Pizza Hut

Country Feast or Paneer El Rancho - Which one between the two would you pick to add a delicious Pizzalicious touch to this evening...

Weight of History and Lure of the Future

In 1932 a group of romantics led by a benevolent leader descended upon Lord's to play a Test match for India against a country that still colonised it. I haven't figured that out honestly, for it means that India was regarded as an independent Test-playing nation long before it was regarded as a sovereign independent nation! Ah, the vagaries of cricket.

And it is therefore appropriate, even in an era that marginalises history and lives in the immediate, that the two nations play their 100th Test at the same venue exactly one week from today. England and India are bound by a colonial past, by literature, by the railways, by the English language, but most notably by cricket. But not only will this Test be the 100th such meeting between these two teams, but it will also be the 2,000th Test match ever, a phenomenal milestone.

It was here, in a dressing room and pavilion steeped in tradition and often pedantic practices, that an Indian captain took his shirt off and waved it in victory and no picture symbolises an irreverant India as much as that does. It is in the footsteps of a Sourav Ganguly rather than a Maharaja of Porbandar that India will play on 21 July. They may not take off their shirts again but they won't fear the burra sahib either. Indeed they start favourites, as the number one team in the world. It's been a long journey but it's been quite a journey!

And India, known traditionally as the land of mystical tweakers, will feature its strongest contingent of new ball bowlers at Lord's. It might well be that India will want to play on a surface that favours quick bowling, an aspect of cricket that India hasn't particularly been enamoured to in years gone by.

But it is the batsmen, defying age and columnists, that will be the star attraction in spite of the absence of the game-changer, Virender Sehwag. From India's middle order that first came together in 1996, three will still be playing and one will be at hand in the commentary box! Their experience will be handy because India's young are well-endowed, and gifted, but callow. This could be a quiet sunset or a glorious summer for Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. What fun it'll be if it is the latter.

I can't wait to see another confrontation between two cocky off-spinners. The English like to believe that Graeme Swann is the best spinner in the world and Harbhajan Singh needs something like that to spur him on to prove people wrong. Swann starts the early favourite there, which is another first - an England spinner taking top billing against India! He took 12 wickets in the three Tests between England and Sri Lanka and will definitely be itching to have a go at the Indians.

At the original home of Test cricket, India and England return to pay obeisance to the oldest form of the game. It will be difficult not to be moved by it.

The Killing

On 4 April 2011, the Israeli-Arab actor, director and film maker Juliano Mer Khamis was shot dead in Jenin, Palestine.

This was not an unexpected attack. The Freedom Theatre that he had established had been attacked with Molotov cocktails in the past, its door torched, and Mer Khamis himself had received threats. ‘But what choice do I have? To run? I am not a fleeing man,’ he said in an interview. ‘I am an [Israeli] elite force man, formerly of the paratroopers. The only two things I gained from Israeli culture are Shlonsky’s translations of Shakespeare and adequate field training. Now I need it.’[1] In the end, even the field training given to Israeli elite troops proved inadequate to save Mer Khamis.

In his death, the world lost a brave and imaginative artist.

Juliano Mer Khamis was 52 years old. He was an actor and a director. He had acted in several films, including opposite Diane Keaton in the adaptation of John Le Carre’s thriller, The Little Drummer Girl, and in Amos Gitai’s Kippur. He got offers from Hollywood, where they wanted to make him the next Antonio Banderas. He certainly had the looks. But he preferred to stay in Israel/Palestine, and work at the Freedom Theatre he had set up in 2006. And once he signed the letter of boycott of Palestinian artists refusing to work in Israeli institutions, he gave up his acting career altogether.

The Freedom Theatre itself has a fascinating history. The precursor to the theatre was the Care and Learning Project set up by Juliano’s mother Arna Mer in 1989 during the first Intifada. Arna was an Israeli Jew, and had taken part in the Arab-Israel war of 1948. Subsequently, she joined the Communist Party of Israel and there she met, and later married, Saliba Khamis, a Christian Arab and Secretary of the Party. Juliano was named after Salvatore Guiliano, a handsome Italian bandit who led a revolt of landless peasants against landlords in Italy. 

