After reviving Congress, Priyanka Gandhi to don trainer's role for party

After hitting the dusty trail to revive the comatose Congress, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (pictured), general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, is set to don the mantle of a political trainer. Vadra will preside over a training programme for party leaders. The four-day training camp will be held at the Gandhi pocket borough of Rae Bareli from January 16 to 19 with two days each dedicated for the Congress’ district and city presidents from Eastern and Western UP, respectively. These camps aim at preparing the local party leaders to highlight burning issues like the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) effectively among the people and garner support ahead of the forthcoming polls in the state. The first phase of the programme was organised in November last year.

Thanks to no thanks

In an unexpected gesture, the Delhi Police, which usually devise ways to block protests, offered a pick-and-drop service to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students for their protest march from Mandi House to the Shastri Bhawan this past week. The Central Delhi building houses the human resource development ministry. First, the police picked up students in multiple buses from JNU and dropped them till the protest assembling point. However, things returned to square one later in the evening, when the police beat up and detained students when they decided to march till the Rashtrapati Bhawan. But this time, the disgruntled students refused to take the police bus, which was stationed at Connaught Place, to go back to JNU.

Emotional plea

The promoter of one of India’s oldest renewable energy companies and one that has landed in insolvency troubles petitioned the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to assist him in a unique fashion, say sources. He is believed to have told the PMO that many promoters whose companies recently landed in trouble had fled the country and abandoned their companies to ill-fate. But he said as he did not have any personal asset and his company being his only investment, he would not run away. He is also learnt to have said that he would go down with his company but would not flee. This uneasy assurance, however, is veiled in a warning that he might be forced to take an extreme step if banks do not assist him. The pleas have had some impact; banks are trying to salvage the company, latest reports said.