Ministry of 'Affairs'

Hindi or Urdu translations of some ministerial portfolios are as unintelligible for the constituents of ministers who hail from the Hindi heartland as are the English. According to a former minister, the Urdu translation of civil aviation is shehari hawabazi and of food processing dabbaband khurak (literally, tinned food). The politician has plans for Delhi's Muslim organisations to felicitate some of the new ministers and announce their portfolios in Urdu. The minister says announcing English portfolios at gatherings where neither the announcer nor the audience understands the language comes with its own set of problems. Once, the former minister says, a young supporter wanted to impress the crowd with the number of portfolios that the minister held. "He told the crowd that I handled three portfolios - 'youth' and 'affairs' and 'sports'," he says, adding he didn't mind the "affairs" bit since he was much younger then, but his wife didn't take kindly to him treating it as a joke. The politician was then minister in charge of youth affairs and sports, which despite its long title, is considered a single portfolio.