40 years ago, March 14, 1986: Chavan finalises ministers

S B Chavan, Maharashtra Chief Minister-elect, met the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in New Delhi. Chavan is expected to return to Bombay soon. He said the list of the members of his Cabinet was finalised after his meeting with Rajiv Gandhi, which lasted about 90 minutes. After arriving here from Bombay, Chavan drove straight to the Prime Minister’s house. Prabha Rau, MPCC(I) president, who accompanied him from Bombay, waited at Chavan’s residence.

India told of killings

India was told of a UN panel on the escalating violence and indiscriminate killings of the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka and expressed the hope that President Jayewardene would resist political pressures and work out a peaceful solution to the ethnic problem in his country. Speaking in the committee on the elimination of racial discrimination, Shanti Sadiq Ali said the situation in Sri Lanka had “deteriorated considerably’’ with the conditions of the minority (Tamils) becoming “very precarious.”

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PM’s TV ‘exposure’

A Doordarshan discussion on the projection of the Prime Minister on television vs the official control of the media has run into rough weather, thanks to the government’s noncooperative attitude. The discussion was to be telecast in Newsline, a fortnightly programme presented by a private agency under a Calcutta editor. The original idea was to interview L K Advani, information minister in the Janata government, Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Prime Minister’s publicity aide, and Amita Malik, a media critic.

Marcos papers

The Reagan administration has decided to turn over to the Philippines government copies of all the 1,500 financial documents brought to Hawaii by Ferdinand Marcos, amidst reports that President Corazon Aquino has frozen all assets and properties in the Philippines of the deposed president, his family and associates.