Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'All the Best, Mr. Modi!!!' that was published in Newsband

All the Best, Mr. Modi!!!

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with 57 Ministers, took oath of office at a grand swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan on Thursday. BJP chief Amit Shah finally deciding to join the Union government, and former Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar making a surprise entry into the Union Cabinet, among the top 10 Ministers. Former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also opted out.

Other notable exclusions were former Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, former Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi (making it possibly the first time that no Gandhi on either side is in government), former Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, former Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, and former Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.

In all, the council of ministers saw representation from 22 States, and an attempt to balance caste and regional equations. Tribal, minority and backward and upper caste representation found place in the coveted list. Women accounted for six out of the 58 berths, with three Cabinet nods for Nirmala Sitharaman, Harsimrat Badal of the Akali Dal and Smriti Irani. There were representation from Dalit communities. Another good move was picking up of Pratap Sarangi who won from Balasore in Odisha and whose almost fairy tale like story of forging a political life while living in near poverty captured the imagination of the country.

A very appropriate and intelligent selection of Ministers in the cabinet and the results will be seen during the tenure of BJP under Modi. Jana Sangh has come a long way as a party and now has absolute majority in the Indian Parliament as BJP. A great success story under Prime Minister Modi.

Best wishes to the New Goverment of India to perform even better than its first tenure from 14 to 19. They need to concentrate on providing better living conditions to all citizens irrespective of cat, creed and religion. Hoping that next five years are going to be good for us. Government and citizens should work together to improve the living standards of millions by removing poverty.

The left out MPs of all NDA collision parties should first work at the grass root level in their Parliamentary constituencies to get the good will of Farmers, uplift the poverty ridden people, provide minimum water availability in rural villages etc. The villages are still in a poor state particularly in West Bengal, Orissa, AP, Telengana, Chhattisgarh, MP where vast scope is there for development. Vast rivers are flowing through these States. Still their living conditions were not taken care of in the last seventy years. The most excellent Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj during her tenure did wonders. We will not hear her wonderful speeches in Parliament. She should become an advisor to the present government. Regarding Sri Arun Jaitley as Finance Minister really did wonders. Demonetisation and GST are the excellent works of Jaitley. Even so many Intelligents, Economists, IITians turned Economists were not able to understand and touch the pulse of Finance Minister. Congratulations to Sri Arun Jaitley. We will not hear again his quality speeches.

The Opposition may kindly be requested to play a Constructive and Positive role to keep the confidence of the people.

Wishing the New Government a happy Success in their Second tenure duly taking into consideration the upliftment of poor and unemployment at the lower level. Good to see that new leaders have got the golden opportunity to exhibit their experiences. Now this is a time to set goals for the development of nation. The average age of this council of ministers is possibly the lowest in the history of independent India. It will be Modi's responsibility to handle this inexperienced team and groom them for the future. In the process, the nation and the NDA might get a few outstanding leaders and administrators.

Lastly, Jaishankar's inclusion comes as a surprise. He was a brilliant diplomat throughout. Hope his abilities will be put to good use by the government.