Overview

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been named chair of all three committees constituted to mark Patel’s and Birsa Munda’s 150th birth anniversaries and Vajpayee’s birth centenary.
• The Ministry of Culture formalised the panels through gazette notifications issued on August 23 and August 25.
• Each committee has more than 100 members, with reported names including former presidents Pratibha Patil and Ram Nath Kovind, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, and former prime minister H. D. Deve Gowda.
• The rosters also include 19 chief ministers, several governors and lieutenant-governors, and around 22 Union ministers such as Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman, J. P. Nadda and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
• According to the notifications, the panels will approve policies and programmes, guide the commemorations and decide key dates, with recommendations to be implemented subject to existing government rules.