Operation Rahat :: Indians rescue all at Yemen - A minister making sure things are done properly

A few voices have surely come out that we were behind the Chinese and have only been able to evacuate Indians after 8 days of China evacuating Chinese citizens on the 31st of March. But what one fails to understand is the difference in the number of people being evacuated.

(06.04.2015) Indian Navy Ship INS Sumitra at Djibouti Port for #YemenEvacuation (visuals deferred by two days) pic.twitter.com/uNWnOjE7sD
— ANI (@ANI_news) April 7, 2015

China evacuated less than 350 people, while India had a mammoth task at hand and finally it evacuated more than 4000 people, not only from India but from Germany, Ireland and many more. As per the statement by the ministry of external affairs 26 countries including the all mighty United Sates of America had requested India to aide evacuation of its citizens from the conflict zone in Yemen. Unlike the Chinese, Indians made sure that people are given ample time to report and thus the operation ran for more days.

We really appreciate this a lot: British national evacuated from Yemen by Air India #YemenEvacuation pic.twitter.com/Aps9OhVc1T
— ANI (@ANI_news) April 8, 2015

Ret. Gen. V K Singh, was overlooking the operations and made San'na his base for two days during the excercise, the level of commitment shown by the ex-service man, who is currently serving as a high ranking minister is exemplary. He took charge of the situation and made sure that no Indian Plane is denied permission to land in Yemen. With a senior person manning the forward base, things flowed smoothly and Indian citizens were swiftly brought out of the conflict zone along with many more people.

#YemenEvacuation And d thankU s have started to come in! GO INDIA GO! Gr8 job @MEAIndia Hope MSM makes it a topStory pic.twitter.com/CSELmW47Ev
— Ritu4India (@RITURATHAUR) April 7, 2015

EPIC MOMENT! That look on the face of CNN commentators.. US: India will help Americans Leave Yemen #YemenEvacuation pic.twitter.com/M9iD7BBpu7
— Ritu4India (@RITURATHAUR) April 7, 2015

The operation employed two Indian Navy war ships INS Mumbai and INS Tarkash, along with the war ships Air India, the national carrier from the country also pitched in and helped immensely in evacuating people from Yemen. The Indian Air Force also deployed it's two Jumbo Jets to bring people back to India and Indian Railways provided special trains/coaches for people to go back to their native homes.


The operation concluded on today with the last plane leaving from Sannaa international airport with evacuees bound to India. The complete operation provide ample time to all the people willing to leave the conflict zone and head back to safely to their homeland.

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India - Bhutan, ties set to conquer new heights...

India's Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, chose to visit Bhutan as the first nation after becoming the Prime Minister. The visit is very important for India's foreign policy which has suffered a policy paralysis and things have become pretty stagnant in the past.

Mr. Modi seems to have understood the need of strengthening ties with it's neighbours before it moves on further away from his borders to enhance ties. Bhutan has been a strategic partner of India for long and has always stood alongside India whenever need be. Mr. Modi have defined the relations as B2B -> Bharat to Bhutan.

During the visit Mr. Modi addressed the Bhutan Parliaments combined session, he also met with the King of Bhutan, who inturn have assured the PM that action wil be taken in order to sweep out any anti-India camps that might be operating on Bhutan soil. During the visit Mr. Modi also inaugurated the Bhutan Supreme Court which has been funded by the Indian Government. Mr. Modi has made a lot many commitments towards Bhutan during the visit to increase Indian influence on Bhutan, which is being wooed by China as well. It may be noted that the Bhutan arny is being trained  at the Indian Military Training Camp, in Bhutan which was setup by the Indian Army and is still operating in full force.

During his address to the combined session in the Bhutan Parliament, Mr. Modi also emphasised on the need of a stronger India, and how it will help the SAARC nations to grow further. Mr. Modi said that a stronger India would bring prosperity to the region.

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Narendra Modi's 10 Point agenda for the Cabinet

 

Four days in and the new government in Delhi has already started working overtime. Media has already covered news about, strict office timing mandates being driven by Mr. Modi. Yesterday Mr. Modi met with his cabinet to set in place the core guidlelines for the functioning of the government.

Narendra Modi realises the importance of empowering the bureaucracy and thus the first point on the list is about building confidence of the civil servants. Bureaucrats due to issues like lack of confidence and excessive interference, are vary of taking tough decisions; which has resulted in paralysing the system.

