Pradhan, Fadnavis and Yadav — the ‘rhymical trio’
As Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president J.P. Nadda sets out to reconstitute his team, the party is abuzz with speculation about the likely ascendancy of three leaders described as the ‘rhymical trio’— union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and parliamentarian Bhupendra Yadav. Their first names end with ‘endra’, thus making the rhyme.
These three are tipped to be inducted as members of the party’s parliamentary board. This apex-decision making body of the BJP has four vacancies — one due to Venkaiah Naidu’s election as the Vice-President of India three years ago, and the remaining three due to the demise of Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Ananth Kumar.
The so-called ‘rhymical trio’ are likely to fill up three of them, with party leaders saying jocularly that there are many claimants for the fourth slot who could make it a ‘rhymical quad’ — Gajendra (Singh Shekhawat), Narendra (Singh Tomar), and Mahendra (Nath Pandey), among the Cabinet ministers, for example.
Among the chief ministers, only Trivendra Singh Rawat can strike this musical note.
On a serious note, however, BJP functionaries believe there is little possibility of the ‘rhymical trio’ becoming a quad in the parliamentary board.
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When Raghuram Rajan didn’t ‘choose’ words carefully
The numerous webinars, which have been taking place in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, have not only left journalists scrambling to log in to one webinar after another, but also caught speakers at such webinars unaware of whether the sessions are close-door or open to the media.
Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan spoke at one such webinar organised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research on 14 July.
At the webinar, Rajan talked about how the pandemic could lead to a sharp rise in bad debts in six months. He went on to add how the Indian financial sector is in trouble, and also commented on how Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s opinion piece published in The Times of India the same day was “thoroughly disappointing” as it didn’t address current challenges.
He also added that focusing on credit ratings during these times is not a good idea.
Making an interjection the next day at the same webinar, Rajan said he didn’t know the session was open to the media. “I would have chosen my words more carefully yesterday,” he said, but added that his thoughts remain the same.
When Bengal governor met deceased jawan’s family
After repeated failed requests to the West Bengal government to arrange helicopters for travelling to different locations to attend programmes, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has this time managed to finally get a chopper sanctioned for his travel to Birbhum — 250 km from Kolkata — from the Ministry of Defence.
Dhankhar visited Birbhum’s Belgoria village Friday where deceased jawan Rajesh Orang’s family lives. Orang had lost his life in the Galwan Valley clash last month.
The governor handed over a cheque for Rs 11,00,000 to the family. He was accompanied by Eastern Command Lt General Anil Chauhan, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief.
During the visit, Dhankhar and his wife Sudesh Dhankhar also distributed masks among the villagers. Significantly, this is the first such programme since the nationwide lockdown started when Dhankhar chose to travel outside Kolkata. The number for Covid-19 infections is rising steadily in the state.
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