The bills that repeal and replace the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act will usher in a new era in the criminal justice system, Home Minister Amit Shah said
Faced with strident opposition from the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal over the Women's Reservation Bill, the government on Monday said it does not want to 'bulldoze' the Constitutional amendment and would favour a 'healthy debate' before going ahead with it. After a day of high drama in the Rajya Sabha, where the bill was moved for consideration, Law Minister Veerappa Moily slammed the Opposition parties for the way they protested against it.
Terrorists opened fire at a popular tourist spot near Kashmir's Pahalgam town on Tuesday afternoon, killing 26 people, mostly holidayers from other states, in what is the deadliest attack in the Valley since the Pulwama strike in 2019.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has accused the BJP of rigging the Maharashtra assembly elections and called for a return to ballot paper voting. He also criticized the Modi government for selling off public assets, undermining democratic institutions, and promoting communal polarization. Kharge's remarks come as the Congress prepares for its AICC session in Ahmedabad, where it will present its political and economic views.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday supported the Bill providing for reservation to SCs/STs in promotions in government jobs but asked the government to make certain changes so that it does not create reverse discrimination.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accused the Congress of seeking to divide women in the name of caste and by spreading lies, as he launched a fierce counter-attack on the party over its demand of OBC sub-quota in women's reservation in legislatures.
The standoff over Women's Reservation Bill ended on Thursday with the government announcing that the proposed legislation would be brought in the Lok Sabha only after consultations with all sections.
Opposition MPs in the parliamentary committee scrutinising the Waqf (Amendment) Bill are scheduled to meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday to protest its chairperson Jagdambika Pal's alleged 'unilateral' decisions and attempts to 'bulldoze' proceedings, indicating that they may disassociate themselves from the panel.
Gandhi also assured support of her party to the legislation, which she said would be a "significant" step forward in the empowerment of women.
So keen is Congress President Sonia Gandhi to have the women's reservation bill passed in the Rajya Sabha that she told women MPs of her party who met her during on Thursday that "even if they have to snatch papers and tear them" they must do so to ensure that the bill is passed in the upper house of Parliament.
Giving women an increased share in legislatures may be a good idea but it would have been better had the Manmohan Singh ministry applied a little more thought before placing the bill in Parliament.
The Congress said on Wednesday that Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad did not give any dissent note to the Women's Reservation Bill despite being a member of the Parliamentary Committee concerned, which went into the measure.
The move, a first in the country after the Supreme Court order, is intended to consolidate the BJP's Dalit outreach in Haryana.
It said Article 200 of the Constitution empowers the governor to either give assent to a bill passed by the state legislature, or to withhold the assent, or reserve the bill for consideration of the President.
The fight over the Women's Reservation Bill will continue as there is no dilution in the Rashtriya Janata Dal's stand on it, party supremo Lalu Prasad said on Friday."The fight will continue and there will be no dilution of our stand on the women's quota issue," Lalu told reporters outside Parliament.He said his party was not against reservation for women "but there should be reservations for Dalits, Muslims and other backward women who are struggling in the fields."
Non-banking entities such as fintech firms will have to tap into use cases beyond peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions to scale up the presence of the retail version of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is also known as the e, said industry players. These use cases will enable programmable transactions across domains, including the government's direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes, with subsidies restricted to specific purposes such as food coupons, hospital bills, fertilisers, pesticides, and cross-border remittances.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi along with some opposition leaders too expressed surprise over the President not being invited to the important occasion of shifting Parliament to new premises.
The United Progressive Alliance government will move the Women's Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha in the coming session, Union Minister for Law and Justice M Veerappa Moily said on Monday. The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties have assured their "unconditional" support to the bill, which has prompted the government to introduce it for consideration and passing in Lok Sabha, Moily told media-persons in Karnataka.
Political pundits, sociologists, political scientists, feminists and historians and almost everybody has said that if the bill becomes an act then it will be the biggest socio-political news since independence. This will have the impact bigger than the Mandal Commission that gave reservation to lower castes and it will go deeper than the Ayodhya movement that attempted to ignite Hindu identity cutting across caste barriers.
