Govt open to constructive criticism, says Javadekar
The Narendra Modi government believes in the freedom of press as it is the essence of a healthy democracy and is open to constructive criticism, said Prakash Javadekar, the new minister of state (independent charge) of the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry.
“We believe that press freedom is the essence of democracy. And to make democracy a success, we require this press freedom because it gives people the choice in a rainbow of differing opinions,” Javadekar said.
“There is no external regulation which works in media. Once in 1975, the media freedom was trampled upon but we fought against it. The people fought against it and I personally was very active on this front because I belong to a family of journalists,” he said.
Javadekar said that dissent has its place in democracy and added that the government would welcome constructive criticism. Javadekar said that it is a joint mission to see that India prospers to its potential by 2025 and progresses much further by 2030.
Goyal looks at Gujarat for power solutions
New minister for power, coal and renewable energy, Piyush Goyal, on Tuesday said the synergy among the three ministries with him at the helm reflects the Modi government’s objective to ?de-bottleneck? the sectors.
As a first step towards carrying forward reforms in the power sector, the new minister wants to imbibe the Gujarat model that he said has been successful in reducing power shortages while ensuring uninterrupted supplies in most parts of urban and rural Gujarat.
Taking charge in the coal ministry, Goyal said it was a ?headline-seeking ministry? but quickly added that his role would be to ensure synergy between various wings and bring about transparency in operations.
For the renewable energy sector, the minister again turned to Gujarat suggesting that its success in the field should be replicated.
Modi rushes ministers to UP train crash site
As soon as the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge on Tuesday, the first instructions he gave was to send two ministers to visit the railway mishap site in Gorakhpur where around 25 people were killed in a train collision on Monday.
Minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha and minister for MSME Kalraj Mishra were rushed to the accident site to monitor relief. Railway minister DV Sadanand Gowda, who took charge of the ministry Tuesday evening, immediately called a high-level meet on safety where he was made aware about the safety aspect of the railway operations by the railway board chairman. It is learnt that the new rail minister also updated Modi about the situation and safety concerns of the railways.
