K.R. Narayanan elected President

The Vice-President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan, was on Thursday elected the first Dalit President in 50 years of independent India, defeating the former Chief Election Commissioner, Mr. T.N. Seshan, in a highly one-sided election. Mr. Narayanan, who will turn 77 in October, polled the highest-ever votes in all the Presidential elections so far by securing 91.4 per cent of the votes polled, with a vote value of 9,56,290, as a result of support from virtually the entire political spectrum. He got the support of 4,231 in an electoral college with an effective strength of 4,833 in Parliament and 27 Assemblies under a system of proportional representation.

‘Omnibus guarantee’on the cards

The Government is considering a proposal to institute a system of providing an ‘omnibus guarantee’ for projects coming up in the infrastructure sector, which would do away with the need of going into the details of each project individually. For the power sector, the Government is also considering the replacement of the system of counter-guarantees with a less time-consuming process. The issues are to be discussed at the forthcoming industry-Government meeting on infrastructure to be chaired by the Prime Minister, Mr. I.K. Gujral, scheduled for July 22.

29% devolution accepted

The Finance Minister, Mr. Chidambaram, on Thursday said the Centre had accepted the Tenth Finance Commission’s (TFC) recommendation to devolve 29 per cent of gross Central tax revenues to the States. Intervening during the course of the meeting of the Inter-State Council here, Mr. Chidambaram said the Government had decided to implement the recommendation following endorsement of the same by the Parliamentary Standing Committee.