Messages sent through Internet-based messaging service providers such as Whatsapp, Signal, and Telegram, as well as those which are encrypted, are understood to be within the Act's ambit.
The Lok Sabha passed the Bill with 311 votes in favour and 80 against it a little past midnight.
Lok Sabha could function for only 45 hours this Budget Session against its scheduled 133.6 hours because of daily disruptions and frequent adjournments, a think tank data has shown.
The bill, which seeks to give citizenship to refugees from the Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Zorastrian communities fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh was passed in Lok Sabha on Monday.
The Halwa ceremony, marking the final stage of the budget preparation process for Interim Union Budget 2024, was held in North Block on Wednesday in the presence of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Union Minister of State for Finance Dr Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad was also present. A customary halwa ceremony is performed every year before the "lock-in" process of Budget preparation begins.
Dharashiv, earlier Osmanabad, is among the eight districts that comprise the state's Marathwada region, where activist Manoj Jarange has led an agitation demanding reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Dominic Xavier asks if the bills will really benefit farmers or if this is a ploy by the Modi government to push the agricultural sector towards privatisation.
'When our daughters, wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Vignesh Phogat, were protesting at the Jantar Mantar, the police kicked them with their shoes.'
In the session which concluded on Wednesday, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan preferred to carry on with the listed business even as protesting Congress members stormed the Well and shouted slogans, many times walking out of the House for the day.
Rajya Sabha passed the Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Bill, 2020. It had got the approval of Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to thwart alleged attempts to rob Dalits and backward classes of reservations by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) which he accused of 'enslavement' and performing 'mujra' for Muslim vote bank.
Opposition parties, though resigned to the fact that they lack the numbers to defeat or stall the bill in the two Houses, have decided upon different tactics that they would employ to highlight their reasons for opposing it.
The records of the debate are expected to be sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the Lokpal Bill
The bill was passed by a voice vote after Shah sought to allay concerns raised by the Opposition, which claimed the draft law was "draconian".
The SAD also castigated the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party for allegedly betraying farmers by not opposing the passage of the bills in Lok Sabha.
As many as 14 opposition MPs were suspended from Parliament for the remainder of the winter session for disrupting proceedings, as the Lok Sabha security breach incident snowballed into a major row on Thursday with the government asking the opposition not to "politicise" the "grave national issue" and the Congress, Trinamool Congress and others demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah.
Government unlikely to bring in an ordinance to address the developments arising out of the Supreme Court order.
Parliament officials said Birla was upset at the behaviour of both the Opposition and Treasury benches during the passage of bills in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
'The Bills (Bharatiya Saksha, Bharatiya Nagarik Sanhita and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita) are arbitrary, opaque and ambiguous and structurally quite violent.'
The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill on protection of rights of transgenders after a motion to refer it to a Select Committee of the Upper House was defeated.
The bill proposes to make university or college as a unit instead of department for the purpose of providing reservation for filling teachers posts in central education institutions.
Sushmita Dev said it would have been better if there were more women MPs in the panel.
The proposed law seeks bars on storing and processing of personal data by entities without the explicit consent of an individual. It, however, provides for exemptions for "reasonable purposes" such as "prevention and detection of any unlawful activity including fraud, whistle-blowing, merger and acquisitions, network and information security, credit scoring, recovery of debt, processing of publicly available personal data and the operation of search engines".
The situation in Manipur and the Delhi services ordinance are set to dominate the Monsoon session of Parliament beginning Thursday with the Opposition gearing up to raise these issues to corner the government.
The first meeting of the newly-constituted joint committee comprising ministers and civil society activists to draft the Lokpal Bill will be held on Saturday.
A 7-hr debate was held over the contentious bill. Oppn amendments rejected.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who piloted the laws, said the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the British-era laws that gave primacy to penal action.
The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is a challenge, Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday, adding he has requested his party to allow him to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from his home state Odisha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister R P N Singh and Sudhanshu Trivedi -- the only outgoing MP renominated by the party.
The bill also makes it mandatory for the Delhi government to take the opinion of the L-G before any executive action.
'Neither did I approach the BJP nor did they ask me to join them. It was a natural choice for both of us to make.' 'It was never for me to ask or for them to give.'
Shah said the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era laws that gave primacy to penal action, and made reporting of crimes even easier by recognising e-FIR, Zero FIR and electronic or digital evidence.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Stakeholders have shown a distinct lack of seriousness in bringing a law against corruption in Indian sports, a reason why someone like tainted former pacer S Sreesanth got away despite strong evidence of spot-fixing against him in the 2013 IPL, former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar has said.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and some other members sought that the bill be referred to a standing committee for scrutiny.
Under the provision of the Constitution, bills passed by the Lok Sabha during the course of its five year term and pending in the Rajya Sabha get lapsed with the dissolution of the House of the People. Separately, any bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha remained a property of the House irrespective of the fate of Lok Sabha.
The 26-party Opposition alliance has moved a notice of no-confidence in Lok Sabha demanding the prime minister speak on the Manipur situation inside the House. While the notice has been admitted, no decision on a date has yet been taken.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances