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In Delhi to attend a NITI Aayog meeting on July 27, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said the public policy think tank brought by the Modi government should be scrapped and the Planning Commission should be brought back. Banerjee, who is set to attend the NITI Aayog meeting even as most INDIA bloc chief ministers have decided to give it a miss, said she felt their voices should be raised on a common platform. "They (BJP) have formed the government but they don't have people's mandate. This is the first time after the BJP came in, since 2014, they have not formed the government as a single party. She said that because of their "compulsions", the BJP-ruled NDA has brought a "politically very biased budget" which "deprives" all opposition states. "I thought it is my duty to raise this voice at least on a common platform though I know the NITI Aayog has no financial powers," she said. "Since the NITI Aayog has been planned, I have not seen a single work being done
Economist Abhijit Sen, a former Planning Commission member and one of the country's foremost experts on rural economy, died on Monday night. He was 72. "He suffered a heart attack around 11 PM. We rushed him to the hospital, but it was all over by the time we got there," said Dr Pronab Sen, his brother. In a career spanning more than four decades, Abhijit Sen taught economics at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, and held several important government positions including the chair of the Commission of Agricultural Cost and Prices. He was a member of Planning Commission from 2004 to 2014, when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister.