Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh V Kishore Chandra Deo is tipped to head the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum scam, according to highly placed sources in the Congress party.
Let's take a look at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's new team:
Amid the controversy over the anti-naxal operation in Chhattisgarh in which tribals were suspected to be among the 19 victims, the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry on Tuesday called the offensive "completely unacceptable" and targeted the state's Bharatiya Janata Party government.
New members of the Union Council of Ministers, including Tribal Affairs Minister V Kishore Chandra Deo, were introduced to both Houses of Parliament by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday. Dr Singh also introduced Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, who were recently inducted as Cabinet ministers, to members of both Houses.
The government on Friday said steps will be initiated to discuss inclusion of Jarawa tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the mainstream rather than leave them in "beastly condition" in the wake of a video footage showing semi-naked tribal women dancing before tourists.
In a startling development, a Union minister and Congress leader has dashed off a letter to the Andhra Pradesh governor, urging him to take action against the state government ruled by his own party
Besides Mukherjee, who is leader of the Lok Sabha, the committee, headed by Speaker Meira Kumar, will have four other members from the Congress, three from Bharatiya Janata Party each from Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Janata Dal (United), Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Communist Party of India-Marxist.
As controversy continues to rage over the last month's killings in Chhattisgarh, Union Tribal Affairs Minister V Kishore Chandra Deo said 17 of the 19 slain by the CRPF and state police were unarmed and innocent.
The chairman of the committee on public undertakings, V Kishore Chandra Deo, said in a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar that despite categorical instructions, Goyal did not attend the meeting, sources said.
Newly-appointed Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj minister V Kishore Chandra Deo on Tuesday asserted that no development can take place at the cost of people's rights and said the mindset that tribals can be displaced for mining projects will have to be changed.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday claimed to have gathered documentary evidence in the cash for vote scam and has submitted them before the Parliamentary committee probing the matter, its senior leader Arun Jaitley said.
The enquiry committee headed by senior Congress member V Kishore Chandra Deo held its first meeting on Wednesday and also decided to see the video footage of the sting operation of the entire episode
"Punishment is not the central theme. There is no pre-conceived idea whether the punishment should be meted out or not," Lok Sabha Privileges Committee Chairman V Kishore Chandra Deo told PTI. Deo said the very fact that Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has referred the issue to the committee rather than taking action on his own showed that he wanted to sort out the matter by going to the root.
The Privileges Committee said that 'notwithstanding the overriding effect' with regard to applicability of the Right to Information Act, 2005 vis-a-vis other laws, the right to information accruing to a citizen under the RTI 'cannot abrogate privileges conferred under Constitutional provisions'.
The Congress may proudly claim that the party has given the country its first woman speaker in Meira Kumar, but sources tell rediff.com that the Bihar MP was in fact a last-minute choice for the august office.
The Enquiry Committee that went into the alleged cash-for-vote scam during the July 22 trust vote would be presenting its report to Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The Lok Sabha committee headed by senior Congress MP V Kishore Chandra Deo to inquire into misconduct of members has recommended expulsion of Katara, holding that "he needs to be meted out the severest of punishments".
In an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamna, Thackeray had attacked MPs from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for what he termed was launching an anti-Marathi tirade in Parliament. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Committee headed by senior Congress MP, V Kishore Chandra Deo, on Tuesday after it recorded evidence of some members who had raised a breach of privilege against the Shiv Sena chief.
In its report, the committee is understood to have suggested that the money trail could be probed by an investigating agency like CBI or the Income Tax Department. The 600-page report will carry evidence given by witnesses and verbatim transcriptions of sittings as also the 'dissent' notes by BJP's V K Malhotra, Mohd Salim (CPI-M) and Ramgopal Yadav (SP).
The demand for removal of Justice A K Ganguly, accused of harassing a law intern, from the post of Chairman of West Bengal Human Rights Commission, along with Telangana issue paralysed the functioning of Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Jagan maintains a cordial working relationship with the BJP leadership. This may help him get additional financial support from the Centre.
"The Delhi results are indication of shape of things to come in our future politics. The sweep of AAP and just three seats to BJP showed hollowness of Modi's political hype", he noted.