Cornered by stirs, NDA remembers it has a panel on reservation in private sector

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Four months into the last year of its tenure, the Narendra Modi government took its first meeting on affirmative action for SCs/STs in the private sector at the Prime Minister’s Office on 22 September, as reported by The Indian Express, probably in deference to its own slogan of affirmative action.

This was the first meeting of the coordination committee on affirmative action for SCs/STs in the private sector under the NDA government.

It took massive “nationwide protests by several groups — Dalits, Jats, Marathas and upper-castes — over a range of issues, from quotas in jobs and promotions to alleged dilution of the law meant to protect Dalits” to remind this government about the existence of such a committee.

It’s no coincidence. This government appointed its principal scientific adviser only in March 2018. The other two scientific advisory councils are lying more or less defunct. The economic advisory council to the Prime Minister was constituted only in September last year. So, the Prime Minister was taking economic decisions for three and a half years without being assisted by any economic advisory council.

No surprises, we are still clueless how demonetisation, one of the most radical economic policies in the history of Independent India, happened.

Not just the government of India, but all the major newspapers too heaved a sigh of relief as opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won the Maldives presidential election.

All the major English dailies have put the news on the front pages with pictures of crowds or Solih cheering. The Times of India led with a report headlined “Beijing’s grip on Maldives slips as Yameen loses polls”. The Indian Express reported, “Cheer, relief in Delhi as Maldives Opposition wins Presidential polls”.

The cheer is not unfounded. As The Indian Express reported, “Yameen had asked India to take back two of its Army choppers, placed curbs on hundreds of work visas for Indians, and signed a new Free Trade Agreement with Beijing.”

Yameen had a reputation of being pro-China, which made India restless and nervous.

No one has speculated about the possibility of Solih, whose candidacy was supported by former Maldivian presidents Mohamed Nasheed and Abdul Maumoon Gayoom, taking a u-turn. Citing people close to Nasheed, The Times of India reports that Prime Minister Modi could get an invitation for Solih’s swearing-in.

Exiled former president Nasheed, in an interview to The Hindu, said, “I can’t speak for the coalition, but my own views remain the same. None of the projects made business sense. You cannot foist infeasible projects on developing countries.”

Meanwhile, it took rescue teams from three nations — India, Australia, and France — to save Navy commander Abhilash Tomy from his wrecked vessel three days after he was stranded in a remote part of the Southern Indian Ocean by a storm.

The storm had left the sailor with an incapacitating spine injury. Without help or company, Tomy stayed afloat, but just barely.

“Fittingly”, notes The Times of India, “in Egyptian mythology, Osiris is the god of rebirth”. Tomy may not have gone around the world as he set out to do — he has already achieved the feat once, in 2013 — but he certainly played a part in bringing it closer together.

Prime Time