Kovind completes 100 days as president

New Delhi: Efficient management of time and speedy decision-making have been the focus of President Ram Nath Kovind who completed 100 days in office today, according to officials of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Kovind, who took over on July 25 as the 14th president, has also sought to reach out to the states, which form a crucial part of the federal structure of the country, by undertaking visits there.

He has already visited several states and the target is to cover almost all the states by the year-end, the officials told PTI. The states which Kovind visited included those ruled by non-NDA parties, like Karnataka and Kerala, they pointed out, seeking to underline that the president was being non-partisan as he ought to be. In fact, he travelled to Kerala twice.

In some states, the president travelled to rural and interior areas, the officials said. But in all these travels, he mostly did not stay overnight and returned the same evening, as part of his thrust on efficient time management, the officials said. As president, Kovind also undertook his first foreign visit to Djibouti and Ethiopia from October 3 to 6.

“It was a tightly-packed visit involving lot of travel and no rest,” an official said. The officials said Kovind has also ensured speedy decision-making. Giving an example, they said the waiting time for presentation of credentials by foreign ambassadors and high commissioners has been reduced to the maximum of two to three weeks, which earlier used to be up to months.

So far, he has received credentials from 12 ambassadors and high commissioners, including the Russian ambassador and the Pakistan high commissioner, the officials said. Kovind is also making the Rashtrapati Bhavan more accessible to the public. One of the steps taken in this direction is making the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s library accessible to common people online.

Recently, the Rashtrapati Bhavan also became a venue for the culmination of Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s ‘Bharat Yatra’, a movement to spread awareness about child abuse and trafficking. A highlight of the event was a special gesture by the president to make a Dalit girl sit next to him. This gesture touched Satyarthi and he recorded it in hand-written letter to Kovind, the officials said.