Ahead of the budget session, PM Narendra Modi appealed to the opposition to allow Parliament to function. While his call was taken positively by most of the parties, the Congress signalled that disruption will be their main weapon to raise several issues.
Speaker Om Birla then announced that the suspension stands revoked with immediate effect.
Taking a leaf from the US, Canada and the UK, where students and research scholars get to work with Parliamentary panels, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan is pushing for induction of interns in the Parliamentary standing committees.
This will be the second all-party meeting called by the government to discuss the COVID-19 situation since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Gandhi said the prime minister did not answer the questions he had posed to him.
Amid speculation of a reshuffle in the Union Council of Ministers, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday met President Pratibha Patil and discussed the upcoming budget session of Parliament. A Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson said the meeting lasted 45 minutes, during which the two leaders discussed the current economic situation and various other issues. The issues included price rise, internal security and the budget session.
The Congress and other opposition parties have accused the police of bias and inaction in the Delhi violence.
In his speech in the Lok Sabha on February 7, Rahul made several allegations against the government over the Hindenburg-Adani row.
Justices Ramesh Sinha and Saroj Yadav of the Lucknow bench of the HC passed the order on Thursday on an application moved by the complainant who had lodged an FIR in the matter in 2003.
He said politicians should work for non-political causes as well as they have a lot of impact on society. In this context, Modi noted the Gujarat government's work for "beti bachao" (save daughters) when he was the chief minister and said it helped a lot in improving the gender ratio.
The political discourse hit a new low on Monday with Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri making disparaging remarks targeting Rahul Gandhi and the Congress paying him back in the same coin.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has written to his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe about the postponement of his proposed visit there next month in view of the Budget session of the Parliament.
Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was in conversation with Congress's Shashi Tharoor over something they saw on Naqvi's phone.
In a relief to industry, the government has accepted a parliamentary panel's recommendation on allowing cartels to opt for the settlement scheme under the Competition Amendment Bill, according to official sources. The proposed Bill seeks to introduce a clause for settlement and commitment that offers any enterprise against which an inquiry has been initiated to file an application for settlement. The Parliamentary Committee on Finance had suggested including cartels in the scope for settlement "as a pragmatic recourse to the whole process".
Stepping up their attack on Rahul Gandhi for his 'democracy under brutal attack' remark in the United Kingdom, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Union ministers, on Thursday demanded an apology from the Congress leader insisting that he was 'not above Parliament'.
India needs strong action against corruption, Janata Dal - United president Sharad Yadav, the convener of the National Democratic Alliance, tells Gyan Varma
One fallout of Rahul Gandhi's disqualification will be reflected in the Opposition's role in Parliament and related institutions.
Of the cash outgo, Rs 64,598 crore is for enhanced expenditure on fertiliser subsidy under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 and Rs 20,466 crore for the capital outlay in defence services.
Persons of Indian Origin in certain countries will be given dual citizenship and a legislation to facilitate it will be introduced in the Budget session of Parliament beginning next month.
The 54-page document tabled in Parliament detailed how the Modi-government pull the economy from being counted among the most fragile-five in the world to being the fasted growing and the most attractive investment destination.
'It will take a long time for people's memory to be misled by a prime minister who is so arrogant and who refuses to acknowledge his own faults.'
He said there should be no politics on the issue as it relates to the rights of Muslim women.
The government can also individually exempt the PSBs, that are to be privatisated from the two Bank Nationalisation Acts. This will bring such lenders under Banking Regulation Act, and make them companies, reports Nikunj Ohri.
To corner the Manmohan Singh government in the Budget Session of Parliament, a united opposition today demanded a debate on price rise on February 23, before the Railway Budget and the Union Budget are placed in the Lok Sabha.
The no-confidence motion against the government could not be introduced amid the din in the Lok Sabha.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the government is ready for a discussion on the issue of alleged financial irregularities in the banking sector and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will reply to the debate.
Fuel prices are likely to be hiked again after the Parliament's Budget session ends on May 22.
Tuesday was the 12th day in a row that Parliament did not functioned and the current stalemate has entered the third week.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey on Wednesday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker to move a breach of privilege motion notice against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi a day after his speech in Lok Sabha where he made certain allegations about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his association with industrialist Gautam Adani.
Addressing a press conference, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and the party's chief whip in the Upper House Jairam Ramesh alleged that the government is throttling the voice of the Opposition leaders to prevent them from raising issues of public importance.
The Congress has, however, countered this saying someone who is not an MP of Rajya Sabha cannot be called to the House and there cannot be any discussion/reflection on or about an MP of Lok Sabha.
400 MPs of the ruling National Democratic Alliance would give up Rs 3.66 crore -- their salary for 23 days of the ongoing budget session that has been a virtual washout due to protests by the opposition.
While presenting her 2021-22 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set a fiscal deficit target of 6.8 per cent of nominal gross domestic product (GDP) against the 2020-21 Revised Estimate of 9.5 per cent. The fiscal correction in the upcoming 2022-23 Union Budget is unlikely to be that steep. Even as discussions among top Budget-makers are ongoing, the fiscal deficit target for 2022-23 may likely be in the range of 6.5-6.8 per cent.
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With the government pushing key reform measures like insurance and coal block allocation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the country cannot wait even if one of the Houses of Parliament "waits indefinitely".
With Parliament session over, the government is expected to kick off the divestment process in June.
FM indicates adherence to fiscal road map, benign tax rates, correction in inverted duty structure
The revamped Special Economic Zone (SEZ) law is unlikely to see the light of the day before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, two people aware of the matter said. The commerce department had sought the Union Cabinet's nod to bring amendments to the existing SEZ Act, 2005 late last year. The plan, thereafter, was to introduce the Bill in the winter session of Parliament. Cabinet's approval remains pending.
Any direction or rule of the House cannot subvert the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech granted to members of Parliament, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said, asserting that any criticism of the government and its policies can never be equated with the "dignity" of the Council of States.
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