india

Updated: Nov 06, 2019 02:06 IST

The Centre has reconstituted the membership of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Society headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The most prominent induction is of Union home minister Amit Shah , and while there are significant changes in the body with the overall number of members being reduced from to 28 from 34, no member of the Congress party is on the society.

The outgoing members had three Congress members, Karan Singh, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Jairam Ramesh. Ramesh was part of it as a representative of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund. There is a slot reserved for a representative of the fund this time also, and HT learns Congress President Sonia Gandhi will decide who that will be.

To be sure, there are other changes as well.

There are 14 new names among the members although some of this is also on account of new ministers being in charge of some cabinet portfolios.

The tenure of the members will be for a period of five years.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, I&B minister Prakash Javadekar, MoS external affairs V Muraleedharan, and culture minister Prahlad Patel are some of the new members.

Other new additions include policy researcher Anirban Ganguly, academics Kapil Kapoor and Kamlesh Joshipura, journalist Rajat Sharma, writer Kishore Makwana, adman and lyricist Prasoon Joshi, researcher Rizwan Kadri, and Sachidannand Joshi who is part of the Society as member secretary of the Indira Gandhi National Centre of the Arts.

Vinay Sahasrabudhe, chairman of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, MP Swapan Dasgupta, Ram Bahadur Rai, President of IGNCA, Prasar Bharti chairman A Surya Prakash, and Prof Lokesh Chandra, who is the chairman of NMML’s executive council continue to be part of the society.

Secretaries of the finance ministry’s department of expenditure, urban development ministry, culture ministry and the chairman of the University Grants Commission as well as NMML Director are part of the Society’s composition.

After the tenure of Shakti Sinha, former private secretary to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, ended in October this year, he was replaced by former culture secretary Raghvendra Singh, who was brought back as CEO of Development of Museums and Cultural Spaces.

By default, he is also the director of NMML and will oversee the Prime Minister’s museum that is being developed.