Will defend rights of each citizen: PM at Unesco HQ

Placing economy at the top of the agenda, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday went into a series of closed-door meetings with French CEOs and used a visit to the Unesco headquarters to commit himself to defending and protecting the “rights and liberty of every citizen” in India. >>P10 NEW DELHI: Union ministers of state, former vice-presidents, deputy chief ministers and the cabinet secretary are among those who may have to queue up at airports and get frisked, just like ordinary passengers for security clearance, if the government approves an aviation ministry proposal.

The proposal, which may well be the first-ever attempt at curbing India’s VIP culture, seeks to significantly prune the very-very important person (VVIP) categories that are exempt from “pre-embarkation security checks at India’s airports” — restricting the perk to the first nine categories that feature in the government’s Table of Precedence, the protocol list in which officials are placed.