The draft speech of President Pranab Mukherjee to the joint session of Parliament was given a careful reading by the Union Cabinet yesterday. The Prime Minister had asked the Union Ministers with independent charge also to take part in the discussion, but many did not turn up.

This is how it is supposed to work. Ajit Seth, the Union Cabinet Secretary, will read out paragraphs and ministers will express their views. The Prime Minister wanted the speech not to be too brief, with approximately three to four  lines to focus on each of the ministries.

The draft speech contained 143 paragraphs, simplified to 110, but this would take at least an hour, so the PM asked Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ashwini Kumar to redo the President's speech since there were repetitions with last year's speech.

Today, the draft speech was submitted by the Cabinet Secretary to the President -- a courtesy that the Cabinet always shows the first citizen. The President's estate printing press will not only get it printed, but also circulate it to the Members of Parliament. The Hindi translation is done by the Secretariat of  Official languages.