A man with a hyphenated identity, Juliano, then, was an Israeli-Arab-Christian-Jew. Or, as he famously put it, ‘I am 100 per cent Palestinian and 100 per cent Jewish’. 

Arna worked in the Jenin refugee camp, possibly the worst of all camps in Palestine. This was in the late 1980s and early 90s, during the first Intifada. She drew the children into the theatre. These were children for whom destruction of homes and livelihood was a fact of life. For whom death was a fact of life. 

‘We’re not good Christians’

Juliano’s 2003 award-winning documentary, Arna’s Children, asks the question, what became of the children as they grew up? This film is a most remarkable document of our times – it gives an insight into life under occupation, and even more remarkably, it showed the world, for the first time, the faces and biographies of the young men who fought and resisted during the second Intifada. These were pre-adolescent children when Arna worked with them in the late 80s and early 90s. In 1993, she was awarded the ‘Alternate Nobel Prize’, the money from which went into the theatre. By the time the second Intifada began in September 2000, the children had grown up to be young men. Many took to arms. Many fell to arms.

In the film, we see young Ala sitting listlessly on the rubble of his home. Arna talks about it to the children. Why did Ala sleep in his aunt’s home last night, she asks. They tell her. Sitting next to Ala is Ashraf, with an angelic face. His house was next door to Ala’s. It got destroyed when they destroyed Ala’s house. Who did that, asks Arna. The Israeli army, says Ashraf. What will you do to the army, asks Arna? I’ll kill them, says Ashraf. Show me, says Arna, I’m the army. Ashraf gets up, and starts hitting Arna playfully. She then gives the children paper, which they tear to shreds. All right, says Arna, this is anger. And when we get angry, we have to express it. She then gives them paint and paper, and asks them to express their anger in a painting.

Years later, when Ashraf is already dead and Ala has become a fighter, Juliano meets him and asks if he remembers the painting he had done as a child in Arna’s workshop. Yes, says Ala. It was a house with a Palestinian flag on it. At the end of the film, Ala is dead too.

One of the critiques of the film has been that Arna’s work did not prevent the children from taking up arms in later life. Such a critique misses the point of the work that Arna – and Juliano – were doing.  It would have been so nice had Arna been a simple do-gooder, who healed tormented children by drawing them into the world of art. But Arna was not a do-gooder. She was a militant. In a 2006 interview, Juliano spoke about his mother’s work:

'You don’t have to heal the children in Jenin. We didn’t try to heal their violence. We tried to challenge it into more productive ways. And more productive ways are not an alternative to resistance. What we were doing in the theatre is not trying to be a replacement or an alternative to the resistance of the Palestinians in the struggle for liberation. Just the opposite. This must be clear. I know it’s not good for fundraising, because I’m not a social worker, I’m not a good Jew going to help the Arabs, and I’m not a philanthropic Palestinian who comes to feed the poor. We are joining, by all means, the struggle for liberation of the Palestinian people, which is our liberation struggle. . . . We’re not healers. We’re not good Christians. We are freedom fighters.'

Mer Khamis puts this strongly and eloquently. And yet, the larger question persists. If the theatre work that Arna did with the children was indeed powerful, why did so many of those children choose shahadat (martyrdom) in the end? Was theatre only a short-lived idyllic dream that would shatter once the nightmare of their lives burst upon them? Juliano answered this question, not in words, but in action, by establishing the Freedom Theatre in an uncommon example of courage and commitment.

The Freedom Theatre

Arna Mer died of cancer in 1994. The building that housed her theatre was demolished during the second Intifada in 2002. Juliano Mer Khamis returned to Jenin in that year to trace the children who had been part of the theatre. This resulted in his film Arna’s Children. He found that many of them had died, and some died as the film was being shot. The film itself was highly acclaimed, if controversial. 

