The Budget session of Parliament concluded on Wednesday with passage of record official business in recent years but the government failed to ensure passage of the controversial Land Acquisition Bill as also key reform measure of GST amid stiff resistance from opposition.
Opposition parties forced early adjournments in both Houses of parliament as they continued to press for a debate on demonetisation under any rule that entailed voting, a demand that the government has refused to accept. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi led a walkout by the Opposition over no obituary references being made for the seven Army personnel who lost their lives in the terror attack on an Army base in Nagrota, Jammu and Kashmir.
AIADMK members on Tuesday disrupted proceedings in both houses of Parliament demanding action on former union minister P Chidambaram's son Karti on the Aircel-Maxis issue.
The government on Wednesday declined to give a timeframe in Rajya Sabha for resolving the row over UPSC examination pattern but promised to solve it soon even as the Opposition targeted BJP ministers for coming out with different statements on the issue.
'I don't think we will need to support or get support from the Congress. I hope there is no such political exigency. The Congress will be gone from the political scene. There is no lesser evil. The BJP and Congress are the two sides of the same evil coin,' anti-Koodankulam nuclear plant activist and new AAP member S P Udaykumar tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar.
There is no denying that the Deepa identity has overnight caught the people's imagination across the state. But converting that into an imagery and from there as support and vote-base is a different matter altogether, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Awful religious practices need to be abolished. But through social and political reformers, not by courts, argues Shekhar Gupta.
'The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill' makes employment of children below 14 years as cognisable offence for employers and provides for penalty for parents.
A possible, easier and less-complicated way for the Centre would have been to approach the SC with the same queries much earlier, before a ground-swell of popular sentiments and consequent political tensions had built up in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi attended the House during Question Hour as Thursday is the day of questions listed against the PM's name.
Protests by various parties could be seen as they demanded the Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled back the demonetisation scheme.
Proceedings in Parliament were washed out for the second consecutive working on Tuesday as Opposition members created pandemonium on a host of issues including JPC report on 2G, Telangana, price rise and death of children in relief camps for Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh) riot victims.
Should Sasikala seek to follow Jayalalithaa's footsteps in the matter, and if at all she is not disinterested in keeping the twin posts together, the by-election to Jayalalithaa's constituency R K Nagar could be the starting point, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
If Indian PM boycotts the CHOGM, it is likely to add to Sri Lanka's bitterness. This would not help India's desire to add more depth and content to its relations with Sri Lanka but its ability to influence Sri Lanka's decision making process on the both strategic issues and on Tamil minority issues, says Colonel (retd) R Hariharan.
"The RSS is trying to change the nature of India. Other parties haven't tried to capture India's institutions," he said.
'We are a national party that wants to remind people about Bharatiya sanskruti, which, at the moment, is being remote-controlled by an Italian lady and her agents,' says former Union minister O Rajagopal, the BJP candidate from Thiruvananthapuram who will challenge Shashi Tharoor.
By-elections to Lok Sabha and assembly seats in the states of Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil and West Bengal passed off peacefully on Saturday amidst tight security.
The Lok Sabha witnessed uproar for the third straight day on Thursday with a determined opposition seeking a statement from the prime minister on the controversial remarks of minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti besdies her resignation.
A bill to auction coal mines is also likely to be passed later.
O Panneerselvam is the first chai-wallah to become chief minister in the country. Gujarat's Narendra Modi, the better-known chai-wallah to become chief minister, followed Paneerselvam around a fortnight later in 2001. The parallel should end there, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
Amma will wait for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'honeymoon' with the voter to fade away before deciding on the issues that are of real concern to the state and others that may need a considered and balanced solution, say N Sathiya Moorthy and M Kasinathan
Here is the full transcript of Congress vice president and Lok Sabha poll campaign chief Rahul Gandhi's first formal TV interview with Times Now Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami.
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