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 BJP appointed Sunil Bansal, one of the party's key election managers, as its national general secretary and in charge of three opposition-ruled states -- West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana -- in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
The budget session of Parliament will begin on February 21 and the general budget is slated to be presented to Lok Sabha on February 28.The decision to recommend the date for convening of the session to the President was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is also Leader of the House in Lok Sabha.
The Budget session of Parliament will begin on Feb 21 and the general budget is slated to be presented to Lok Sabha on Feb 28.
Under fire, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor will make a statement on the IPL controversy in the Lok Sabha at noon in the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister P K Bansal on Friday.
United States President Barack Obama will address the joint session of Parliament on the evening of November 8. The winter session of Parliament will commence the next day. The session is being advanced by a week to enable Obama to address the members.Obama will kick off his four-day India visit on November 6, when he will reach Mumbai.President Obama will be chairing the Business and Entrepreneurship Summit in Mumbai on November 6.
However, the final decision on the date of presentation of the Budget will be taken by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.
UPA Presidential nominee Pranab Mukherjee's camp on Saturday hit back at opposition-backed candidate P A Sangma for raking up fresh allegations against his candidature saying the campaign was being "vitiated".
Accusing the Opposition of not allowing the government to put forth its views in Parliament on Anna Hazare's detention, two senior ministers on Tuesday said such an attitude was "not fair" in a parliamentary system. Leader of the Lok Sabha and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said the Opposition created a pandemonium in Parliament forcing its adjournment.
Parliament was shut down for the 11th day running on Thursday without transacting any substantive business, costing the taxpayer a staggering sum of Rs 85.80 crore as expenditure on each day of the session is calculated at Rs 7.8 crore.
The monsoon session of Parliament is likely to begin on August 8 and continue till September 7, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said on Wednesday.
Rejecting allegations that the government sprung a surprise by referring the Lokpal bill to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister P K Bansal said political parties were consulted before taking the move.
The much-talked about Lokpal Bill could be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday with the government writing to the Speaker to waive off the two-day period required before introducing a bill.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram will lead a 36-member all-party parliamentary delegation on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir beginning next Monday. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal will also be assisting the home minister. He will be alternate leader of the delegation.
Attacking the opposition for Rajya Sabha's failure to pass the Lokpal Bill, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal on Friday said the Bill will be taken up for consideration in the Budget Session of Parliament. "The conduct of the opposition, particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha, showed that they were only interested in not passing the Bill," he told a press conference the night after the House was adjourned sine die abruptly.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has issued a letter inviting all Members of Parliament to attend United States President Barack Obama's address at the central hall on November 8.In a circular letter, Bansal also sought the cooperation of all the MPs to ensure the smooth functioning of both Houses of Parliament.The routine circular assumes significance as it specifically urges the Parliamentarians to attend Obama's address.
With the Comptroller and Auditor General reports providing ammunition to the Opposition to attack the prime minister, Congress on Friday dismissed Bharatiya Janata Party's demand for his resignation while party chief Sonia Gandhi held a "strategy meeting" with senior ministers and party leaders.
With two weeks of the monsoon session having passed without much significant business, Leader of the House in Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister P K Bansal on Friday reached out to the Bharatiya Janata Party top brass, including L K Advani, to discuss smooth passage of pending bills in the House.
Nomination papers of Pranab Mukhejee, for the Presidential poll on July 19, are being readied, according to sources. Senior Union ministers and Members of Parliament have been summoned to Parliament House on Wednesday to affix their signatures on Mukherjee's papers.
Unhappy with the ultimatum set by Anna Hazare on the Jan Lokpal issue, a senior minister on Wednesday said the government is committed to bring a "strong and effective" Lokpal bill to deal with corruption but made it clear that this cannot be done by "putting a pistol on someone's neck".
The Parliament was rocked on Monday with the Bharatiya Janata Party creating an uproar. They were lleging involvement of parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal in a shop allotment scam in Chandigarh, prompting him to dare the opposition to hold any kind of inquiry, including the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is expected to file on June 28 his nomination papers for the Presidential election.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal released an anthology titled 'Remains', compiled and written by poet, artist and award-winning diplomat Abhay Kumar.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal released an anthology titled 'Remains', compiled and written by poet, artist and award-winning diplomat Abhay Kumar.
The decision was taken at a meeting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had with Law Minister Salman Khurshid and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde will be the new Leader of the House in Lok Sabha, after his predecessor Pranab Mukherjee became the President.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has nominated Shinde to the post, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal told reporters.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Saturday said Public Accounts Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi had no right to submit the draft report on the 2G scam to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar as it was 'rejected' by a majority of the committee's members.
The United Progressive Alliance is seriously considering increasing the strength of the proposed Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G scam from 21 to 30 members to accommodate more parties, but it is in no mood to expand its scope of the JPC to cover Commonwealth Games (CWG) fiasco, the Adarsh Society scam and the cancelled ISRO S-band spectrum sale.
On instructions from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, senior Union ministers were asked to brief Congress MPs on the allocation of coal blocks and the CAG report.
Vice President Hamid Ansari will file nomination papers on Wednesday for his re-election to the post amid expectations in the United Progressive Alliance that he is set for a comfortable win.
While Baba Ramdev walks the red carpet laid out by the government, we ask you our readers for your views on the issue.
The much-hyped Lokpal Bill could be tabled in Rajya Sabha in the ongoing monsoon session if a parliamentary panel looking into the legislation gives its report before the end of the session, the government said on Thursday.
The government on Friday reached out to the Opposition to end the impasse in Parliament over the coal block allocation issue but the Bharatiya Janata Party remained firm on its stand that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should resign for his alleged complicity in the case.
Home Minister P Chidambaram, the target of the opposition's attack in Parliament, was on Wednesday ready to respond on the issue of baton charge on Bharatiya Janata Party youth wing activists.
Senior Congress member P C Chacko was on Friday made the chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum issue, setting in motion the probe into what the opposition is alleging as the biggest scam in independent India.
Sonia and Rahul Gandhi meeting their party's stalwart of many decades -- President Pranab Mukherjee -- is not unusual, but the timing of their visits is, notes Sheela Bhatt
A move is afoot to extend the session of Parliament by three days from December 27 to 29 after a five day break from December 22, when it was scheduled to conclude, to facilitate adequate time for consideration of the Lokpal Bill. The Lokpal Bill is expected to be brought in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has sounded Bharatiya Janata Party Parliamentary Party leader L K Advani on the move and has promised to get back.
Rejecting as "preposterous" the opposition demand for resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over alleged scam in coal block allocation, the government on Tuesday said that it was ready for a discussion on the issue in Parliament.
Mukherjee, along with Parliamentary Affairs Minister PK Bansal and Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal, held meetings with BSP leader Satish C Mishra and RJD chief Lalu Prasad as the debate was underway in the Rajya Sabha in effort to woo them
The political storm in the United Progressive Alliance government over Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi issue on Thursday gave an opportunity to the Bharatiya Janata Party to charge that the government is short of number and is shying away from facing the amendments to the President's address in Parliament.
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