Pak's inviation to Manmohan Singh for Kartarpur corridor stumps Congress

Pak invitation for Manmohan

Congress leaders on Monday said they were intrigued by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s statement that Islamabad would invite former prime minister Manmohan Singh (pictured) for the inaugural ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor in November. Pakistan is scheduled to open the corridor for Indian Sikh pilgrims on November 9. “The Kartarpur corridor inauguration is a big programme and Pakistan is preparing for it in a big way. We have decided to invite India’s former prime minister Manmohan Singh to grace the event... We will send a formal letter to him soon,” Qureshi told Capital TV. He said Singh represented the Sikh community. Singh was born in a village in Punjab province in undivided India but did not visit Pakistan during his 10 years as prime minister. Sources in the Congress said it was strange that the Pakistan foreign minister made a statement on this when such an invite should be routed through the ministry of external affairs.

Going paperless

To make the functioning of the central government paperless, the Cabinet Secretariat has directed all ministries and departments to discontinue the “practice of sending offline progress reports or updates” and “action taken reports (ATRs)” for the eSamikSha portal. Last year, the Cabinet Secretariat had asked all ministries and departments to send regular updates of ATRs to implement the decisions of the cabinet and cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA). It has now said that some of the ministries and departments either do not upload ATRs regularly, or send these in offline/paper form. “Since the implementation of Cabinet/CCEA decisions is now tracked on eSamikSha, this is hampering effective monitoring,” an office memorandum stated. “In particular, the status of several Bills approved by the cabinet has not been updated on eSamikSha, even though they already stand enacted as law, after being passed by Parliament,” the Cabinet Secretariat said.

Attention Parliamentarians

A new solution developed during the Singapore-India Hackathon 2019 in IIT Madras may end up keeping an eye on our Members of Parliament if Prime Minister Narendra Modi sticks to his words. The solution in question is a device that detects who is paying attention during an event/meeting and who isn’t. “I specially like the solution about the cameras that detect who is paying attention. I will talk to my Speaker in the Parliament as I am sure it will be very useful for our Parliamentarians,” said Modi after the event.