Rumble in the Western ghats

The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party need to do a serious rethink on their arrangement in Maharashtra. They should either run the gov...

The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party need to do a serious rethink on their arrangement in Maharashtra. They should either run the government as a single entity or sever ties. The way they’ve been at it for the past six months is a joke. The arrangement worked fine for the first one-and-a-half years, so much so that when some senior Congress leaders tried to plant stories about a nexus between Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sharad Pawar in New Delhi, Sonia Gandhi didn’t entertain them. But things have only got worse over the past six months, with each party drifting farther and farther away from each other. The message of the recently concluded municipal elections is loud and clear: despite the efforts of senior leaders from both parties to form an alliance, the parties contested the polls separately and lost heavily. The Shiv Sena bagged most of the municipal corporations, including in the all-important Mumbai. More than the loss in the civic polls, the Congress and the NCP should be worried about the pro-Sena atmosphere that’s gaining ground and that may well see the party bounce back to power in the next Assembly polls. Yet, nobody’s reading the signs: Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, provoked by two of his Congress colleagues in the Cabinet over the POTO fiasco in the Afroz case, even went to the extent of threatening the Congress that he would spill the details of how Congress ministers, including the chief minister, interfered in the case.

Reshuffle time

Now that the Union Budget has been passed, the Finance Ministry is all set for a bureaucratic revamp. Chief economic advisor Rakesh Mohan has been unwilling to continue with the job for a while now. He was persuaded to stay on till the budget was passed. Secretary of Economic Affairs C.M. Vasudev is also moving on either to the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. Under the current system, the economic advisor is usually chosen from among economists while the post of secretary of economic affairs usually goes to an IAS officer. While names of Ashok Lahiri and Arvind Vermani are doing the rounds for the post of the advisor, nobody seems to be in the reckoning for the other slot. The finance ministry is also considering appointing economists for both the posts.

It has gone largely unnoticed that we have had five finance secretaries during the last five years — one secretary for every budget. This has spelt obvious consequences for long-term planning, not to mention inconsistency in Sinha’s team. Gone are the days when someone like Montek Singh Ahluwalia prepared seven consecutive budgets for different finance ministers.

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In fact, Sinha should also be peeved at the manner in which Delhi’s BJP leaders like Mange Ram Garg and Saheb Singh Verma blamed his budget for the drubbing in the Delhi municipal corporation elections. While Sinha took the allegation in his stride, he could well have argued that the rout in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Punjab took place well before he placed his budget.

One for the youth

The Vajpayee government has done the right thing in forming a national commission under the chairmanship of Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj to work on youth development policies. But the impact of such a commission will depend on the cooperation of associated government agencies. As experience has shown us, such commissions usually don’t generate too much enthusiasm in other ministries.

The summons come amid a broader crackdown by the ED on betting apps functioning illegally in India.

ED summons former Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa in illegal betting app case

India2 hr ago

Former Indian cricketer Robin Uthappa has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for his involvement in the alleged illegal betting app 1xBet. The ED is also investigating former cricketers Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina, as well as celebrities Mimi Chakraborty, Urvashi Rautela, and Ankush Hazra for their association with the app.

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