NEW DELHI // The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, reshuffled his cabinet yesterday, partly to fill some vacancies but also to prepare the Congress party for next year's general elections.
Four senior ministers and four junior ministers were sworn in to the Congress-led coalition government yesterday evening by the president, Pranab Mukherjee.
The exercise, said Chintamani Mahapatra, a political scientist with New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, was aimed at projecting a positive image of the government and Congress party, which has been damaged through four scandal-ridden years.
"Given the history of Indian elections, I'd say that the voters' memories are short," Mr Mahapatra said. "If the government can put in place some popular programmes and show the people a cabinet full of new, uncontroversial faces, its chances will be strengthened during the elections."
The new senior ministers are Oscar Fernandes, an old Congress hand; Girija Vyas; KS Rao; and Sis Ram Ola. Mr Fernandes will head the ministry for surface transport and highways, while Ms Vyas will be the minister for housing, urban development and poverty alleviation.
Mr Rao will head the textiles ministry, while Mr Ola will hold the labour and employment portfolio.
Some of the ministerial vacancies in the government had come about because two Congress allies - the Trinamool Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam - quit the coalition in September last year and in March this year, respectively.
In addition, the law minister, Ashwani Kumar, resigned in early May in wake of allegations that he had tampered with a corruption investigation. At the same time, Pawan Kumar Bansal resigned as the railway minister following allegations that he had accepted bribes.
On Sunday, two of the government's senior ministers resigned to focus on working within the Congress party. Ajay Maken had held the housing, urban development and poverty alleviation portfolio, while CP Joshi had temporarily headed the railway ministry in addition to his longer-term position with the ministry for surface transport and highways.
Mr Maken will now head the party's communications cell, while Mr Joshi will tend to the party's affairs in the states of West Bengal and Assam, the Congress spokesman, Janardan Dwivedi, said on Sunday.
Mr Dwivedi also announced a host of new appointments and responsibilities, including 12 new general secretaries, 42 secretaries and other key Congress leaders who would be in charge of the party in various states.
Many of the new appointments are of party leaders seen as close to Rahul Gandhi, the vice president of the Congress and the son of the party president, Sonia Gandhi.
"Led by Rahul Gandhi, this is a young team the Congress has given to the country," Mr Maken said yesterday.
Mr Mahapatra said the restructuring was intended to make the Congress more effective in its election campaign, but also to satisfy as many party leaders as possible.
He noted that the party wished to have its internal structures in place in case it decided to call elections earlier than next May, when they are scheduled.
The government might choose to capitalise on the disarray in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the main opposition coalition. An important NDA member quit the coalition over the weekend because the Bharatiya Janata Party chose Narendra Modi to head its campaign committee.
Mr Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, is widely considered to be a right-wing Hindu nationalist who allowed - and perhaps even encouraged - anti-Muslim riots to break out in his state in 2002.
"Manmohan Singh has said many times that he wants to complete his term," Mr Mahapatra said. "But looking at the recent turmoil in the NDA, I think that if further problems occur in the opposition, then the government may indeed go for early elections."
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
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BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Recent winners
2002 Giselle Khoury (Colombia)
2004 Nathalie Nasralla (France)
2005 Catherine Abboud (Oceania)
2007 Grace Bijjani (Mexico)
2008 Carina El-Keddissi (Brazil)
2009 Sara Mansour (Brazil)
2010 Daniella Rahme (Australia)
2011 Maria Farah (Canada)
2012 Cynthia Moukarzel (Kuwait)
2013 Layla Yarak (Australia)
2014 Lia Saad (UAE)
2015 Cynthia Farah (Australia)
2016 Yosmely Massaad (Venezuela)
2017 Dima Safi (Ivory Coast)
2018 Rachel Younan (Australia)
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
'Brazen'
Director: Monika Mitchell
Starring: Alyssa Milano, Sam Page, Colleen Wheeler
Rating: 3/5
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
Manchester City 4
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Prophets of Rage
(Fantasy Records)
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Test squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Priyank Panchal, Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Shubhman Gill, Rishabh Pant (wk), KS Bharath (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Sourabh Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah.
T20 squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Surya Kumar Yadav, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Deepak Hooda, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Avesh Khan
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final:
First leg: Liverpool 5 Roma 2
Second leg: Wednesday, May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome
TV: BeIN Sports, 10.45pm (UAE)
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Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer
Christopher Celenza,
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RESULT
Bayern Munich 3 Chelsea 2
Bayern: Rafinha (6'), Muller (12', 27')
Chelsea: Alonso (45' 3), Batshuayi (85')
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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Director: Neeraj Pandey
Rating: 2.5/5
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Writers: Walter Mosley
Stars: Samuel L Jackson, Dominique Fishback, Walton Goggins
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Director: M. Night Shyamalan
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