20 ICT Action Points for the First 100 Days of Modi Government
Narendra Modi, 64, took oath as India’s 15th Prime Minister on May 26, 2014. Promising inclusive and strong India, in line with his guiding principle of “minimum government, maximum governance” the top layer of ministers has been downsized. Modi’s team of 23 cabinet ministers, 10 ministers of state with independent charge and 11 ministers of state also took oath of Office at the ceremony held at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. The ceremony saw attendance from eminent leaders from the SAARC countries, including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, two of India’s closest neighbors, invites to whom evoked strong reactions from various political groups in the country.
The BJP-led NDA coalition that has formed the government in India will function with the overall strength of 45 including Modi. This is almost half of what the previous government functioned with. Earlier during the day, Modi had announced a major restructuring where complementary departments will get clubbed under a single ministry to be led by a Cabinet Secretary. The objective is to bring speed in decision-making and cut red-tape and interdepartmental delays.
As the Prime Minister of India, Modi is ensuring that he and his team hit the ground running. Soon after taking charge he is expected to hold parleys with various department secretaries to get a handle on the state of affairs.
Ravi Shankar Prasad is the new Telecom Minister
BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad has taken charge of IT, Telecom & Law portfolios. A distinguished senior advocate at the Supreme Court, Prasad began his political career as a student leader in 1970 in Bihar, under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan and was jailed during the Emergency. His association with Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad and RSS goes back a long way. His father Thakur Prasad was a senior advocate at the Patna High Court and one of the founders of the Jan Sangh, which is now the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).
Prasad who has been a member of the BJP’s National Executive since 1995 became an MP in 2000 and Minister of State (Coal & Mines) in 2001 under the Vajpayee government. He was also made Minister of State in the Ministry of Law and Justice in July 2002. In 2006, he became the national spokesperson of BJP and was also elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar. In 2010, he was appointed general secretary of the BJP and was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar for a third consecutive term in 2012.
Prasad earned his LLB degree from Patna University and started his practice in Patna High Court in 1980. He was the chief counsel in the fodder scam against Bihar’s chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav. And he is also referred to as the lawyer of Ram Lalla (Hindu God Lord Ram) for representing the Hindu groups in the Ayodhya suit, in the Allahabad High Court.
Nripendra Mishra is the principal secretary to Prime Minister
Former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman Nripendra Mishra has been appointed as the principal secretary to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in the PMO.
Nripendra Mishra was secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) from October 2005 to March 2006 and then served a three-year tenure as chairman of TRAI until March 2009. He played a critical role in formulating key policy decisions, including the broadband policy.
Mishra, a 1967 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre became a key prosecution witness in the 2G scam trial, as he was the regulator when licences were allotted during former telecom minister, A Raja’s tenure.