Modi to Meet BJP General Secretaries on 31-May (Saturday)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet BJP general secretaries on Saturday. This is the first meeting that Mr. Modi will have with his party colleagues after assuming office.

The meeting is expected to take place at the PM’s residence to discuss organisational affairs.

According to sources, Mr. Modi does not want the organisational strength to be weakened in the wake of the massive mandate in the general election.

The BJP will also see new faces in the party as it does not want to weaken the organisation ahead of the crucial Assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana later this year and in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand early next year.

BJP general secretaries Ananth Kumar, Thawarchand Gehlot, Dharmendra Pradhan, Varun Gandhi and Rajiv Pratap Rudy have won the LoK Sabha polls and the party will have to replace them by a new set of office-bearers.

Of the other general secretaries, J.P. Nadda and Amit Shah are in race for the party president’s post.

Source: TheHindu

Narendra Modi Gives up Vadodara, Amit Shah may Contest Seat

NEW DELHI: Narendra Modi has decided to retain his Varanasi seat and give up the Vadodara seat. While the buzz on BJP's Vadodara candidate for the by-election centres around general secretary Amit Shah, his project of revival of BJP in Uttar Pradesh is of greater interest.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is said to have remarked to Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy in 2009 that he was Prime Minister because Reddy was in CM in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra had elected more than 30 Congress MPs in 2004 and 2009, which helped UPA assume power.

While Andhra and Tamil Nadu had a disproportionate representation in the two previous governments, thanks to the numbers UPA had from these states, UP, despite a rich bank of 80 seats has been denied a seat at the high table for decades.

"In the past, seats in Uttar Pradesh have been divided between SP, BSP, then BJP and Congress. Only in 1998 did UP give 57 seats to the then NDA government and gain prominence at the Centre," said Dr Prashant Trivedi of the Giri Institute in Lucknow.

For BJP, Prime Minister Modi's retention of Varanasi serves a dual purpose. "Modiji, in his years as a pracharak spent many years in north India. By choosing Uttar Pradesh he proves that BJP is a national party, not given to parochialism," said a senior BJP leader.

That pan-India definition, leavened with heartland ethos and politics, had been the mainstay of Congress' single party rule in the past. BJP, which has found the key to forming a stable government at the Centre via UP, has unwittingly brought the Banarasi babus back in vogue in Delhi.

Source: EconomicTimes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Asks Ministers to Fix 100-Day Agenda

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his Cabinet colleagues to sit with the officials of their ministries and prepare a list of issues to be taken up in the first 100 days of the new government.

This was decided today in the second meeting of the new Cabinet, headed by Mr Modi.

The issues flagged by the ministers will be addressed during the budget session of Parliament, expected to begin in July.

In order to tone up governance, Mr Modi asked the members of his Cabinet to focus on three issues -efficiency, delivery system and implementation.

Source: NDTV

Modi Government to Discuss Article 370 ‘with All Stakeholders’

Minister of State in the PMO, Jitendra Singh, makes it clear that the BJP stands for abrogation of Article 370, but wants to have a democratic approach to find a lasting solution to the issue.

The Narendra Modi government is open to debate on merits and demerits of Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir and would make efforts to “convince” the “unconvinced” by holding contact programmes with every section of society in the State, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The 57-year-old first-time MP made it clear that the BJP stood for abrogation of Article 370 (which gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir) but at the same time it wanted to convince the people and have a democratic approach finding a lasting solution to the issue. Mr. Singh said that state BJP was speaking to various stake holders. “We have called meetings in the Kashmir Valley and we have succeeded in convincing some of them (on repealing Article 370),” he said.

Mr. Singh, a surprise choice as Minister of State in the PMO, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his December 2013 rally, had suggested for discussion and seminars across the State to analyse merits and demerits of Article 370.

“His (Mr. Modi’s) intention and that of the government is that we have a debate so that we can convince the unconvinced about the disadvantages of Article 370.

“If we do not have debate and discussion how would you be able to tell those who have been unable to understand what they have been deprived of on account of Article 370,” he said after taking over as Minister of State in-charge of Department of Personnel and Training, which has administrative control over the CBI.

The Minister said, “We are working very professionally but at the same time, please keep in mind, that we are working very democratically. We do not want to impose ourselves on anyone and things will happen in natural course.”

Mr. Singh said Article 370 was more of a psychological barrier than a physical one.

He said Mr. Modi has supported debate on Article 370 keeping in mind democratic values. “The Prime Minister had said we want to have a debate. This does not mean that we want to have a debate because certain section of media interpreted that Prime Minister deviated from its stand. It’s not so.

“He said so with respect to the highest values of democratic system,” the Minister said referring to one of the elections rallies by Mr. Modi where he had sought discussion on the article.

Mr. Singh, a doctor by profession, suggested that people in the State were also in favour of repealing the article.

“If you take voter account, we have more that 50 per cent of vote share,” he said and asked “can the media interpret that 50 per cent of people in the State wanted abrogation of Article 370?”

BJP has won three out of six Lok Sabha seats from the State.

Mr. Singh said talks will be held with every stakeholder of the State as all are “equally important” and reminded that the founding fathers including the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru were of the view that it is going to be a “transient provision”.

Source: TheHindu

Narendra Modi-Team: List of Cabinet Ministers and Mnisters of State

Narendra Modi assumed office as India's 15th Prime Minister on Tuesday morning and announced the much speculated portfolios for the Cabinet and the Ministers of State (MoS) who took oath at a grand ceremony on Monday. Here is a list of who does what in the new council of ministers.

