Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
The government's move to tweak the long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax regime proposed in the Finance Bill 2024 and re-introduce the indexation benefit is likely to boost the investments and spur housing sales in the country, industry executives believe. "By enabling taxpayers to choose the lower tax burden between the new and old schemes, the amendment is poised to drive investment and enhance sales across housing segments," said Niranjan Hiranandani, chairman of the Hiranandani Group. In Budget 2024, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed an overhaul in the capital gains tax regime, including lowering the LTCG tax to 12.5 per cent from 20 per cent.
The Food Security Bill, which could not be taken up despite being listed in the Lok Sabha'a agenda since Monday, will not be part of business on Saturday.
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party on Tuesday staged a walk out from the Lok Sabha shortly before the voting on the Lokpal Bill in protest against the government bringing a "weak" legislation.
Today even those who support Prime Minister Modi feel there is a certain sense of listlessness in this government. What is it intending to achieve? This is not easy to say, notes Aakar Patel.
Modi has proven to be a past master in the art of political survival. This means that learning to navigate the choppy waters of coalition government will be an art he will not take long to master, argues Shyam Parekh.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
As the adjournment of Parliament for an indefinite period with the Rajya Sabha also adjourning sine die kickstarts the final countdown for the general elections, Modi said the last five years were a period of "reform, perform and transform" with the country moving towards "big changes" at a fast pace.
Hazare, who reached Mumbai on Monday night from his village Ralegan Siddhi, paid respects at Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Juhu before proceeding to the fast venue, MMRDA ground, in suburban Bandra in a rally.
The collegium system has shut the doors of judgeship in the higher judiciary on Dalits, OBCs and even the poor among the upper castes
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
A new Lokpal Bill will be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday and the existing one withdrawn.
After much delay, the landmark Lokpal Bill was on Tuesday passed by the Rajya Sabha, marking a step closer to enactment of a new law under which an anti-corruption ombudsman would be set up.
The much-touted Food Security Bill was taken up in Lok Sabha on Tuesday but the discussion was scuttled by disruptions over Telangana issue caused by Telugu Desam Party members storming the Well.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a bill to regulate and supervise assisted reproductive technology clinics, with various members urging the government not to exclude single parents and the LGBTQ community from using this procedure.
The Centre has also listed 24 bills, including the Cantonment Bill, the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill.
The Food Security Bill is likely to be a game-changer for the Congress ahead of five assembly polls this year-end.
In between spells of adjournments, the House conducted business for a brief period and passed two Bills -- the Mineral Laws (Amendment) Bill and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill - amid continuous protests by the Opposition.
An FAQ on the controversial anti-corruption bill
The results of the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are likely to play out during the winter session of Parliament beginning Wednesday.
Striking an emotional chord with the people of Jammu and Kashmir, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday said he considers himself their soldier in New Delhi, and added his doors are always open for party workers -- 'the lions of the Congress'.
The bill seeks to provide legal sanction to the police to take physical and biological samples of convicts as well as persons accused of crimes.
In a stunning comeback, Hemant Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance on Saturday stormed to power in Jharkhand for a second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, despite an all-out blitz by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance which managed only 24 seats.
Amid protests by Opposition members seeking a debate on price rise, the Lok Sabha on Friday passed the Indian Antarctic Bill, 2022, which seeks to extend the application of domestic laws to research stations set up by India in the Antarctic region.
The government on Tuesday asserted that a bill to set up a commission on appointment of judges is aimed at having a "fair procedure" for appointing judges to higher courts and it has no intention to have any confrontation with the judiciary on the issue.
Congress in Kerala on Thursday rejected the organisational support announced by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political arm of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI), in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections but welcomed individual voters to support the United Democratic Front (UDF).
The bill was passed by LS last year and now it has to go back to the Lower House for incorporating the amendments approved by Rajya Sabha.
Asaduddin Owaisi, who was once the leader of a little-known outfit confined to the old city of Hyderabad, has emerged as a powerful voice of Muslims in the country in recent years.
The differences between the Congress and the BJP are too obvious and it seems, as expected, this Parliament is a divided house on the issue of fighting corruption.
It was also the only session in the 17th Lok Sabha when the lower house did not lose any time due to adjournments, according to data compiled by a think tank.
Abolition of CST will pave the way for an integrated Goods and Services Tax (GST) which will be introduced by April 1, 2010, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.
The bill seeks to authorise taking measurements of convicts and other persons for the purposes of identification and investigation in criminal matters and to preserve records and related matters.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
In the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, there were 135 women candidates while in the second phase, there were 100 women candidates, bringing the combined total for the first two phases to 235 women candidates.
The home minister further said it has been the tradition of this country for brothers to think about and speak on women's welfare.
It is time to pack up, sir! Please resign and save some honour of the Lok Sabha, an anguished Sheela Bhatt reports from the Lok Sabha press gallery after watching the shameful goings on over the tabling of the Telangana Bill.
A controversial bill which paves the way for the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh by merging some villages and mandals of Telangana with Seemandhra was approved in the Lok Sabha on Friday, amid stiff opposition from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, the Biju Janata Dal and some other parties.
After withdrawing the personal data protection bill, the government is hopeful of getting a new legislation passed by the next Budget session of Parliament, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said. The government on Wednesday withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill from the Lok Sabha. The Joint Committee on Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, headed by BJP member P P Chaudhary, had tabled its report in Lok Sabha on December 16, 2021.
The government on Tuesday proposed a relief to taxpayers with respect to capital gain tax on real estate properties by giving them the option to choose between 20 per cent and 12.5 per cent tax rates.
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