Chidambaram to head reconstituted panel of Inter-State Council

The Standing Committee of the Inter-State Council has been reconstituted with Home Minister P Chidambaram as chairman and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and nine Chief Ministers, including Tamil Nadu's J Jayalalithaa and Gujarat's Narendra Modi, as members.

A number of Union Ministers belonging to Congress allies in the UPA have also been given representation in the Committee which was reconstituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Apart from Mukherjee, other Union Ministers in the committee are Sharad Pawar (Agriculture), M Veerappa Moily (Corporate Affairs), M K Alagiri (Chemicals and Fertilisers), Salman Khurshid (Law) and Mukul Roy (Railways).

Besides Jayalalitha and Modi, other Chief Ministers who are part of the Committee are Akhilesh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), Oommen Chandy (Kerala), Lal Thanhawla (Mizoram) and Manik Sarkar (Tripura).