Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired the western zonal council meeting in Diu on Saturday with Pramod Sawant and Bhupendra Patel, the Chief Ministers of Goa and Gujarat, and Praful K. Patel, the administrator of the Union Territory of Daman, Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was not present at the meeting. The State was represented by Industries Minister Subhash Desai instead. Mr. Desai said in a tweet that he raised the issue of granting classical language status to Marathi for which over one lakh letters had been written to the President of India. He said Mr. Shah had assured him that he would sort out the issue.
A press statement issued by the Home Ministry said Mr. Shah stressed the need for early investigation of rape and sexual offences against women and children and stringent punishment in a time-bound manner.
