NITI Aayog sub-groups set to present reports

In March, the NITI Aayog had announced the formation of three sub-groups headed by chief ministers (CMs) on three topics: Centrally sponsored schemes, skill development and the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan. The sub-groups were tasked with giving their reports three months after these were notified. The three months will be over in the first week of July and there is a lot of expectation that the new version of the Planning Commission will come up with something radical. In an interesting new take on the process, the notification says no one other than the CM will be able to attend these meetings; in other words, states cannot send bureaucrats instead of the CMs as their representatives. Many CMs have been seriously inconvenienced because of this clause - in fact, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje had to cancel her UK visit to attend a NITI Aayog meeting on Monday.

'Semi-finals' to Bihar polls this week

Biennial elections for 24 seats to the Bihar Legislative Council would be held on July 7. These seats are going to be vacated by retiring members. The results will be out on July 10. The polls will be a test of the Opposition's capacity to induce cross-voting and for the government's powers to prevent it. These elections will set the mood for the October-November election to the state assembly.

Results of polls for some Assembly seats out this week

While all eyes are on the Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu, from where Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is contesting (the results for which will be out on June 30), assembly seats in four other states will also show some political trends. In Tripura, the reserved constituency of Pratapgarh and the Surma constituency will go to polls; others are Chokpot (reserved, ST) in Meghalaya, Aruvikkara in Kerala and Garoth in Madhya Pradesh. Results for all the elections would be out on Tuesday.

CAG lens on roll-out of 4G services

Is fur going to fly on July 15? With four-and-a-half years having passed since the allocation 4G (fourth generation) spectrum, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has asked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to provide the roll-out status of broadband wireless access services by those who got the spectrum. The successful bidders had been given five years' time to roll out 4G services, by July 2015.

The CAG has now written to DoT asking when these services would be rolled out. The companies are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Qualcomm (acquired by Bharti), Tikona, Infotel (now Reliance Jio Infocomm) and Augere. According to the conditions of the auction, all of them have to provide 90 per cent coverage in metro areas, if they have spectrum there, and 50 per cent in rural areas within five years. If a company fails to meet the roll-out conditions, spectrum will be taken back.

Deadline for Iran N-deal draws near

Tuesday is the deadline before which the deal between Iran and the P5 Plus 1 (Germany) on Iran's nuclear programme needs to be hammered out. This is crucial if sanctions on Iran are to be lifted and it will reset the politics of oil. If an agreement is reached - mainly on whether Iran will permit access to military sites; and other issues of timing of access and notice - there will likely be a deal of some sort in place. If not, the deadline will have to be pushed back. All this will have its impact on politics in West Asia and prices of oil.