India Insight

(Opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters.)

In what is most likely the last cabinet reshuffle for the UPA-II government  before the 2014 general elections, 22 ministers were sworn in at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Sunday.

Here is the background, as explained by Frank Jack Daniel and Mayank Bhardwaj of Reuters:

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave his cabinet an overdue facelift on Sunday, bringing in younger ministers in a bid to breathe new life into his aged, scandal-tainted government ahead of state and federal elections. The reshuffle, which has been on the cards for six months, may be Singh’s last chance to significantly change the direction of his government and convince voters the ruling Congress party deserves a third consecutive term in 2014.

The rejig, most analysts say, was done to create a team that will lead the government in the run-up to the polls. While Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, chose not to join the government and work for the Congress party, the new-look government with a mix of young guns and experienced politicians is a welcome step. Here’s why I think some of the key players will do well at their new jobs.

Witness the latest public relations trap for a loose-lipped Indian politician, courtesy of the Deccan Chronicle:

BSP MP Rajpal Saini has now launched a tirade against mobile phones and has publicly declared that women and children do not need mobile phones… “Why do housewives and school going girls need mobiles? It encourages them to make futile small talk and get connected with people outside their homes.”

Mobile phones distract women, Saini said, and offer nothing useful for them, the Chronicle reported.

With the Congress-led coalition government more than halfway through its five-year term, the political temperature is heating up in the world’s largest democracy. The question on everyone’s minds is — who’s going to be the next prime minister?

A recent Nielsen survey had showed Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was the top choice for the post, ahead of Congress party scion Rahul Gandhi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

But last week’s conviction of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker in the Gujarat riots is a blow to Modi, and the political fallout from the case may have dented his hopes of sitting in the prime minister’s chair.

Members of Team Anna, the group whose anti-corruption mission last year became one of India’s biggest social movements, will form a political party to try to fix the system from the inside.

The move follows the group’s latest and perhaps least effective hunger strike in New Delhi to try to force the government into accepting their demand of creating an anti-corruption ombudsman post. Such a move looks unlikely at best.

With signs of agitation fatigue among the public and a government refusing to play ball, the movement led by Gandhian activist Anna Hazare has decided to provide a “political alternative”. Hazare on Monday officially disbanded the team to pave the way for the formation of this as yet unnamed party.

By Jeff Glekin

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Perhaps Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi got trapped in the Delhi metro yesterday. If the two leading Indian politicians were indeed victims of the world’s largest electricity blackout ever, they would at least have an excuse for their lack of public response to this clear sign of policy failure. Actually, there was a response, but it was not what might be expected. The power minister was promoted to Home Minister and replaced with a part time substitute.

The promotion was not really a reward for failure; it was part of a planned reshuffle prompted by the move of Pranab Mukherjee from finance minister to the ceremonial role of President. Mukherjee’s tenure in the finance ministry was basically disastrous. He overturned the Supreme Court’s tax ruling in the Vodafone case and tried to retrospectively tax foreign investors. And he appears to have pursued these policies without consulting Singh, the prime minister.

Time Magazine’s decision to name Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee one of the world’s 100 most powerful people couldn’t have been more ironic.

It comes at a time when the “populist woman of action” is drawing criticism from many quarters after some of her fledgling government’s recent decisions sparked public outrage and a media furore.

No doubt Banerjee is still powerful. She’s been instrumental in stalling some of India’s biggest economic reforms and key policy decisions. But the state of West Bengal is now facing the heat of her maverick actions.

By Annie Banerji

With a cabinet reshuffle seemingly around the corner and the Congress party general secretary saying that Rahul Gandhi, the 41-year-old son of party chief Sonia Gandhi, had the potential to be a good prime minister, India’s home minister has now entered the fray to call for fresher faces at the highest level of politics.

In a recent interview with an Indian news channel, P. Chidambaram said that he does not consider the sixties to be the age of political prime in Indian politics; rather he feels sexagenarians in politics should step back from their positions, and leave cabinet posts for the young.

“I think we should have younger politicians. I firmly believe that we should have younger leaders. I think we should have ministers, including cabinet ministers, in their late forties and early fifties. I think those over 60, including myself, should step back,” he was quoted as saying.

Perhaps the government’s decision to push back the opening of the upcoming monsoon session of parliament was not the best idea. For as the dog days of the sub-continent’s sweltering summer drag on, the parliament-less politicians sweat from the sublime to the ridiculous in the baking heat.

From the haphazard ensemble of senior ministers that flocked to New Delhi’s airport to greet yoga guru turned social activist Swami Ramdev with more fanfare than is reserved for visiting heads of state, to the current conspiracy swirling New Delhi surrounding espionage chewing gum found in the finance minister’s private chambers, it has been a bizarre summer for politics fuelled by the hungry media in the world’s largest democracy.

Kapil Sibal, as Human Resource and Development minister, could have spent his summer break drawing up plans to overhaul an education sector that looks dangerously inadequate to deal with the demographic dividend of millions of young Indians that New Delhi likes to trumpet. Instead, he spent his days holed up in five-star hotels begging Ramdev not to stop eating, and playing it coy in press conferences after quietly ignoring veteran activist Anna Hazare’s demands for a stronger anti-graft bill.

By Annie Banerji

Cast as the villain in high profile graft cases and reeling from its huge loss in the Tamil Nadu state elections in May, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) appears to be in freefall.

The party has declared an emergency meeting in the state capital to discuss potential strategies regarding the recently incarcerated daughter of the DMK chief, Kanimozhi and the party’s strained ties with the ruling Congress party, itself struggling to shake off its scam-ridden identity  and public resentment for its lack of initiative and inability to tackle corruption.

Controversy has been hovering over the DMK since last year when A. Raja, a key member of the party and then Telecoms Minister, was accused of spectrum allocation at discounted prices causing a loss of $39 billion to the national exchequer.

M.F. Husain, India’s most famous modern artist, died at the age of 95 this morning, not in Maharashtra, his home state, nor New Delhi, where many of his ground-breaking works were exhibited, but in London, where he lived in exile with Qatari citizenship. The ‘Picasso of India’ has for five years felt unable to live and work in his country of birth.

Husain fled India in 2006, leaving behind court cases and death threats against him, and continued vandalism of his works from right-wing Hindu groups that accused him of insulting their religion by painting deities in the nude.

Husain, a Muslim, felt unsafe and unable to practice his particular art form in the world’s largest democracy. And he’s not the only one. Salman Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai but lives in the UK, saw New Delhi ban his Satanic Verses for its perceived depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.