Missing Manpreet

It is a subject close to his heart. However, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal gave the two-day international conference on “Governance for the Margins” held by the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) in Chandigarh a miss. Manpreet was invited as a key speaker. He called up the organisers to show up for “five minutes”, saying he got busy in some other function in Bathinda. They turned down the offer. Experts and economists from across the country took part in the discussion with focus on the problems of the agrarian community in the state and were sympathetic towards their issues.