Having made the film, however, Mer Khamis found he could not simply walk away. He must have asked himself the question: would it have panned out differently if Arna had not died and her theatre shut down? Would some of those children have continued in the theatre? Suicide attacks are the work of desperate young men, who see no future for themselves, no hope. Could theatre have provided them hope? And more: could theatre have created resources that would equip the children to resist the most oppressive of all occupations, the occupation of the mind? That was Arna’s project – to create a generation of young Palestinians who would resist the occupation of the mind with artistic resources. Mer Khamis expanded the agenda. He sought to sow the seeds of the third Intifada – a cultural intifada, which would be fought with art, poetry, theatre, cinema. 

This is the grand dream that forms the foundation of the Freedom Theatre, established in 2006. But this meant that Mer Khamis would have to give up his own acting career. He did that. He loved acting, and for a while not acting felt like withdrawal. But then he got over it, and derived great joy and sustenance directing plays, and working with the kids, seeing them grow. 

‘The Freedom Theatre will provide the children of the camp a tranquil environment to express themselves and create,’ wrote Juliano. Some of the key people involved in the establishment of the theatre, apart from Mer Khamis, were Zakaria Zubeidi, a former military leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Jonatan Stanczak, a Swedish-Israeli activist and Dror Feiler, a Swedish-Israeli artist. A number of artists from across the globe have also gone and worked with the Freedom Theatre in the past five years.

Working in Jenin is not easy. Try doing an image search on the internet for ‘Palestine children’. Thousands of images show up – of children injured and dead, of boys throwing stones at Israeli tanks. Yet, strikingly, there is none of a park or a playground. Palestine is a country without a playground. Working with children in these circumstances poses its own challenge. ‘Each and every one of our students bears marks of bullet wounds, severe beatings, torture or psychological traumas. This is the language of the occupying power,’ Mer Khamis said in an interview. Israel has destroyed libraries, cultural centres, schools in the Palestinian areas, and has prevented people from one area to communicate with others. It is as if ‘the switch of light and life of the Palestinians was turned off,’ as Mer Khamis put it. Life under occupation is hard not simply because of the physical conditions of existence. The occupation oppresses the imagination and distorts the personality of children, it takes away their right to childhood.

Before the Freedom Theatre was established, many residents had not even seen a play, let alone taken part in theatrical activity. The theatre had to win the trust of the community, an incredibly challenging task, given that boys and girls work together, and the theatre often takes up issues that are considered taboo. ‘One of the aims of the Israeli occupation is to conquer and divide, and I am sorry to say that they are succeeding,’ Mer Khamis said. In addition, being under occupation means that the culture and identity of the Palestinians is also sought to be erased. Theatre helps restore a colonised people’s dignity and becomes a weapon in the struggle for equity and justice.

Zakaria Zubeidi is living testimony to how theatre can change lives. The former militant has given up arms, gained a full amnesty from the Israeli state, and has joined the cultural struggle against the occupation. As Mer Khamis put it, ‘Zakaria now devotes his life to pave the way for The Freedom Theatre in the hearts of the people in the Camp and protects it from negative elements that see the theatre as a threat to religious and/or traditional values.’ The Freedom Theatre today runs a three-year professionalTheatre School programme, the only one of its kind in Palestine. In addition, it also runs regular photography and video filmmaking workshops. Visiting artists also offer workshops in different arts and skills. Over the past five years, the theatre has done incredible work, and hopefully Juliano’s comrades will find ways of overcoming the tragedy of his killing and continue the work.

The question, obviously, is who killed Juliano Mer Khamis. One would think that the Israelis would consider his work a threat. Maybe they did. But his work was equally a threat to the Islamic fundamentalist organisations in Jenin itself. The Freedom Theatre’s production of Animal Farm earned their ire because one of the characters is a pig. Alice in Wonderland challenges patriarchal authority. Someone had distributed pamphlets against the Freedom Theatre in Jenin and Mer Khamis was denounced as a Zionist agent. ‘It makes [the Islamic fundamentalists] crazy that a man who is half-Jewish is at the head of one of the most important projects in the Palestinian West Bank and it is just hypocritical racism,’ Mer Khamis said. ‘I have never been as Jewish as I am right now in Jenin. After all this work at the camp it would be extremely unfortunate to die of a Palestinian bullet,’ he added presciently. Unsurprisingly, the man arrested for the murder is a former Al-Aqsa Brigades militant. 

