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Tytler may have to get a new position..


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And our public outcries over Tytler being in the NRI Ministry have been heard.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/article...show/760828.cms

NEW DELHI: Is the hyped new ministry for NRIs a still-born? Manmohan Singh’s government is under pressure to change parentage forthwith and minister-for-a-month Jagdish Tytler may well be shifted.

Sources say the first ever NRI minister is likely to find himself with another portfolio in the first minor Cabinet restructuring scheduled soon – perhaps the food processing ministry.

The minister himself is believed to have opined in private that he will not be allowed to continue for long, though his reasoning is that the NRI ministry in its final avatar will be so important, bigger fish will eye it.

Actually, it is the past catching up with Tytler, whose alleged role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in New Delhi is now being raked up by political opponents in Punjab, with reverberations all around the globe.

The Sikh community makes up a hefty chunk of NRIs and PIOs and is also very closely knit. Ever since the setting up of the new ministry was announced with the veteran Congressman as minister, leading Sikh Diaspora groups have expressed disquiet.

Prominent US-based academic Dr I J Singh wrote recently: "Manmohan Singh heads a minority government and some disappointing compromises are inevitable. I noticed that, for example, his new government has nominated Jagdish Tytler as a minister. Tytler’s claim to fame is that he is widely known as one of the architects of the killings of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984."

Forme

r Canadian minister Herb Dhaliwal, a pillar of the overseas Indian community, was in the Capital recently and expressed similar views.

Government sources said there had also been several missives from abroad threatening protests and boycott of Tytler when he went a-visiting.

That could be extremely embarrassing for a minister appointed especially to look into NRI affairs.

Fanning the spreading fire is the Overseas Friends of the BJP, a large and organised organisation that has indicated it will support Sikh groups in their anti-Tytler stance. Events in India will also keep the momentum going.

The Akali Dal has said it will boycott Tytler at every stage. In Amritsar, the jathedar of the Akal Takht, Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti, has summoned the president of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, Prahlad Singh Chandok, to appear before high priests and clarify why he honoured Tytler recently.

The minister, however, emphatically denies that there is any opposition to him in the overseas Indian community. "I have not received a single complaint on this. Sikh leaders from London, US, other places have already come and met me or written letters that they are happy. The boycott is political. I still say today, there is no complaint, no FIR.

"Even if they can say that I was directly or indirectly involved I will resign today. Do you know that I won my election because of the support of Sikhs in my constituency?" asked Tytler while talking to Timesofindia.com .

He can ill-afford such problems. The ministry, diaspora experts point out, was clearly announced in a hurry without much thought being given to it. Even the name is misleading – it does not seem to include PIOs, a much bigger component of Indians overseas than the NRIs. Less than a month since conception, and teething problems have already begun.

There is the process of severing the umbilical cord with the Ministry of External Affairs cleanly and operate without stepping on the toes of Exter

nal Affairs Minister Natwar Singh. The new ministry is operating out of temporary offices in the South Block, waiting to shift to two floors at the Akbar Hotel complex.

The minister also envisages trouble once agenda for the new ministry is set as other ministers will be loath to part with responsibilities and powers that have hitherto rested with their ministries.

"To make the NRI affairs ministry effective, anything to do with NRIs will have to be shifted here," an official pointed out. The silver lining is that most of ministries that deal with NRI affairs - like home, finance, commerce and external affairs - are held by Congressmen and a diktat from 10 Janpath would smooth things.

Then, while NRI affairs was a pet project for the BJP – as it is for Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh – the previous government did not envisage a separate ministry.

Most of the spade work on the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas and other NRI-related initiatives were looked into by a high-level committee, with only one prominent government representative in Passport, Consular and Diaspora Secretary JC Sharma.

Sharma will the Secretary in Tytler’s ministry, but is due to retire at the end of next month. After that, an entirely new and largely clueless team will helm the PBD and other NRI-related issues.

That is for later. For now the spanking new ministry may well see its second minister soon.

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Rejoice! We win again :wub:

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