why should Maharashtra give gas to Gujarat? Even states with rich mineral reserves including Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Karnataka have opposed the vested interests behind the Hooda committee report. A call for a gradual ban over the export of high-grade iron ore has come from Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. These states have demanded the setting up of a joint working committee to study the recommendations of the Hooda Committee before the national mining policy is finalised.

Weak medicine

There was a time when medicines in India were cheapest in the world and within reach of millions of poor. Union Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had managed to obtain the pharma industry8217;s assurance to voluntarily cut prices of hundreds of medicines of everyday consumption in lieu of certain exemptions. It turns out that the pharma industry has failed to keep its promise; it has benefited from government8217;s largesse without reciprocating in kind. Paswan is justifiably peeved and has announced a review of the industry8217;s compliance. I would urge Paswan to provide for strict regulations to take the errant pharma companies to task.

The writer is a Congress MP in Rajya Sabha