Guwahati: The seventh Governing Council meeting of Niti Aayog took place in the nation’s capital’s Rashtrapati Bhawan Cultural Center on Sunday.
The meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It would be the couple’s first meeting in person since July 2019.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma travelled to New Delhi’s Assam Bhavan on Saturday in order to attend the meeting.
The summit was open to the chief ministers of all the states and union territories.
However, the meeting was not attended by Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar, MPs from the Union Territories, Lt. Governors of UTs, Ex-Officio Members, Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, Full-Time Members of NITI Aayog, and Union Ministers as Special Invitees.
Crop diversification, achieving self-sufficiency in oilseeds, pulses, and agri-communities, execution of the National Education Policy for K–12 and higher education, and urban governance are on the agenda for the meeting.
As India is going to celebrate its 75th Independence Day, an official statement said, it is the need of the hour foe the states to be active, strong and self-reliant and move towards ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ in a spirit of cooperative federalism.
“The meeting would also lay emphasis on the importance of the Presidency for India for the federal system and the role that states can play in highlighting their progress at the G-20 Platform,” the official statement added.
Telangana CM boycotted the meeting and said in a letter to PM Modi, “I do not find it useful to attend the 7th Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog scheduled to be held on August 7 and I am staying away from it as a mark of strong protest against the present trend of the Central Govt to discriminate against the states and not treating them as equal partners in our collective efforts to make India a strong and developed country.”