Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has criticized the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, calling it a 'brazen assault' on the Constitution and part of the BJP's strategy to keep society in a 'permanent state of polarization.' She also spoke out against the One Nation, One Election Bill, calling it a 'subversion of the Constitution.' Gandhi further accused the Modi government of ignoring the women's reservation bill and other demands for reservation, and of 'dragging the country into an abyss' where the Constitution will only exist on paper. She also criticized the government for limiting the speaking time of the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and for not allowing discussions on important issues like the working of the defense and external affairs ministries and the challenges posed by China on the border.
The proposed legislation on Emigration (Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2024) seeks to replace the Emigration Act of 1983 with a view to facilitate the circular mobility of people intending to emigrate for overseas employment.
Till Tuesday evening, the law panel had received nearly 8.5 lakh responses on its public notice.
Due to paucity of time, the UPA government will drop the traditional scrutiny of the Budget by the Parliamentary standing committees. Instead, Pranab Mukherjee is in touch with BJP and the CPM, while Pawan Kumar Bansal and Anand Sharma have been asked to liaise with the smaller parties to ensure the Budget moves smoothly through Parliament.
The Prime Minister's Office has asked the Union housing and urban affairs ministry to furnish details of projects that will be ready for foundation stone laying and inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the next two years, according to an official document.
The parliamentary panel, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party's Sushil Kumar Modi, has also decided to examine remote voting and e-postal ballots for Indians residing abroad.
'Mrs Gandhi had nothing to do in the day-to-day working of Dr Singh's government.' 'People say Mrs Gandhi's office used to give orders, which is nonsense.'
The government and opposition parties on Monday reached an agreement to break the impasse in Parliament with dates announced for discussions on the Constitution in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
In a major cabinet reshuffle, Arjun Ram Meghwal has replaced Kiren Rijiju as the Union law and justice minister, a communique from the President's Secretariat said on Thursday.
The United States has deported a group of Indian migrants on a military transport aircraft, marking the first such deportation to India as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. The US embassy in New Delhi confirmed that Washington is tightening immigration laws and removing illegal migrants. The deportation comes as India and the US are finalizing details for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington in February. India has indicated its willingness to work with the US on addressing illegal immigration, and has said it will take back all Indians who have overstayed or are in the US without documentation.
However, BJP members claimed that the opposition members were abusing the chairman of the committee Jagadambika Pal.
Bangladesh has summoned the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka over border tensions, accusing India of violating a bilateral agreement by constructing fences at five locations along the Indo-Bangla border. The development comes after Bangladesh officials alleged that India had halted construction of barbed wire fencing due to strong opposition from the Border Guard Bangladesh and local residents.
The deportation of Indians from the United States, deaths in the Maha Kumbh stampede and the joint Parliamentary committee report on the Waqf bill were among the issues that led to heated exchanges and some disruptions in an otherwise smooth first part of the Budget session that ended on Thursday.
Top external affairs ministry officials on Monday briefed a parliamentary panel about efforts to bring back Indians stranded in war-hit Ukraine, including plans for 13 evacuation flights in the next two-three days to its neighbouring countries and subsequent increase in the number of daily flights to nine, sources said.
Five Parliamentarians from Karnataka including Janata Dal-Secular leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet, on Sunday took oath in the new National Democratic Alliance Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Rekha Gupta had the support of the RSS, which actively participated in the Delhi assembly poll campaign to help the BJP win.
Jaishankar described as a "reasonable supposition" to expect some improvement in the relations between India and China following the last round of disengagement but hesitated to say that there could be a reset of the ties.
Narendra Singh Tomar has been given the additional charge of the ministry of parliamentary affairs and D V Sadananda Gowda that of the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers.
Officials have said an absence of drainage system and safety measures, and use of basement for commercial activities in violation of norms led to the death of three civil services aspirants at the coaching centre.
Sheikh Hasina was on Thursday sworn in as the prime minister of Bangladesh for the fifth term, days after her Awami League won an overwhelming majority in the general elections boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies.
After her elevation as defence minister, Sitharaman has become a member of the cabinet committee on security headed by the prime minister.
Raising concern over the nearly 1.25 crore feedback submissions received by the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, Bharatiya Janata Party member Nishikant Dubey has called for a probe into their sources, including in the possible role of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and China.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
India has lodged a strong protest with Bangladesh over a now-deleted social media post by a key aide of Bangladesh's interim government that claimed certain areas of Indian territory should be part of that country. The post, which included a map showing parts of West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam as belonging to Bangladesh, was made by Mahfuz Alam, a de facto minister in the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government. The post sparked backlash and was subsequently deleted. India's External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal reminded all concerned to be "mindful" of their public comments and emphasized the need for responsibility in public articulation.
He drew the roadmap of India's economic reform, unshackled it from the licence raj and pulled it back from the brink when even its gold reserve was pledged.
The government on Saturday said a committee will be formed to propose safety measures for healthcare professionals even as OPD services were hit across the country as doctors joined the 24-hour nationwide strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to protest the alleged rape and murder of a trainee medic in Kolkata.
Senior bureaucrat Pradip Kumar Tripathi has been appointed as secretary (coordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat as part of a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre on Monday.
In FY24, the net income generated from Waqf properties fell to about Rs 1.26 crore from Rs 150 crore in FY20.
Soon after assuming office, Meghwal declared that there was no confrontation with the judiciary and that his priority would be to ensure speedy justice for all.
No single individual, institution, or action is to blame for this. The BJP is responding in kind -- definitely not without checking with its government. And they wait for Mr Trump, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The parliamentary panel on information technology will question government officials on allegations relating to suspected phone tapping of politicians, journalists and others using Pegasus spyware, the committee chairman and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday, and asserted that it is the "most important issue" for many members.
The Centre has appointed senior IAS officers Vumlunmang Vualnam and Neeraj Mittal as new secretaries in the ministry of civil aviation and the department of telecommunications respectively in a major secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, a government order stated.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
This will be the second all-party meeting called by the government to discuss the COVID-19 situation since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Her successor in the HRD Ministry Prakash Javadekar elevated as a member of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.
Muhammad Yunus urged the people to "exercise patience" before judging his government's role.
As many as 37 ministers have been dropped from the government in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third term and these include seven with cabinet rank -- prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane.
Expressing concern over frequent internet shutdown without any empirical study, a parliamentary panel has pulled up the department of telecommunications for not maintaining the record of incidents and inaction on several of its recommendations.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will brief parliamentary leaders of various political parties on August 26 on the developments in war-torn Afghanistan.
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