Jaitley, Azad, Yechury, Owaisi part of all-party delegation

Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Jitendra Singh will be part of an all-party delegation led by Home Minister Rajnath Singh which will also comprise Leader of Opposition Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and his Lok Sabha colleague Mallikarjun Kharge.

The delegation, visiting the Valley due to protests in the aftermath of the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani, will have 28 parliamentarians which include Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan (LJP) and Congress leader Ambika Soni.
The visit will take place on September 4 and 5.

The delegation will also comprise JD-U leader Sharad Yadav, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI leader D Raja, NCP's Tariq Anwar and Trinamool Congress' Saugata Roy.

The decision to send the all-party delegation was taken during an all-party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month.

The Kashmir Valley has seen possibly the longest spell of protests for 54 days in which 69 people have lost their lives so far.

Other members of the delegation include Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut and Anandrao Adsul, TDP's Thota Narasimham, Shiromani Akali Dal's Prem Singh Chandumajra, BJD's Dilip Tirkey, AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi, AIUDF's Badaruddin Ajmal, Muslim League's E Ahamed and TRS Jitendra Reddy.

N K Premchandran (RSP), P Venugopal (AIADMK), Tiruchi Siva (DMK), Y B Subba (YSR-Cong), Jaiprakash Yadav (RJD), Dharamveer Gandhi (AAP) and Dushyant Chautala (RLD) are also in the team.

BSP and Samajwadi Party have extended their support but have not been able to nominate any of their members.

On inflation, Rajan said he was hopeful that inflation would fall below 6 per cent, a level that was breached in the previous month, while adding that the data should be awaited for August -- the last full month of his tenure.

Asked if he had intolerance within BJP and Sangh Pariwar in mind when he made the controversial speech at IIT-Delhi in October last year, Rajan said, "No. I had the environment certainly at the back of mind where there was a discussion certainly about tolerance."

"It was a topical issue," he said. "But a week after I gave the speech, I met a Cabinet minister who said I have been saying exactly these things. So it wasn't as if it was 'anti government'. Which government is going to preach intolerance?" he said.
Rajan appeared to blame the social media for taking away from speeches "what it wants to hear."

"I think the way the speeches are sometimes interpreted, when you read the speeches it comes out the way the criticism appears," he said.

Stating that the reporting of the speech was that it was an anti-government speech about intolerance, he said, "The actual content of the speech is a plea for tolerance because it is in the best tradition of India and continuation of tradition into the future. It was not about saying we have a intolerant environment. It was a plea for continuing our tradition."

He however did not agree with the question about his speech being misquoted and said communication is a continuous process and often ideas have to be repeated and re-emphasised.

Rajan said he did not talk about "rising tide of intolerance".

"I talked about need for tolerance going forward if you were to have an economy based on ideas, based on engagement, based on dialogues and that was in a speech at the IIT Delhi convocation.

"When you are talking to young minds, and you are trying to tell them about a future we want to aspire to, you draw on a history of tolerance in the past and you tell them this is where we should be and this is where we should be going," he said.
The Governor said in his opinion that speech was not "stepping out of bounds."

"I think that is the legitimate duty, in fact the moral responsibility, of the public figure who has the attention of young minds, to tell them this is what good citizenship is about, this is where we should be going.

"I have absolutely no regrets about saying it. If people think that was a criticism of the government, I think they should revisit what is in that speech and what any government would say about what its moral duty is," he said.

Stating that in such lectures one talks about topical issues, he said, "but you engage in a way which is apolitical, which is about the best interest in our democracy and I think that is absolutely legitimate."

On his post-retirement plans, Rajan said he is going to take a break from public speaking for some time as it was important for his successor Urjit Patel at RBI to get some space.

"So when I move out, I will stay out for a little while," he said.

"I actually want to learn a little more about certain aspects of the country and travel around a little bit... I will pop back in. I will work with informal structure... This is an exciting, vibrant, large, immensely interesting country and there is absolutely no reason why I should stay out."

On advise to his successor, he said Patel is a grown-up man and knows how to do things and has also been handling some of the relationships with the government for some time.

"And I have confidence. He will manage it going forward. So I have no advice that will be of any use to him. I have briefed on all the issues we are dealing with, but he has his own mind," he said.