Senior leader of Bhartiya Janata Party Sushma Swaraj said that her party was in favour of adopting the second resolution on women's reservation bill, which neither requires any constitutional amendment and also does not warrant reservation for women of any particular constituency.
Rajya Sabha witnessed heated exchanges between the treasury and opposition benches after Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge made remarks on the manner in which political parties select women candidates from weaker sections and raised the issue of 'delayed' GST payments to non-Bharatiya Janata Party ruled states.
Taking a serious view of the hooliganism exhibited by a group of Members of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha on Monday during the tabling of the Women's Reservation Bill, a disciplinary action is being mooted, said sources.
'He is exposing the failings of the BJP, which is rankling the party.'
Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram regretted that there has been stiff resistance from certain quarters over the reservation bill, which would ensure 33 per cent seats for women in Parliament and legislatures. Chidambaram said this while releasing the book Karmic Divas -- stories of eight powerful and wealthy women written by Prerna Kaul Misra and printed by Vitasta publications.
With the Congress-led government taking most of the credit for the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in Rajya Sabha, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday patted its own back for the success and criticised the United Progressive Alliance for the forcible eviction of protesting Members of Parliament from the House. Despite being in a minority in the Upper House, the Congress-led government and especially party chief Sonia Gandhi earned kudos for passage of the Bill.
Speaking in the House on Tuesday, he stressed that two-third of the MPs and MLAs will lose interest in nursing and serving their constituencies as they stand no chance of second term and that include all women representatives.
Maratha activist Manoj Jarange on Tuesday launched a fresh indefinite fast, his sixth in a span of over a year, to press for the demand for reservation to his community under the OBC category.
CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury on Monday said the Left parties are in favour of the much-delayed Women's Reservation Bill and maintained that it should be introduced in Parliament in its original form. He said parties like RJD and SP are opposed to the bill, as they have certain issues related to it. However, he said, these could be discussed in Parliament through amendments also.
Congress Member of Parliament from Bihar Mohd Asraul Haque created a flutter in party circles on Thursday by demanding that the interests of "all sections of society" should be taken into account before passing the Women's Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha.
In a landmark overhaul of colonial-era criminal laws, the Centre on Friday introduced in the Lok Sabha three bills to replace the IPC, CrPC and the Indian Evidence Act, proposing among other things repeal of the sedition law and introducing a new provision with a wider definition of the offence.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh will meet Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav on Tuesday morning over the Women's Reservation Bill.
The 71-MP strong ruling Congress is determined to push ahead with the Constitution amendment bill on Monday in the Rajya Sabha, which has an effective strength of 233, coinciding with the International Women's Day.
Gandhi attacked the government over its 'maximum governance' slogan, saying this also meant expanding the base of disagreement without inviting retribution, a reference to its crackdown on several non-governmental organisations.
Chavan said the Mahayuti and BJP's policy was Viksit Bharat and Viksit Maharashtra, as spelt out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Shiv Sena, an ally of the National Democratic Alliance which voted for the Women's Reservation Bill in Rajya Sabha, said on Wednesday, that it will oppose it if marshals were called in and force was used to pass the measure in Lok Sabha.
Vice President Hamid Ansari's wife Salma says she has a "problem" with the Women's Reservation Bill and feels that it will not be of much help unless awareness is created among women at the grassroot level.
Unfazed by Monday's developments in the Rajya Sabha, President Pratibha Patil said that it will be 'graceful' if the Women's Reservation Bill is passed after consultation 'as far as possible.'
Consensus eluded the all-party meeting held in New Delhi on Monday to break the logjam over the Women's Reservation Bill, with the Yadav trio sticking to their demand for quota within quota and United Progressive Alliance ally Trinamool Congress supporting their stance. After two hours of intense deliberations, it was decided that more discussions would be held on the issue, triggering doubts about whether the bill could be introduced in Lok Sabha in the budget session.
The National Judicial Commission Bill, 2022, was introduced after the majority of voice votes were in its favour.
The support of a majority of his own party MPs to the legislation notwithstanding, JD (U) president Sharad Yadav on Tuesday accused the UPA of forcing through the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha and said constitutional amendments should only be passed after evolving a consensus.
