Mamata begins second term as West Bengal chief minister

Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee was yesterday sworn in for a second consecutive term as West Bengal chief minister at a grand public ceremony witnessed by thousands of supporters as well as eminent personalities.
Attired in a simple white sari and white stole, Banerjee was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi in a ceremony held at the city’s historic Indira Gandhi Sarani (Red Road), a wide boulevard that bisects the Maidan.
Banerjee, the state’s eighth chief minister and the first woman to occupy the post, took her oath in Bengali. Along with the chief minister, 41 other ministers were also sworn in.
The ministerial council has 18 fresh faces, including former Indian cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, city mayor Sovan Chatterjee, noted Bengali singer Indranil Sen, veteran Trinamool leader Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, and Marxist-turned Trinamool lawmaker Abdur Rezzak Mollah.
Twenty-eight of the ministers were of cabinet rank, five ministers of state (independent charge) and eight ministers of state.
Chatterjee, Chattopadhyay and Mollah got cabinet berths, while Shukla and Sen were made ministers of state.
Three of the ministers are women, seven belong to the Muslim community, while the Scheduled Caste and tribe communities also got several representatives.
Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay and Joardar were the first group of ministers to be administered the oath by the governor after the chief minister. The other ministers were then sworn in in batches. A number of them were seen touching Banerjee’s feet after taking oath.
All the ministers took their oath in Bengali, except Golam Rabbani, who preferred Hindi.
Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay was among the guests who graced the occasion as well as Bangladesh Industry Minister Amir Hossain Amu. Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Babul Supriyo were present as well as chief ministers -- Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, Akhilesh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar’s Nitish Kumar. Former chief ministers -- Jammu and Kashmir’s Farooq Abdullah and Bihar’s Lalu Prasad were also present.
Ex Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, leading figures from the Bengali film industry, frontline industrialists of the state, members of the diplomatic corps also attended the function.
Thousands of people braving the intense heat assembled to watch Didi (elder sister - as Banerjee is fondly called) begin her second innings at the helm of the state.

Abdullah’s phone use during anthem flayed
A video of Jammu and Kashmir’s former chief minister Farooq Abdullah talking on the phone while the national anthem was being played yesterday at the oath-taking ceremony of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee grabbed eye balls on social media. In the nearly-one minute video doing the rounds on microblogging site Twitter, Abdullah is seen with the phone clutched to his ear and speaking while the national anthem is on Netizens slammed the veteran leader. Some dubbed Abdullah’s phone talk “really shameful”.