A section of the ultra-left in India equates the anti-Americanism of Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East with anti-imperialism. The killing of Juliano Mer Khamis, among other things, underlines the myopia of this approach.

Juliano-Safdar-Probir

Every history is unique, every tragedy singular. And yet, there are connections across decades and continents.

Juliano’s killing connects to another, some 22 years ago. On 1 January 1989, Jana Natya Manch (Janam) had gone to the outskirts of Delhi to perform our street play, Halla Bol (Attack!). The working class movement of Delhi was then on the upswing, and our play was in context of a massive strike. Most of the play was written by Safdar Hashmi, who also directed it. It had been a huge success, with the workers in various industrial areas picking up slogans from the play and using them in their own organising efforts.

As they began the play that morning, the actors were attacked by a mob led by a local goon who was also a small-time industrialist, and who had the protection of the ruling Congress party. The attackers came with iron rods and bamboo sticks. They also had guns, as the actors found later. The actors had nothing. They resisted with stones for a short while, allowing most of the actors to escape. But the respite was temporary. The mob came back and attacked CITU office where some of the actors had left their bags. Safdar and another actor, Brijender, held fast the gate, which allowed the rest to jump over the back wall and escape. In the end, Safdar ordered Brijender to escape, and in doing so must have realised that he wouldn’t be able to. They dragged him back to the place where we were performing, and beat him up with rods and sticks. All the injuries were to the head. When three actors reached that spot some 15-20 minutes later, he was unconscious and bleeding profusely. He was to die in hospital the following night. But Safdar was not the only person killed that night. They also killed a Nepali worker, Ram Bahadur, because they suspected him of hiding a trade unionist. He hadn’t, but they were in no mood to listen.

Safdar was 34 when he died. For his funeral on 3 Jaunary, some 15,000 people – artists, intellectuals, workers and ordinary citizens – poured out in the streets of Delhi. On the morning of the 4^th, Janam went back to the same spot to complete the interrupted play, watched by thousands. Among the actors was the Janam veteran Moloyashree, also Safdar’s wife. That one performance galvanised thousands across the nation. Protest demonstrations took place all over India. 12 April, Safdar’s birthday, was declared Street Theatre Day by cultural activists, and there were more than 30,000 performances all over the country. The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) became a platform that brought together hundreds of artists and intellectuals from different parts of India on issues of larger concern. In particular, SAHMAT played a crucial part in the cultural/intellectual resistance during the six-year period (1998-2004) when the central government was led by the party of the Hindu right, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Safdar’s killing, in turn, connects to another, back in 1974. Indira Gandhi’s declaration of the state of Emergency was still a year away, but in West Bengal, her party, the Congress, had unleashed terror against the Communists from about 1972. Curzon Park in Calcutta had become the site of weekly street theatre performances which critiqued State violence, imperialism (the war in Vietnam was on), etc. With a view to reclaim this little space, the government sent in the police on the day of the performance. The theatre group that was performing was called Silhouette, and Probir Dutta was one of its leading activists. The police caught him, and beat him to death. 

The following week, Badal Sircar’s Michhil (The Procession) was performed in Curzon Park in protest against the police attack. The production drew actors from all the well-known Calcutta groups. A number of well-known theatre persons, including the communist actor-director-playwright Utpal Dutt, recited poems or read passages.

Every tragedy is singular. Probir Dutta was killed by the police, Safdar by anti-social goons, while Juliano appears to have been the victim of an Islamic militant’s bullet. Unlike Probir Dutta and Safdar, Juliano knew he was under threat. Juliano’s life, like that of Safdar, will inspire a generation. 

