PM's team lacks diversity
Eleven out of nineteen ministers in the PM's team are drawn from Law background, which puts us into a question that is it only lawyers who make good Ministers. In the nineteen member team inducted on 22nd May'09 the following eleven are with law background:
1. Pranab Mukherjee
2. AK Antony
3. P Chidambaram
4. Mamta Banerjee
5. SM Krishna
6. Veerappa Moily
7. Sushil Kumar Shinde
8. Vayalar Ravi
9. Meira Kumar
10. Kapil Sibal
11. Anand Sharma
And its a fact that parliament spends least time in debating the legislatures which can easily be referred to Ministry of law for legal inputs. We actually need more of specialist to handle portfolios then lawyers to participate in debates. A formal education in the specific area of Ministry will be helpful in understanding the key aspects of that Ministry. The same will help in handling the real bottlenecks in the specific area of expertise. Why not a person with specialist education background / experience be inducted as a Minister ? Lets take a few debates:
1. PG from IIFT (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade) or a former Ambassador as Minister of External Affairs
2. A Professor, teacher or an Educationists as Minister of Human Resource Development
3. A former Army Man as Minister of Defense
4.A farmer as Minister of Agriculture
5. A supply chain expert as Minister for Public Distribution
6. An infrastructure specialist as Minister of Railways
7. A Chemical Engineer as Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers
8. A small entrepreneur as Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
9. An industrialist as Minister of Commerce and Industry
10. A sarpanch as Minister of Panchayati Raj
11. A person from North East as Minister of Development of North Eastern Region
12. A Technocrat as Minister of Communications and Information Technology
13. A doctor as Minister of Health & Family Welfare
14. A NRI settled back in India as Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs
15. A management graduate as Minister for Parliamentary Affairs
16.An Engineer as Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
17. A Chartered Accountant as Minister of Corporate Affairs
18. A Scientist as Minister of Science and Technology
19. An Environmentalist as Minister for Environment and Forest
20. A former Bureaucrat as Minister for Personnel
21. A journalist as Minister for I& B
22. A Space Scientist as Minister for Space
23. A statistician as Minister for Statistics & PI
22. An Unemployed Youth as Minister for Labor and Employment
23. A Youth as Minister of Youth Affairs
24. A sports person (non cricketer) as Minister for Sports
23.An Economist as Finance Minister
24. A cine-star (so many of them) as Minister for culture
In any case the diverse the cabinet the more diverse experiences will be captured in the development of country. We must start thinking in terms of diversity beyond representation of States. Any further thoughts on other areas of diversity in Politics and Government.
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