Parliament needs young guns

Shashi Tharoor is known for his sharp wit and plain speaking. He displayed the right touch of grey humour at recent event while exhorting the young turks to join politics.

With nearly 65 per cent of India’s population below 35 years, India urgently needs to get younger people in its Parliament, he hinted. Making his point Tharoor said that as many as 46 MPs are above 70 years of age in the current Parliament and 15 MPs are above 75 years of age. In contrast he said while MPs in the age group of 25-50 years constituted about 26 per cent of the first Lok Sabha, today just they account for about 13 per cent. He said while there can’t be a legislation to get more youngsters to Parliament, the youn need to actively think about getting more involved in politics.

Big question

It's now almost a given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his debut at the World Economic Forum’s annual meet (a jamboree of the global elite) in the snow-laden Swiss resort town of Davos on January 22. But, the big question in corridors of power is whether Finance Minister Arun Jaitley too will be there at the five-day Davos meeting.

The buzz is he will give it a skip given that Union Budget is round the corner on February 1. However, some still feel Jaitley can still make it to Davos as Budget-making is still the preserve of Indian bureaucracy. Remember, Finance Ministers only give "final touches" to the Budget, quipped a hack!

DefExpo in Chennai?

It's the big question on every defence equipment maker's lips — where and when will DefExpo 2018 be held? The buzz is it will move from Goa, where Manohar Parrikar had moved the premier biennial event to when he was defence minister, to Chennai.

Current defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman is believed to be batting for the southern capital. With just two months to go, there is still uncertainty over the dates and venue, keeping everyone on tenterhooks. The army wants to hold it in New Delhi. Can we afford to organise big events like this?

Notional targets

Parliamentary standing committees have been brutal in their commentary on the functioning of government arms. Maintaining the strictness, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Coal and Steel noted that Coal India had missed production targets.

Responding to the same, Secretary, Ministry of Coal is said to have told the Standing Committee that these targets were meant to be missed; the government had set them high so that Public Sector Undertakings could aim for the stars.

Note ban blues

Even as demonetisation continues to evoke strong responses from both its critics and supporters, a recent monthly economic survey had an even extreme take, thanks to a spelling error. The press release spelled “demonetisation” as “demonisation”!

The big two global desi brands

At the Global Hospitality Conclave held in Delhi on Saturday, Spicejet's turnaround man Ajay Singh was asked if Air India could be restored to good health by a private player. His reply was that it deserved to be as the two big brands from India that every global traveller knows is Air India and Oberoi Hotels.

The next speaker to follow Ajay Singh, Taj's new CEO Puneet Chhatwal, respectfully disagreed with him, saying the two big global brands from India were Gandhi and Taj. Well, the crown may just be bigger than the Maharaja!

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