Dying in Palestine

Life in Palestine is unlike anywhere on the planet. But death in Palestine is also unlike anywhere else. When Arna died, it was impossible to bury her. Mer Khamis narrated the story in an interview:

'My mother could not be buried because she refused to be buried in a religious ceremony or funeral. Israel is not a democracy; it’s a theocracy. The religion is not separated from the state so all issues concerning the privacy of life—marriage, burial and many other aspects—are controlled by the religious authorities, so you cannot be buried in a civilian funeral. The only way to do it is buy a piece of land in some kibbutzim, which refused to sell us a piece of land because of the politics of my mother. . . . I had to take the coffin home. And it stayed in my house for three days and I could not find a place to bury her. So I announced in a press conference that she was going to be buried in the garden of my house. There was a big scandal, police came, a lot of TV and media [came], violent warnings were issued against me. There were big demonstrations around the house, till I got a phone call from friends from a kibbutz. . . . They offered a piece of land there. And the funny thing is that while we were looking for a place to bury my mother, there were discussions in Jenin to offer me to bring her for burial there, in the shahid’s [martyr’s] graveyard. They told me there was one Fatah leader, who was humorously saying, ‘Well, guys, look, it’s an honour to have Arna with us here, a great honour, the only thing is maybe in about fifty years’ time some Jewish archaeologists will come here and say there are some Jewish bones here and they’re going to confiscate the land of Jenin.’ [Laughs] They do it. Even if they find the Jewish bones of a dog, they take the place. . . . Every place they confiscate they find the bones of a Jew and that’s how they justify the ownership of the land, by finding bones.'

Like his mother, Juliano was bid farewell to on both sides of the divide. He was buried in the same kibbutz, next to Arna. Mother and son, artists and freedom fighters, shining lights in a dark world.

Palestine, more than any other place on earth, is an emblem of humankind’s conscience. Juliano Mer Khamis is the name of the belief that justice will win in the end. In this spring of the Arab revolt, Juliano will not be mourned. His courageous and creative life will be celebrated, his passion and integrity saluted. Juliano Mer Khamis is the name of a dream that will not be extinguished. As his own students put it:

'The revolutionary message will not pass away. It will come storming the yellow sands and the mountains covered by almond trees … from here, from the Freedom Theatre’s stage, where men were and are made to be free and engaged in the cultural revolutionary battle for freedom. … In thousands of silences only one voice is raising up; it’s the freedom fighters’, to whom you taught how to carry the cultural gun on their shoulders. Juliano, your mother’s children have passed away, your mother, Arna, has passed away and so did you—but your children are going to stay, following your path on the way to the freedom battle, and we will go on with your revolution’s promise, the Jasmine revolution.

– Juliano’s children'

The Social Network

A landing page for what appears to be a Microsoft social-networking site was discovered Thursday night, sparking rumors that the software giant is building a social network to rival Google+. But not Facebook.

Before it was replaced with a tight-lipped message from Microsoft, Socl.comdisplayed a welcome note for a service called "Tulalip" (the name of an Indian tribe in Washington).

"With Tulalip you can find what you need and share what you know easier than ever," it read. On the side of the screen (see below) the page showed dummy buttons for signing in through Facebook and Twitter.

When you click into the site now, you'll find it replaced with a message from Microsoft. "Thanks for stopping by. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn't mean to, honest," it reads

Facebook and Google may share a respect/hate relationship (remember when Facebook hired a PR firm to smear Google? Or when they blocked each others' contacts importing function?), but Facebook and Microsoft's Bing have enjoyed a long, mutually beneficial relationship. Most recently, in May Microsoft expanded its use of Facebook within its Bing search engine by adding Facebook "Like" buttons. Facebook also appears all over Microsoft's upcoming mobile OS build, known as "Mango." In his review of Windows Phone 7 "Mango," PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan said "Mango is the most Facebook-oriented OS available in the U.S."

Socl.com was discovered when the editor of domain news blog Fusible was investigating the owner of Social.com.

Even if it is nothing more than an intern messing around with Photoshop, the prospect of Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter collaborating to launch a formidable rival to Google+ is exciting, especially when you throw in new Nokia handsets, Windows Phone 7 Mango, and Skype integration. PCMag columnist John Dvorak, however, thinks otherwise: "Why Social Media-Centric Search Won't Work."

Pottermania Hits the Streets of London

Mumbai Blasts-People's Reactions

Names Changed
Ayan Kumar

Its extremely shocking to hear the news about Mumbai Blast. Sad. Praying for all the people in mumbai. Peace. Emergency Numbers: 022-22621855, 022-22621983, 022-22625020 Please share.

Samir Malhotra

How long can we support peace like this? How long can we see our brothers die and mothers weep? How long? Slaughter is the only cure for the Primal Policy of Pakistan. Ashamed of being an Indian.

Pankaj Singh

Much relieved to learn that my loved ones in Mumbai are safe.

Rahul Banerjee
But my heart goes out to those who have lost their loved ones.

Laxmi Balakrishnan

Statement of the month: 'They (perpetrators) worked in a clandestine manner.' hahaha Mr Chidambaram when did the 'perpetrators' work in full view of the public?

Ram Singh

What the hell man !!! Again a golgotha :-O ... Let's fuck these terrorists ppl :-X


Taslima Nasrin
Terror attacks will continue.Media will shout,intellectuals will debate,votebank policy will be practiced,ordinary ppl will continue2 suffer.

13th July 2002:India's Greatest Win Abroad-Natwest Final

In one of ODI cricket`s sensational finishes, India came from behind to chase down England`s 325 in the NatWest triangular series final at Lord`s in 2002. Nine years down the line, we relive those Glorious Moments and will continue to cherish them all throughout our lives.

India Today

Karat, D. Raja visit Jaitapur

STAFF REPORTER

  

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat. File photo

Police detain Congress workers for trying to disrupt meeting

A group of Congress workers alleged to be supporters of Minister Narayan Rane, MLA from the Konkan, were rounded up and detained on Tuesday as they tried to disrupt a meeting of activists, attended by the Communist Party of India. The police said there was no lathi charge, but around 12 persons were picked up from the meeting venue in Ratnagiri district.

On Tuesday, Prakash Karat, general secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist), and D. Raja, MP and CPI national secretary, visited Jaitapur, the site of the proposed nuclear power plant, along with activist Vaishali Patil and others. The delegation of Left parties met the family of Tabrez Sayekar, who was killed in the police firing in April.

“It was a courtesy visit to express condolences. There was a meeting at Nate village and another one at Ratnagiri. The two leaders also met Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited officials who took them on a tour of the site,” Vivek Monteiro, member, Maharashtra State Committee of the CPI (M), told The Hindu over telephone.

Meet locals, leaders

“In Mithgavane village, they met the local people and leaders. The people said the Jaitapur issue was significant for the whole country. They said the struggle would be expanded to other parts of Maharashtra and the country,” Mr. Monteiro said.

The Ratnagiri police told The Hindu that some 10 to 12 Congress workers gathered at the meeting venue. “They have been taken to the police station. We are taking action against them,” the police said.

This is the second incident in the past few days that organised groups tried to disrupt the meetings of Jaitapur activists.

On Sunday, a group of unidentified persons barged into a meeting and created a ruckus.

Union Council of Ministers - July 12, 2011

  

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Dr Manmohan Singh : Prime Minister and also in-charge of the Ministries/Departments not specifically allocated to the charge of any Minister viz, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions; Planning; Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space

Cabinet Ministers

Pranab Mukherjee : Finance

Sharad Pawar : Agriculture; Food Processing Industries

A K Antony : Defence P Chidambaram : Home Affairs S M Krishna : External Affairs

Virbhadra Singh : Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

Vilasrao Deshmukh : Science and Technology and Earth Sciences

Ghulam Nabi Azad : Health and Family Welfare

Sushil Kumar Shinde : Power

M Veerappa Moily : Corporate Affairs

Dr Farooq Abdullah : New and Renewable Energy

S Jaipal Reddy : Petroleum and Natural Gas

Kamal Nath : Urban Development

Vayalar Ravi : Overseas Indian Affairs; Civil Aviation.

Ambika Soni : Information and Broadcasting

Mallikarjun Kharge : Labour and Employment

Kapil Sibal : Human Resource Development; Communications and Information Technology.

Anand Sharma : Commerce and Industry; Textiles

C P Joshi : Road Transport and Highways

Kumari Selja : Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation; Culture

Subodh Kant Sahay : Tourism

G K Vasan : Shipping

P K Bansal : Parliamentary Affairs; Water

Resources Mukul Wasnik : Social Justice and Empowerment

M K Alagiri : Chemicals and Fertilizers

Praful Patel : Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises

Shriprakash Jaiswal : Coal

Salman Khurshid : Law and Justice; Minority Affairs

V Kishore Chandra Deo : Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj

Beni Prasad Verma : Steel

Dinesh Trivedi : Railways

Jairam Ramesh : Rural Development.

Ministers of State (Independent Charge)

Dinsha J Patel : Mines

Krishna Tirath : Women and Child Development

Ajay Maken : Youth Affairs and Sports

Prof K V Thomas : Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution

Srikant Jena : Statistics and Programme Implementation and Minister of State in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers

Jayanthi Natarajan : Environment and Forests

Paban Singh Ghatowar : Development of North Eastern Region

Gurudas Kamat : Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministers of State

Ministers of State

E Ahamed : External Affairs; HRD

Mullappally Ramachandran: Home Affairs

V Narayanasamy : Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; PMO

Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia: Commerce and Industry

D Purandeswari : HRD

K H Muniappa : Railways

Panabaka Lakshmi : Textiles

Namo Narain Meena : Finance

M M Pallam Raju : Defence

Saugata Ray : Urban Development

S S Palanimanickam : Finance.

Jitin Prasada : Road Transport and Highways

Preneet Kaur : External Affairs

Harish Rawat : Agriculture and Food Processing Industries; Parliamentary Affairs

Bharatsinh Solanki : Railways

Mahadev S Khandela : Tribal Affairs

Sisir Adhikari : Rural Development

Sultan Ahmed : Tourism

Mukul Roy : Shipping

Choudhury Mohan Jatua : Information and Broadcasting

D Napoleon : Social Justice and Empowerment

S Jagathrakshakan : Information and Broadcasting

S Gandhiselvan : Health and Family Welfare

Tusharbhai Chaudhary : Road Transport and Highways

Sachin Pilot : Communications and Information Technology

Prateek Prakashbapu Patil: Coal

R P N Singh : Petroleum and Natural Gas; Corporate Affairs

Vincent Pala : Water Resources; Minority Affairs

Pradeep Jain : Rural Development

Agatha Sangma : Rural Development

Ashwani Kumar : Planning; Science and Technology and Earth Sciences

K C Venugopal : Power

Sudip Bandyopadhyay : Health and Family Welfare

Charan Das Mahant : Agriculture and Food Processing Industries

Jitendra Singh : Home Affairs

Milind Deora : Communications and Information Technology

Rajeev Shukla : Parliamentary Affairs.

It was business as usual for Jairam Ramesh in his new Rural Development Ministry where he held extensive meetings with officials on his first day that stretched past midnight.

Mr. Ramesh, who had a controversial stint as Environment Minister, assumed charge of the new ministry immediately after taking oath as Cabinet Minister at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Tuesday evening and flagged the land acquisition bill as his priority.

He held discussions with Ministers of State and senior officials on various issues and met two members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) which had recently made recommendations on the Land Acquisition Bill.

“We will soon put out a draft Bill for public debate by middle of next week. That was my approach in the Environment Ministry and it will be the same in Rural Development ministry,” he said.

Mr. Ramesh said besides compensation to land owners, he felt that the issue of giving benefits to those whose livelihoods depend on the land to be acquired also needs to be addressed.

“It is not just compensation to land owners but more important issue is to compensate those whose livelihood depends on the land being acquired. This is the most important matter. Compensation is the second important issue,” he said.

Mr. Ramesh said he held extensive meetings in the ministry till 1:00 A.M. and followed it up with more discussions on Wednesday morning.

“The purpose for which the land is being acquired -- whether it is for critical infrastructure or golf courses -- are important issues that have to be discussed,” he said.

In the Cabinet reshuffle effected by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday, Mr. Ramesh was elevated from the rank of Minister of State (Independent Charge) to a Cabinet Minister and given the Rural Development portfolio.