Hamid Ansari to visit Morocco and Tunisia

Vice-President Hamid Ansari will begin a five-day visit to Morocco and Tunisia from May 30 (Monday), along with a parliamentary delegation. India has economic ties with both countries.

Tunisia has Indian investments in the phosphate sector. During the visit, further cooperation in various areas will be discussed. Apart from meeting the Tunis President and Prime Minister, Ansari will address the legislature, will deliver an address to the Tunisian diplomatic corps, and to leading scholars, and think tanks at the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies.

Education panel report may be made public

The T S R Subramanian committee, entrusted with preparing a new education policy for India, has submitted the report to the government, the human resource development ministry has said. The report may be made public this week.

The new education policy comes after almost three decades. The human resource development (HRD) ministry did not reveal the content but it is believed to have provided solutions to several challenges of the sector, including quality in both school and higher education, employability challenge, regulation of private education, internationalisation of higher education and a possible restructuring of the regulators like the University Grants Commission and All India Council of Technical Education.

Rawat to appear before CBI again

Harish Rawat, newly restored chief minister of Uttarakhand, will appear before the Central Bureau of Investigation for a second time this week. The CM is undergoing an investigation following a sting operation, that allegedly revealed he was ready to pay bribes to win MLAs in the floor test he underwent last month in the legislature.

Sources in the agency claim that Rawat could not "furnish full and complete details" on many issues, and has been called again. This was countered by Rawat, who said, he had fully cooperated with the CBI. "I need not produce any evidence. I have neither done any horse trading, nor given any money to anyone. I never said I want MLAs," he said.

Minor Union Cabinet reshuffle on the cards

Will a Cabinet reshuffle take place this week? The word is that it will be a small one and not involve any of the top ministers - Sarbananda Sonowal will be replaced after he became Chief Minister of Assam and Vijay Sampla will quit the social justice and empowerment minister to lead the Bhartiya Janta Party's campaign in Punjab. A race for these jobs has already started in the BJP.

In parallel, there is another race - for the remaining nominated Rajya Sabha seat that was turned down by Pranav Pandya of the Gayatri Parivar. All these announcements are expected to be made before the Prime Minister leaves for the US next week.

Panchayat polls in Bihar to conclude this week

The interminable panchayat elections in Bihar will conclude this week. Today will be the last set of elections in a process that began in February. As these elections are conducted by the state election commission, the impartiality of the election is seen to be dubious, but at least there has been minimal violence in the elections and the Janata Dal United-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance is expected to bag a majority of the panchayats. Counting has been on alongside and a final figure will be available after the last phase of polling.