The National Food Security Bill was scuttled by Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar who threw the spanner with a dissent note in his capacity as the Union agriculture minister.
Several Muslim members of Parliament on Monday complained to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the 12th Five-Year Plan had nothing concrete in it to uplift the Muslim community. They claimed that the plan made a mockery of the prime minister's vows of "inclusive" development.
Mining Minister Dinsha Patel, who piloted the Bill in the House, says the attempt is to let the mining projects not get scuttled by the locals.
Several officers in various government departments and ministries have used fake caste certificates for their appointments but hardly any of them have been punished, revealed a Cabinet minister on Monday. Responding to a question posed to the prime minister, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanaswami said that as many as 1,832 central government appointments across 52 departments and ministries were detected to have been made on fake caste cetificates.
Congress leader Jagdish Tytler termed as a 'total lie' the allegations of some 40 civil right activists that he was actively involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
'Many people asked me if you felt like charging more when I came to know that a great man like Bachchan is buying the plot. I said I honour my commitment. I can't cheat him. He is doing so much for Gujarat. How can we charge him more?'
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Tuesday blamed Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her Congress General Secretary son Rahul for the FDI decision. Jaitley said that the decision on FDI was taken without bothering that it will hurt the interests of farmers, small traders as well as consumers, and would in no way help the economy.
The National Human Rights Commission report prepared for the second universal periodic review, a mechanism created by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006 for examining the universal coverage of human rights across the world, will come up for discussion in a meeting early next year.
Forty civil rights activists, including writers and journalists, issued an appeal to boycott the award ceremony slated at India Islamic Cultural Centre in New Delhi on Saturday, expressing shock at the honour being bestowed to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, an accused in the anti-Sikh riots in 1984.
Union Minister and National Conference patron Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said that Pakistan might disrupt the fragile peace process in Jammu and Kashmir. "The turbulent days are slowly getting over. But I want to tell you that we are very scared. I am still scared of my neighbour (Pakistan) and it is not wrong because a very dangerous situation is developing. May God bless them with wisdom and strengthen democracy (in Pakistan)," Farooq told the media at an event in Delhi.
The information and broadcasting ministry has issued a stern advisory to all TV channels against telecasting programmes promoting superstitions, occult practices and blind belief, warning that punitive action will be taken in case of any violations. The advisory comes in the wake of the civil society and many media critics expressing concern over a flood of such programmes of late -- especially on Hindi and regional language channels -- to garner TRPs.
Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Friday said the United Progressive Alliance government was trapped in its own web of "chakra-vyuha" with the ill-timed decision to allow foreign players in multi-brand retail. He said that the UPA had landed itself in a no-win situation, with no escape route.
As part of the guidelines of the code, the signatories are encouraged to assist the tourists.
The Election Commission has issued directions to banks across five states slated for assembly polls early next year to report names of persons withdrawing more than Rs 1 lakh in a day to the district election officer and the income tax officials associated with the election process.
In a move to weed out incompetent all-India service officers, the department of personnel and training (DoPT) has sent out a proposal to retire inefficient officers after 15 years of service, instead of tolerating them to superannuate at 60.
The mood in the government seems to have hardened and they do not seem to be in a mood to budge on the issue. Prime Minister Mamhohan Singh indicated as much during his speech at a Youth Congress meet in the capital on Tuesday.
It is unusual for Congress chief ministers to say no to Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, but some of them have gathered the courage to oppose Gandhi's dream project.
The Lok Sabha will not end the winter session on December 21 as scheduled, but hold an additional sitting on December 22, the Lok Sabha secretariat announced on Monday.
The Union Ministry of Railways runs a canteen inside Parliament, and provides subsidised food items for elected representatives.
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