PM can hold a cab meet in US

There are seven ministers in the United States and the quorum requires a minimum of six

GN Bureau | September 23, 2011



At least a dozen union ministers, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, are abroad and some more are slated to be off to attend conferences abroad in the coming days. To be honest, each one of them is abroad on business and not for pleasure.

A joke in the capital is that the PM, who is now in New York, can very well convene an emergency meeting of the Union Cabinet to discuss the crisis at home created by the letter bomb hitting Home Minister P Chidambaram. He won't have any problem of the corum. There are already seven ministers in the United States and the corum requires a minimum of six.

While Foreign Minister S M Krishna is with him in New York to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Mukherjee in Washington to address the India investment forum has three other ministers by his side: Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is also in the US attending the UN meeting on non-communicable diseases. On Tuesday, he attended a round-table of the health ministers of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations.

Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahay went off to a 3-nation tour of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) on Wednesday, the day the PM and Mukherjee took off separately for the US. CIS consists mostly of the nations that were part of the erstwhile Soviet Union like Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, etc.

While Anand Sharma is busy attending the US-India economic opportunities and synergy summit in the US, his junior Jyotiraditya Scindia is off to Zimbabwe to promote investment and trade links. Human Resources Development and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal went off to Finland to address a summit on information and network security and then landed in Estonia to sign a couple of agreements.

Comments

 

Other News

AI: Code, Control, Conquer

India today stands at a critical juncture in the area of artificial intelligence. While the country is among the fastest adopters of AI in the world, it remains heavily reliant on technologies developed elsewhere. This paradox, experts warn, cannot persist if India seeks technological sovereignty.

RBI pauses to assess inflation risks, policy transmission

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has begun the new fiscal year with a calibrated pause, keeping the repo rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent in its April Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. The decision, taken unanimously, reflects a shift from aggressive policy action to cautious observation after a signi

New pathways for tourism growth

Traditionally, India’s tourism policy has been based on three main components: the number of visitors, building tourist attractions and providing facilities for tourists. Due to the increase in climate-related issues and environmental destruction that occurred over previous years, policymakers have b

Is the US a superpower anymore?

On April 8, hours after warning that “a whole civilisation will die tonight,” US president Donald Trump, exhibiting his unique style of retreating from high-voltage brinkmanship, announced that he agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran. The weekend talks in Islamabad have failed and the futur

Machines communicate, humans connect

There is a moment every event professional knows—the kind that arrives without warning, usually an hour before the curtain rises. Months of meticulous planning are in place. And then comes the call: “We’ll also need a projector. For the slides.”   No email

Why India is entering a ‘stagflation lite’ phase

India’s macroeconomic narrative is quietly shifting—from a rare “Goldilocks” equilibrium of stable growth and contained inflation to a more fragile phase where external shocks are beginning to dominate domestic policy outcomes. The numbers still look reassuring at first glance: GDP


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter