More than one-third Ministers in union cabinet are from South

After the latest reshuffle, the South has much to cheer about — 31 of the 77 Ministers (excluding Prime Minister) in the Union Cabinet are from the region.

Of them, 13 belonged to Andhra Pradesh, eight from Kerala, five from Karnataka, four from Tamil Nadu and one from Puducherry. While A.P. has the highest number of five Cabinet Ministers, Karnataka has four and T.N. and Kerala have two each.

In the poll-bound Andhra Pradesh, every fourth MP of the Congress, either elected to the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, is now a Union Minister. The State tops the list of getting the highest number of 13 Ministers in the council.

In Karnataka, where the Congress had recently won the Assembly polls, every second MP belonging to the party is a Minister now with five of the 10 MPs (seven from the Lok Sabha and three from the Rajya Sabha) being in the Cabinet.

The luck for the Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu is also not bad as every third Congress MP from the State is a Minister. Of course, this has come at the cost of the DMK, which quit the UPA-II government on the Sri Lankan issue a few months ago. Of the Congress MPs, two are already holding the Cabinet rank.

Given the fluid situation in Andhra Pradesh — with Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy set to pose great challenges to the Congress in the Assembly/Lok Sabha polls from the Seemandhra region and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi issuing threats in the problematic Telangana region — as many as 13 out of 44 Congress MPs (31 in the Lok Sabha and 13 in the Rajya Sabha) have been made Ministers. Of them five — S. Jaipal Reddy, Kishore Chandra Deo, M.M. Pallam Raju, K.S. Rao and Jairam Ramesh (elected from A.P. to the Rajya Sabha) — are Cabinet Ministers. While actor-politician K. Chiranjeevi is already enjoying the Minister of State with independent charge status, there are seven MoS: D. Purandeswari, Panabaka Lakshmi, Sarvey Satyanarayana, K. Surya Prakash Reddy, P. Balram Naik, Killi Krupa Rani and J.D. Seelam. While Mr. Jaipal Reddy, Mr. Satyanarayana and Mr. Naik are from the Telangana region, Mr. Surya Prakash Reddy represents Rayalaseema and the remaining are from Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

With the Seemandhra region getting more representation in the Union Council, sources said the balancing act made by the Congress high command might help it to arrest the exodus to the YSR Party prior to the polls. It may be noted that Mr. K.S. Rao had submitted his resignation to the high command when he failed to a find place in the Cabinet during the previous reshuffle.

In Tamil Nadu, the Congress has only 12 MPs (eight in the Lok Sabha and four in the Rajya Sabha — one is retiring next month). Of them, four are enjoying berths in the Cabinet — P. Chidambaram, G.K. Vasan, Jayanthi Natarajan and E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan.

In Karnataka, the victory of the Congress in the recent Assembly poll has brought favours to the State leaders with Mallikarjun Kharge getting the plum Railway portfolio and Oscar Fernandes being inducted as another Cabinet minister. M. Veerappa Moily and K. Rahman Khan are the other Cabinet ministers. From Karnataka, the Congress has seven members in the Lok Sabha and three in the Rajya Sabha and five of them, including K.H. Muniyappa, are already inducted into the Cabinet.

As the Congress prepares for the 16th Lok Sabha poll, indications are that it is depending too much on the southern States. Kerala is not lagging behind as seven of its MPs are in the Cabinet. Besides, one berth has been given to its ally, the Muslim League (E. Ahamed). While A.K. Antony and Vayalar Ravi are enjoying the Cabinet rank, K.V. Thomas is the MoS with independent charge. Mullapally Ramachandran, K.C. Venugopal, E. Ahamed, Shashi Tharoor and K. Suresh are the MoS.

In Kerala, there are 13 Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha members from the Congress. The Kerala Congress (Mani) group has one member in both the Houses and the IUML has two members in the Lower House. Both the IUML and the KC(M) are the allies of the party in Kerala.

Puducherry is represented by MoS V. Narayanasamy.

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Inter-State athletics meet at Chennai

The four-day inter-State athletics meet held at the newly-renovated Nehru Stadium in Chennai had a lot riding on the athletes. The inter-State championship will be the “final selection trials” for the Asian meet to be held in Pune in July this year. The top three will receive a berth at the event. Defending champion Kerala is most likely to clinch the overall team (men and women) title, while there is going to be a tough fight for second place between host Tamil Nadu and Haryana. This is the ninth time an inter-State meet is being held in Chennai.

Team Championship:-

Place	Men	Women	Overall
I	Tamil Nadu – 79 points	Kerala – 112.5 points	Kerala – 172.5 points
II	Haryana – 63.5 points	Tamil Nadu – 68.5 points	Tamil Nadu – 147.5 points

Best Athletes:-

Men:

Renjith Maheshwary (Tamil Nadu) – Triple Jump

 The 27-year-old rewrote his own record (16.73m) set four years back. With the jump (16.98m), Renjith also qualified for the World Championship to be held in Moscow with the ‘B’ standard mark for the worlds being 16.85m

Women:

Sudha Singh (Uttar Pradesh) – 3000m steeplechase

She also qualified for the World Championship to be held in Moscow.

Renjith Maheshwary (Tamil Nadu) – Triple Jump The 27-year-old rewrote his own record (16.73m) set four years back. With the jump (16.98m), Renjith also qualified for the World Championship to be held in Moscow with the ‘B’ standard mark for the worlds being 16.85m

Saudi's "nitaqat" policy and India's connection

Is there a genuine likelihood of huge job cuts or is it just a media-fuelled fear psychosis? Many in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh—the two southern states that form the bulk of the two million Indian workforce in Saudi Arabia—have expressed concern that Riyadh’s ‘nitaqat’ policy may lead to large-scale layoffs of Indians employed in the Gulf country. Kerala was, in particular, on tenterhooks. As the first of the deported Malayalis arrived at Kozhikode airport, the state expectedly went into a near-hys­teria. This, even as it is unclear exa­ctly how many workers will be affected. 

However, ask MEA officials and former Indian diplomats and they insist it’s all an over-reaction. “There is abs­o­lutely no threat to Indians working in Saudi Arabia. Hardly anyone will be affected by this policy,” says Talmiz Ahmad, a former ambassador to Riyadh. Of the two million Indians employed in the country, over 70 per cent are blue-collar workers, while the rest are professionals working in the financial, energy, medical and education sectors. Talmiz Ahmad, Ex-Diplomat says that, there’s no threat to the Indians working in Saudi Arabia. Hardly anyone is likely to be affected by this policy. 

Nitaqat was adopted by the Saudis three years back to ensure that their burgeoning youth population got emp­loyment with the private sector in the country. The Saudi government is now looking to expand nitaqat to medium- and small-scale enterprises in the cou­ntry. Under the policy, Saudi nati­onals have to be employed in a 1:10 ratio at the various enterprises that operate in Saudi Arabia, which means every 10th worker has to be a local.

The Roll Call

v     ‘Nitaqat’ introduced to encourage the employment of Saudi nationals in the private sector

v     Saudi firms are graded as White, Green, Yellow and Red. The Red category is least nitaqat-compliant and faces fines, staff restrictions.

v     Some 100-odd people deported back to India under the new law

v     Panic in Kerala’s Malappuram, the highest exporter of migrants (about 2 lakh) to Saudi Arabia.

v     Indian government surprised over the strong reaction to nitaqat, says there will be very limited impact on Indian workers

***

Try telling that to the residents of Malappuram district, which has nearly 2 lakh workers in Saudi Arabia. “The picture we get is that Keralites will not be affected too badly, but about 5-10 per cent may get deported,” says Kamal Varadoor, news editor at the Chandrika newspaper in Kozhikode. A majority of Malappuram’s migrants in Saudi run small general stores, cafeterias, vegetable shops, hotels—mostly ‘sponsored’ by an Arab (but not run by him). The worry is that these establishments may not be able to enforce the programme and may have to wind up. Their workers are the most likely to be affected.

 Local MLA P. Ubaidulla tries to play down these fears. Less than a hundred people have returned. The central government is in touch with its Saudi counterpart to ensure that any resident on an illegal or ‘free visa’ can make proper documents. The state will bear all expenses if they are ever deported. The Centre is in touch with the Saudis to ensure that any resident on a ‘free visa’ can get proper documents – says Mr. P. Ubaidulla, Malappuram MLA

Clearly, when the law gets impleme­nted more stringently, as it is slated to be, migrants without pro­per docum­e­nts will be at the receiving end. There are a number of Keralites hanging out in Saudi on what is called a ‘free visa’. The law very clearly says that foreigners should work only under the Arab sponsor that brought them into the country and only engage in the profession that is cited in the papers. Many of the Malayalis and other Indians move to better jobs once they get here but this renders their stay illegal. “There is nothing called a ‘free visa’ in Saudi. It is a visa business that has been created by Indians,” says Ashraf Venghat, general secretary of the Kerala Muslims Cultural Centre, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is one of the richest cou­ntries in the world and its government can easily pay for the younger generation, large numbers of whom are unemployed, by giving them allowances. But under nitaqat, companies are being asked to recruit and train Saudi nat­ionals—as an incentive the governm­ent picks up their salary in the first year. By the second year, the Saudi government feels their youth will be trained enough to work on their own steam.

Of course, there’s a strong political logic to this—if Saudi Arabia has to evo­lve as a modern nation, it cannot have a large number of its own people living only on government subsidies while much of the running of  industry and business are left in the hands of outsiders. Also, as the state well knows, a young Saudi who remains outside the job market and spends most of his time sitting at home is more susceptible to extremist propaganda, may even take an active interest in trying to destabilise the existing political structure.

The Malayalis are well-networked and they’ll use every connection, whether family or political, to stay on in the Gulf – says Mr. S. Irudaya Rajan, Centre For Development Studies.          

In the past, the Saudi royals have faced serious threats from home-gr­own extremists and terrorists, of whom Osama Bin Laden was the most prominent. Coupled with this has been the fear of the ‘Arab Spring’ virus, which led to regime changes in many of the countries in the region. “Much of what is being done by the Saudis is to ensure a better, equitable future for their youth. It is not being done at the cost of the Indians working there,” a senior MEA official told Outlook.

S. Irudaya Rajan, of the Centre for Development Studies, who has for long studied migration from Kerala, says the impact will be minimal. More Mala­y­alis have graduated from the unskil­led to the skilled segments, he feels. But it’s not the unskilled worker or the highly skilled worker who’ll be aff­e­cted by nita­qat—Saudis are unwilling to do menial jobs, and aren’t always highly qualified—but the mid-level worker. There’s also a herd dyna­mic at play. “The Malayali has been in the Gulf for over 40 years, unlike the newer migrants from UP or Rajasthan. The Malayalis are well-networked and they will use every connection, whet­her family or political, to stay on in the Gulf,” says Rajan. Suddenly that hard-earned balance in the ecosystem looks fragile.

GI tags

The trademarks and geographical indication (GI) authorities awarded the unique tag to 21 products after a spurt in applications for the special status in the first three months of the year.

The six Tamil Nadu items granted the tag are Madurai malli (jasmine), Pattamadai pai (mat), Nachiarkoil kuthuvilakku (lamp), Toda embroidery, Thanjavur veena and Chettinad kottan (palmyra basketry).

Traditional items from outside the state accorded the status include Mangalagiri saris and fabrics from Andhra Pradesh, Narayanpet handloom saris and Bangalore blue grapes from Karnataka and Agra durrie (carpet), Farrukhabad prints,Lucknow zardozi (embroidery, especially with gold or silver), and shuttlewoven Banaras brocades and saris from Uttar Pradesh. Mexican alcoholic beverage tequila was also accorded the status on an application in the Chennai GI office.

Karnataka, with 32, tops the list for products granted the GI tag so far and is followed by Tamil Nadu (24), Andhra Pradesh (22) and Kerala (20).

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GI tag for Nachiarkoil Lamps....