Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is going to apply the soft touch to tell his ministers he's keeping an eye on them.
On November 1, he is hosting a dinner for all his 63 ministerial colleagues, who will be encouraged -- over soup and shorba -- to talk about their work, the problems they may be facing and the disputes they may have with each other, if any.
The dinner will be an informal stock-taking of the implementation of the national common minimum programme. The prime minister has not met his ministers together since the last Parliament session. So this meeting will also be an occasion for the prime minister to get to know his ministerial colleagues.
The agenda will be freewheeling because the prime minister's managers realise that it might not be possible to have a structured discussion with 63 people present. It is not yet known whether Congress chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will be an invitee.
Fighting communalism and terrorism, insurgency in the north-east, measures against black money, political and job reservations, autonomy to public sector enterprises and the reconstitution of the National Integration Council are said to be some of the issues likely to be discussed.
The home ministry has already reported that a model comprehensive law to deal with communal violence may be introduced in Parliament in March 2005.
The government also plans to constitute a new commission shortly to review centre-state relations, over two decades after an analysis by the Sarkaria Commission. The inter-state council secretariat was being strengthened and a draft concept paper on good governance was being prepared.
Although the prime minister monitors the national common minimum programme on a fortnightly basis and calls ministers whose work may be slipping, this will be the first occasion -- after the 100-day celebrations of the government -- when Singh will hold informal discussions with all his colleagues about their work.
He is likely to encourage ministers to speak their minds and come up with new ideas that could be used to make the national common minimum programme more imaginative.
For instance, the prime minister has already approved the reconstitution of the National Integration Council. The home ministry has been advised to convene the meeting of the reconstituted council in November.
The finance ministry has been told to take action on the Shankar Acharya report on black money. The department of public enterprises has submitted an action plan for devolving managerial and commercial autonomy to successful public sector companies.
