Cabinet rejig likely on Sunday; Rahul may get a berth

 A substantive reshuffle in the Union Council of Ministers, which may witness induction of new faces and exit of a few ministers of the UPA government, is expected to take place on Sunday.

According to sources, the much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may see the induction of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi into the Cabinet.

Speculations about the Congress scion joining the government have been rife since Gandhi said in July that he was ready to “play a more proactive role in the party and the government. The decision has been taken, the timing is upto my two bosses — the Congress President and the Prime Minister.”

However, after Gandhi broke his silence amid growing clamour from within the Congress to assume bigger responsibilities there has been no word either from the young leader or party about his joining the government.

Also, another proposal doing the rounds in Congress circles is that Gandhi is more likely to play bigger and proactive role in the party and will be elevated to the post of Working President from being General Secretary.

Highly placed sources also said young MPs considered close to Gandhi, may join the government as junior ministers, while Minister of State Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindhia are expected to be given independent charge.

A section in the UPA government is of the opinion that reshuffle in the Cabinet is required because of the exit of seven TMC ministers, death of Vilasrao Deshmukh and resignations of Pranab Mukherjee, Dayanidhi Maran (DMK), A Raja (DMK) and Shashi Tharoor.
In the reshuffle, which will be last till next general elections, ministers holding multiple portfolios may be relived of some of their ministries.

Ministers who had been holding more than one portfolios are Salman Khurshid (Law and Minority Affairs), Kapil Sibal (HRD and Telecom), Vayalar Ravi (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences and Overseas Indian Affairs), M Veerappa Moily (Power and Corporate Affairs), Anand Sharma (Commerce and Industry and Textiles), Pawan Kumar Bansal (Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources) and Kumari Selja (Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Culture).

National electronic policy okayed

The Cabinet on Thursday approved the National Policy on Electronics 2012, which aims to achieve domestic electronic manufacturing segment into a $400 billion industry and create 28 million jobs by 2020, reports DHNS.

Under the policy, the government has set an objective “to create an eco-system for a globally competitive Electronic System and Design and Manufacturing sector in the country to achieve a turnover of about $ 400 billion by 2020 involving investment of about $ 100 billion.”

The policy also stresses on setting up chip design and embedded software industry to achieve global leadership in Very Large Scale Integration, chip design and other frontier technical areas and to achieve a turnover of $ 55 billion by 2020.

It aims to build a strong supply chain of raw materials, parts and electronic components.