The other agenda on the list is about infrastructure, and it is the most important aspect as it directly co-relates to growth of the nation. Just like a corporate organisation, Mr. Modi has also directed all the ministers to work hand in hand and solve inter ministry issues. The economy is also in need of a major boost.

Graphic Source: Economic Times

A lot of things have been laid down, like e-tendering, transparency, infrastructure reforms etc., what needs to be seen is where does all this take the new government.

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The Black Money Trail, Governments Attempt to trace it...

The government of India today announced setting up of a Special Investigation Team, to look into the trail of Black Money that is parked outside India. The Supreme Court, had asked the government to setup a SIT invetigate into the Black Money, based on the writ petition filed by the former Law Minister and senior advocate Ram Jethmalani in July, 2011.

                                                                              Graphic CourtseyThe Hindu

The government has setup a  high profile SIT team is being headed by retired Supreme Court Judge M.B. Shah, and Arijit Pasayat as vice-chairman. The other members of the team include Secretary revenue, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, director of the Intelligence Bureau, director of the Enforcement Directorate, director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes and director of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Based on the graphic below that has been circulated widely on the internet as being published by Wikileaks (as per internet sources), the total money stashed in the Swiss bank accounts only for the selected few accounts amounts to a whopping 313.45 billion dollars, if we peg the Indian Rupee at Rs. 50 per Dollar.



If we are able to bring back even a part of this money back, it would do wonders for the Indian economy, the current dollar reserves of India stand at $287.18 billion. The government if is able to trace the source and provide a route to bring it back it would mean a lot for the development of India. As per our understanding, the following routes can be used to bring this money back:

1. Ask the Swiss Government to hand over the money to Indian Government: This route seems to be impossible as Swiss banks have got very stringent security and privacy policies.

2. Create a scheme to offer the offenders to pay a tax amount and retain the remaining money as white money, this will not only help the system in terms of extra tax revenue. The money converted as white money would be invested back in the markets either in the form of industries or share markets, which will inturn result in better liquidity and help the country grow.

The overall scenario in terms of the black money is very vague and we need to look at how the SIT and the government goes about it.

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List of Ministers is out But Ministries still unknown

A per news reports doing rounds the following candidates are going to be sworn in today as ministers, as per comments that have come from associated parties Shiv Sena MP has stated that more alliance ministers would be given a cabinet birth once the the same is expanded a month from now.

There has been a lot of movement of senior BJP MP's, since Mr. Modi returned to Gujarat Bhavan after visiting Rajghat and meeting Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The overall list as below encompasses all senior leaders of the BJP but is missing out Shri Lal Krishna Advani, this seems to be an indication that Mr. Advani would be the speaker of the house.

List of Cabinet Ministers: 

Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu, Sadanand Gowda, Uma Bharti, Najma Heptullah, Gopinath Munde, Ramvilas Paswan, Kalraj Mishra, Maneka Gandhi, Ananth Kumar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Anant Geete, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Narendra Singh Tomar, Jual Oram, Radha Mohan Singh, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Smriti Irani, Dr Harsh Vardhan 

List of MoS (Independent):

General VK Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Shripad Naik, Dharmendra Pradhan, Sarbananda Sonowal, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goel, Dr Jitendra Singh and Nirmala Sitharaman 

List of MoS:

GM Siddeshwara, Manoj Sinha, Upendra Kushwaha, Pon Radhakrishnan, Kiren Rijiju, Krishan Pal Gujjar, Sanjeev Baliyan, Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava, Raosaheb Dadarao Patil Danve, Vishnu Dev Sahai and Sudarshan Bhagat 

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Has the new Cabinet started reaching Gujarat Bhavan

Senior BJP leaders have like Uma Bharti, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ananth Kumar, Sushma Swaraj etc. reach the Gujarat Bhavan in the run up to the historic day not only for BJP but also India, as after a gap of around 30 years we will see a majority government coming to power.

It seems likely that the leaders reaching Gujarat Bhavan are the ones who will be the part of the new cabinet to be sworn in today along with the PM designate Shri Narendra Modi.

BJP has not yet made public the list of cabinet ministers and everyone is waiting to find out more from the BJP team.

Ravi Shankar Prasad and Nirmala Sitharaman at Gujarat Bhavan to meet Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/f9EusCIst4
— ANI (@ANI_news) May 26, 2014

Sushma Swaraj arrives to meet Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/SreZzBUhOK
— ANI (@ANI_news) May 26, 2014

In this cabinet our one MP, Anant Geete will be taking oath as a minister-Sanjay Raut,Shiv Sena

— ANI (@ANI_news) May 26, 2014

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