The Election Commission had pegged the cost of procuring additional Electronic Voting Machines and paper-trail machines for holding synchronised Lok Sabha and assembly polls at nearly Rs 9,300 crore.
"It is mentioned that there is no provision in the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 for appeal, review or reconsideration of an order passed by a bench of the Lokpal of India. It is hereby informed to all concerned that no appeal or request for review/reconsideration of an order will be entertained by the Lokpal of India," the Lokpal said in a notice.
"We, the undersigned parties, wish to register our anguish and serious concern over the manner in which the Government is hurriedly passing legislations without any scrutiny by Parliamentary Standing or Select Committees. This is a fundamental departure from the established practice and healthy traditions of enacting legislations," the letter said.
The demand for Tharoor's removal comes days after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology was set to question government officials on the Pegasus spyware issue.
Why are DIIs holding such a high stake in Zee, which is beset with alleged governance issues? Perhaps they think Zee is a deep-value stock, observes Debashis Basu.
'The censor board should not delay the certification of Padmavati any further.' 'They must see the film immediately.'
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
"A person cannot be punished twice for the same offence," a committee member said, adding that even BJP members took a "soft view" of the issue and were in favour of revocation of Chowdhury's suspension.
Opposition charged the government with making Parliamentary Standing Committees irrelevant.
Currently, middlemen are fully exploiting the situation along with some concerned authorities and earning huge profits by increasing the prices arbitrarily and artificially on the basis of speculation.
According to an analysis by PRS Legislative Research, 172 bills were discussed and passed during the term of 17th Lok Sabha, of which 86 bills in the Lok Sabha and 103 bills in the Rajya Sabha were discussed for less than two hours each.
A parliamentary panel on Thursday cleared the much-awaited Electricity Bill that proposes to rationalise electricity tariff and bring about transparency in policy regarding subsidies.
The opposition caused repeated disruptions in Parliament Friday over the NEET paper leak issue, with both Houses being adjourned for the day without transacting much business apart from the Rajya Sabha taking up the Motion of Thanks for the President's address amid protests including by the Biju Janata Dal, which almost always supported the BJP in the previous Lok Sabha.
Sources said the report of the law panel on simultaneous polls is not yet finalised. They said "some more things are required to be done", indicating that the law panel will be invited again by the high-level committee.
'Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli?'
The committee headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar is meeting later on Thursday to adopt its draft report in what is likely to be hotly contested by opposition members of the panel.
The opposition leaders are expected to meet at Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge's office in the Parliament complex around 10 am, sources said.
After Gen V K Singh pointed out critical shortage of tank ammunition in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a parliamentary panel on Monday pulled up the government saying it was alarmed over the way deficiencies were allowed to continue leading to such a situation.
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development headed by Satyanarayan Jatiya has slammed SAI for not roping in sportspersons even 20 years after being asked for restructuring of the "unwieldy and monolithic bureaucratic organisation
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja's written submission before the Joint Parliamentary Committee, in which he had claimed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in the loop over policy decisions, does not form part of the panel's report on 2G spectrum scam.
While the BJP and the Congress have always supported the bill, opposition by other parties and demands from some for quota for backward classes within the women's quota have been key sticking points.
"Hum saath hain (we are together) is the message we want to give," Uddhav said.
A demand for raising wages and allowances of MPs was made in the Rajya Sabha on Friday with members demanding that their salaries should be higher than the revised scale of the Cabinet Secretary.
The parliamentary standing committee on energy has asked the government to take result-oriented steps to revatilise the Dabhol power project.
Top military officers, including Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, had been summoned to make presentations on military uniforms.
A joint parliamentary committee is not the perfect but the best option to inquire into the cesspool that Indian cricket seems to have become, CPI(M) MP Sitaram Yechury tells Aditi Phadnis
He said the people are looking for an alternative and the Congress' victories in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka elections are clear proof of this.
Some of them also flagged a lack of consultation before finalising the reports.
Already under fire from all quarters over special economic zones, an important parliamentary committee has firmed up its strong opposition over acquisition of farm land.
A number of supporters said on Twitter they had been targeted by racist abuse from other fans at the Birmingham
Parliamentary reporting is likely to come to a grinding halt, as the policy on recruitment and promotions is stalled by the Lok Sabha secretariat
The Upper House was earlier adjourned twice in the afternoon session when it took up the discussion on the Budget after Prime Minister Narendra Modi finished his speech on the motion of thanks on the President's address and the motion was passed.
...why are the government is running away from a Joint Parliamentary Committee
The bench said it was not questioning the credentials of the election commissioners appointed but the procedure.
One fallout of Rahul Gandhi's disqualification will be reflected in the Opposition's role in Parliament and related institutions.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
In a report submitted Monday to Rajya Sabha chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs also said there was a need for a comprehensive public health law to keep a tab on private hospitals and check black-marketing of medicines.
The Union finance ministry has rejected a proposal sent by the labour ministry to double the monthly minimum pension amount to Rs 2,000 under the Employee Pension Scheme (EPS). The Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision-making body of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), was apprised of the proposal's rejection during a meeting on Saturday. "According to the recommendations made by a highly-empowered monitoring committee constituted by the government, a proposal to increase the minimum pension under EPS from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per month, by providing additional budgetary support, was sent to the ministry of finance.
Janata Dal-United MP Giridhari Yadav on Friday said he does not upload questions on the Lok Sabha's website himself as he does not know how to operate a computer, as the Lower House decided to expel Trinamool Congress (TMC) member Mahua Moitra over the allegation that she shared her log-in credentials with outsiders and took a bribe for asking questions.
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