The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has put in place new rules wherein a woman candidate with more than three months pregnancy will be considered "temporarily unfit" and can join the bank within four months after delivery. The move has elicited criticism from some quarters, including from the All India State Bank Of India Employees' Association. In its latest medical fitness guidelines for new recruits or promotees, the bank said a candidate would be considered fit in case of pregnancy which is less than 3 months.
18 leaders from 14 parties said it is unfortunate that the government has 'unleashed a misleading campaign to malign the combined opposition' and blaming it for the continued disruption of Parliament proceedings.
These meetings with Pawar has fuelled speculations about the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a third front against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
'Metroman' E Sreedharan's decision to join the Bharatiya Janata Party has given a boost to the saffron's hopes to make huge electoral inroads in Kerala, one of the toughest political terrains for the party, in the assembly polls likely to be held in April.
There will be no Question Hour and private members' bills will not be taken up in the Monsoon session, while the Zero Hour will be restricted.
'We urge you to take remedial measures to address this blatant injustice pending withdrawal of the case against them,' the MPs write.
The joint Opposition including the Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamool Congress, the Left, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the Aam Aadmi Party did not join the Question Hour of the session when the House reassembled after its first adjournment till noon.
While several opposition parties criticised the move, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the Parliament session is being held under special and extraordinary circumstances.
The leaders neither spoke from the podium of the Kisan Sansad (farmers' parliament) nor were they seated on the dais.
In the Upper House of Parliament, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu did not allow adjournment notices moved by opposition members on the issue of price rise, prompting members of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Left parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Shiv Sena to create an uproar.
'This obsession with 'one' is not good for a country like India.'
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
The Major Ports Authority Bill, 2020 was passed through ballot votes in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday with 84 votes in its favour and 44 against it. The Lok Sabha had passed the bill on September 23 last year.
Trinamool Congress floor leader Derek O'Brien was suspended from the Upper House of Parliament on Tuesday for the remaining part of the Winter session after he threw a Rajya Sabha rule book at the Chair.
The proceedings of the House were adjourned till 2 pm as slogan-shouting TMC and other opposition MPs trooped into the well of the House, some holding placards, to demand a discussion on the issue of Israeli-made, military-grade Pegasus spyware being used to snoop on opposition leaders, government critics and journalists.
The demand was made by the Nationalist Congress Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
"Farmers would like to remind the PM that it is 'andolans' that have liberated India from colonial rulers and that is why we are proud to be 'Andolan-jivi'."
Leaders of several opposition parties including the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Left assembled at Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar's residence in New Delhi on Tuesday and discussed various issues facing the country, amid intense speculation about the possibility of a third front against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
'How can we tolerate such high-handedness?'
Opposition parties on Tuesday asked the government to call an all-party meeting to resolve the current impasse in Parliament, while sticking to their demands for a discussion on Pegasus snooping issue and a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the matter.
The Opposition alleged that without any provocation from the Opposition, "outsiders who were not part of Parliament security were brought in to manhandle the Opposition leaders and members, including women Parliamentarians who were only protesting against the Government's conduct, highhandedness and muzzling of the voice".
Along with them, ex-BJP lawmaker Ram Shakal took the oath.
A meeting of opposition leaders from many anti-Bharatiya Janata Party parties, most of them regional forces, hosted by the veteran leader and Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday is being seen by political pundits as a beginning of an exercise by them to join forces to put up a more cohesive challenge to the saffron party.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the amendments in the bill have been made after studying global practices and wide consultation within the country.
'Even at Galwan Valley, our soldiers are now not allowed to patrol at the point at which they used to patrol earlier. In the Pangong area, in a more than eight-kilometre area they are not allowing us to patrol, the area which we used to patrol. Previously, we used to patrol till Finger 8 and now we are not being allowed to patrol till Finger 8'
In an major embarrassment to the Kerala government, the widow of famous conservationist 'crocodile hunter' Steve Irwin has sent a legal notice to the state Wildlife Department, for naming a crocodile park near Thiruvananthapuram after him without her permission. Kerala Forest Minister Binoy Viswam had announced naming the crocodile park at Neyyar in Steve's 'honour', shortly after his death in 2006 in a stingray attack, while shooting a film off the Australian coast.
The Union Budget on Monday evoked contrasting responses in the political arena with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hailing it as a vision for an 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and the Opposition describing it as a 'let down like never before' that was meant to 'deceive' people.
It is now Corporate Cricket League. The league is a Twenty20 cricket league with city-based corporate teams playing during weekends in a regular season every year.
'People ask me from where I get the strength to fight this battle. I really do not know.' 'Perhaps God is giving me the strength as I am fighting for truth.'
The body of M N Vijayan, critic, social activist and Marxist thinker, who died in Thrissur on Wednesday, was cremated on Thursday with state honours at Kudungallur in Thrissur.
The Bill was supported by the members across party lines, however, some suggested to add in its purview hospital sanitary staff, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers and 'Corona warriors' in emergency services such as police and personnel from other departments.
Countering the opposition claim that farmers across the country are agitated over the three new laws, he said that those in just one state are being misinformed and instigated.
'By taking fingerprints, iris scans and other details of citizens, the State is becoming the custodian of its people.' 'The State can use this data according to its whims and fancies, which is not good in a democracy.' 'When the State looks at all the activities of its citizens, it becomes a police State.'
The actors come together in Sumathy Ram's first film, Viswathulasi.
The bill defines electronic cigarettes ss electronic devices that heat a substance, which may contain nicotine and other chemicals, to create vapour for inhalation.
Usually, the chair in the Upper House reads out obituary references before members rise as a mark of respect to the memory of the departed.
'This is not Ahmedabad Gymkhana but people's house'
Moving the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 in the Upper House, Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the proposed legislation should be not seen through a political prism or vote bank politics, as it aims at ensuring gender dignity, justice and equality.
The government also took note of pending cases in various high courts and said that 1.66 lakh cases relating to sexual assaults were pending across the country at several stages.
"Horse trading band karo (Stop horse trading of MLAs)," Congress members shouted from the well.
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