HANGOUT BOUNCES BACK

Planning Commission's attempt to reach out to netizens through Google Hangout ended on a sour note, with one of its members Syeda Hameed complaining about the absence of persons belonging to minority communities and SC/ST on the programme. "I want to say that this is a very elite medium, neither ...a scheduled caste nor a scheduled tribe, nor minorities and only one question came in about a challenge people facing...," she said towards the end the one-hour programme. She insisted on registering her protest even after Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and National Innovation Council (NIC) Chairman Sam Pitroda gave their concluding remarks and vote of thanks. When other Commission officials hinted that the programme is over, she went to fellow Member Abhijit Sen and insisted on lodging her protest. "No we are still alive. Are we dead now?," she was heard saying. During the discussions, Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw suggested that the Commission should come out with annual assessment report on whether the government is meeting the targets set in a Five-Year Plan. Ahluwalia disposed the proposal saying that this cannot be done because of the data lag and the Commission does a mid-term review of every Five-year Plan to make an assessment about the progress of the half decade long policy.According Ahluwalia, the annual assessment can be done by the budget document which is tabled in Parliament every year. Participating in the discussion, Minister of State for Planning Rajeev Shukla suggested that the Gram Panchayat's should suggest works under rural employment guarantee other than digging trench or making a check dam.Sarpach of Kanpura in Ajmer district of Rajasthan Jagdish Bairwa was of the view that the MNREGA funds can be used for other necessary infrastructure like roads.Later, National Knowledge Commission Chairman Sam Pitroda announced a two-day long schedule on April 6-7 where a lot of young people would be given a chance to create visualisation, short films and innovate new applications based on the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). The website for getting more information about it available on www.data.gov.in/hackathone. Hackathon is an event in which computer programmers and others in the field of software development, like graphic designers, interface designers and project managers collaborate intensively on software projects.The hangout was moderated by Vikram Chandra. The others panelists were Member of Parliament (BJD) Jay Panda and Executive Director, National Foundation for India Amitabh Behar. The other members of Commission including B K Chaturvedi, Narendra Jadhav and Arun Maira, also responded to queries on their respective subjects.