PM Narendra Modi: personnel, public grievances and pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, All important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister.

Here is what Team Modi looks like:

Cabinet Ministers:

1. Rajnath Singh: Home affairs

2. Sushma Swaraj: External affairs, overseas Indian affairs

3. Arun Jaitley: Finance, corporate affairs, defence

4. M Venkaiah Naidu: Urban development, housing and urban poverty alleviation, parliamentary affairs

5. Nitin Gadkari: Road transport and highways, shipping

6. D V Sadananda Gowda: Railways

7. Uma Bharati: Water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation

8. Najma A Heptulla: Minority affairs

9. Gopinathrao Munde: Rural development, panchayati raj, drinking water and sanitation

10. Ram Vilas Paswan: Consumer affairs, food and public distribution

11. Kalraj Mishra: Micro, small and medium enterprises

12. Maneka Gandhi: Women and child development

13. Ananth Kumar: Chemicals and fertilizers

14. Ravi Shankar Prasad: Communications and information technology, law and justice

15. Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati: Civil aviation

16. Anant Geete: Heavy industries and public enterprises

17. Harsimrat Kaur Badal: Food processing industries

18. Jual Oram: Tribal affairs

19. Radha Mohan Singh: Agriculture

20. Thaawar Chand Gehlot: Social justice and empowerment

21. Smriti Irani: Human resource development

22. Harsh Vardhan: Health and family welfare

23. Narendra Singh Tomar: Mines, Steel, Labour & Employment

24. Harsimrat Kaur: Food Processing Industries

Ministers of State (Independent Charge):
  •  Gen VK Singh - Development of North Eastern Region (Independent Charge), External Affairs, Overseas Indian Affairs
  •  Inderjit Singh Rao - Planning (Independent Charge), Statistics and Programme Implementation (Independent Charge), Defence
  •  Santosh Kumar Gangwar - Textiles (Independent Charge), Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
  •  Shripad Yesso Naik - Culture (Independent Charge), Tourism (Independent Charge)
  •  Dharmendra Pradhan - Petroleum and Natural Gas (Independent Charge)
  •  Sarbananda Sonowal - Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports (Independent Charge)
  •  Prakash Javadekar - Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge), Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge), Parliamentary Affairs
  •  Piyush Goyal - Power (Independent  Charge), Coal (Independent Charge), New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge)
  •  Jitendra Singh - Science and Technology (Independent Charge), Earth Sciences (Independent Charge), Prime Minister Office, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space
  •  Nirmala Sitharaman - Commerce and Industry (Independent Charge), Finance, Corporate Affairs

Ministers of State:
  •  GM Siddeshwara - Civil Aviation
  •  Manoj Sinha - Railways
  •  Nihal Chand - Chemicals and Fertilizers
  •  Upendra Kushwaha - Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation
  •  Radhakrishnan P - Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
  •  Kiren Rijiju - Home Affairs
  •  Krishan Pal - Road Transport and Highways, Shipping
  •  Sanjeev Kumar Balyan - Agriculture, Food Processing Industries
  •  Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava - Tribal Affairs
  •  Raosaheb Dadarao Danve - Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
  •  Vishnu Deo Sai - Mines, Steel, Labour and Employment
  •  Sudarshan Bhagat - Social Justice and Empowerment

Source: Hindustan Times

Watch Live: Narendra Modi Swearing-in Ceremony on 26th-May

Narendra Modi's Swearing-in Ceremony as Prime Minister of India has been scheduled on 26th-May (Monday) evening at 6:00 PM.

Over 4,000 people expected to attend the grand celebrations at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday as Narendra Modi takes the oath of office as India's new Prime Minister.

The event, the biggest of its kind ever held at Rashtrapati Bhavan since the country gained independence, will see eight heads of government or their delegations in attendance as three bands provide the musical accompaniment.

Watch Live: Narendra Modi Swearing-in Ceremony of 26th-May

Modi in Town, Big-Talking BJP Leaders Prefer Ssound of Silence

The results of the Lok Sabha election have brought about a visible change in the demeanour of BJP leaders. Men and women well known for divulging details of deliberations and spilling the beans on changes in the offing, have gone almost entirely quiet.

To questions of who might find a place in the new central ministry, the standard refrain is: “No one knows the mind of Narendra Modi.” The Prime Minister-designate was reported to have taken a dig at media speculation over his likely cabinet in Gandhinagar earlier this week, saying “every channel has its own cabinet”.

Asked the names of leaders the BJP would like to see as ministers, a senior party leader said, “Sab bekhabar hain (no one knows).” Another leader quipped, “Get used to this.”

A third leader pointed out a key aspect of the meetings that Modi has been having with a range of people at Delhi’s Gujarat Bhavan: “Earlier, the media would get details of most secret meetings. Now have you seen details spilling out? To begin with, Modi will consult only a few people. And those people will not divulge anything.”

Party leaders who have got an opportunity to interact with senior colleagues who have interacted with Narendra Modi since the announcement of results say these senior leaders either have no clue about the mind of Modi regarding their roles, or are hesitant to reveal the details of their discussions with him.

Party leaders admit that everyone fears that anything they say beyond their limited brief would travel to Modi, and might create problems later.

Source: IndianExpress