There was no addition to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's jewellery though their value increased while her wealth rose by over three-and-a-half times since the 2009 general elections with the total value of her assets declared to be more than Rs 36 crore.
In a fresh bid to end the Parliament deadlock, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will on Friday meet leaders of the Left Front and other non-Bharatiya Janata Party opposition parties. Communist Party of India - Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat, CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury and Janata Dal - United chief Sharad Yadav are among those who will attend the meeting.On Thursday, the Speaker met BJP leaders but failed to bridge the differences as they insisted on a JPC.
Medhavi Kirti, the granddaughter of late veteran Congress leader Babu Jagjiwan Ram, has been campaigning against her aunt Meira Kumar, Lok Sabha Speaker and Congress candidate from Sasaram Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.
In the wake of the death of the Delhi gangrape victim, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday cancelled the visit of an Indian parliamentary delegation led by her to South Africa and her own trip to Namibia to attend a Commonwealth Speakers' conference.
The 'mock Parliament' initiated by Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav on the MP's salary hike issue last week has turned out to be a major irritation for Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, who is reportedly contemplating stepping down.
Meira Kumar said this while intervening in the discussion on priorities for the UN and its reform, at the second meeting of the Preparatory Committee of Speakers of Parliaments. The meeting was organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union at the United Nations in New York
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has ruled out her resignation from Congress as suggested by her predecessor Somnath Chatterjee. "There is no convention that the Speaker should resign from the primary membership of his or her party. I will function with the same impartiality towards Congress and the other parties in the Lok Sabha," she said.
'Fighting Meira Kumar is not a daunting task at all. I hope to give her a very tough fight... Bihar is one state where my Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has challenged Narendra Modi's candidature. As a challenge he should have contested from Bihar and proved Nitish Kumar wrong,' says Dr K P Ramaiah, an IAS officer till a few months ago, now fighting his first election from Sasaram, Bihar.
Developmental works being undertaken by India in war-torn northern Sri Lanka and the current political situation came up for discussion when Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar met President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Colombo on Friday. Kumar is in Colombo to attend the 58th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference. She met Rajapaksa at his official residence and discussed a host of issues that concern the relationship between the two countries.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has floored an audience that included her Pakistani counterpart, senior ministers and parliamentarians by delivering a speech in flawless Urdu laced with couplets from Firaq Gorkhpuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday said people were 'rightly angry' over the gangrape of a paramedic student and called for 'very stringent' laws to ensure safety of women.
Almost a fortnight after former bureaucrat K P Ramaiah took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service, he is ready to take on Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a former Indian Foreign Service officer, in the Lok Sabha polls from the Sasaram seat in Bihar.
'This is how Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar treated the Leader of Opposition,' Swaraj tweeted.
Meira Kumar was elected Lok Sabha Speaker unanimously on Wednesday.
A foundation in the name of former Deputy Prime Minister Babu Jagjivan Ram and father of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has been allotted a bungalow in the prime Lutyen's Delhi for 25 years.
Kumar is registered in the voters' list at her Delhi address of New Friends Colony and since she is now confined to the Sasaram parliamentary constituency from where she is contesting as a Congress candidate, the Speaker will not be able to cast her vote in the national capital, sources in her election office at Mohania said.
Reminding lawmakers that they were in Parliament to protect the interest of the people, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Sunday said there was no scope of lapse in the discharge of their duties. "Rising above religion, region, caste, language etc., we are here to protect the interest of the people of the entire nation, especially the marginalised who are ignored. This leaves no scope for any kind of lapse in discharging our duties," she said.
Kumar, a Dalit, as its candidate for president against NDA's nominee Ram Nath Kovind.
The Congress may proudly claim that the party has given the country its first woman speaker in Meira Kumar, but sources tell rediff.com that the Bihar MP was in fact a last-minute choice for the august office.
The YSR Congress on Tuesday told Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar that it is against tabling the Andhra Pradesh Re-Organisation Bill 2013 in Parliament.
Daughter of former deputy PM late Jagjivan Ram, Kumar, 72, was also the first woman to occupy the high office of the LS speaker
Kumar will launch her campaign from Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat on June 30.
"Anybody fighting for an ideology and appealing to the voice of conscience cannot be a scapegoat. I am a fighter and I will fight and I am sure that many will join me in this fight," she said in response to a question whether she was being made a scapegoat in the presidential election.
The urban development ministry has withdrawn a notice for recovery of about Rs two crore rent dues from Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar for use of a government bungalow.
Within an hour of taking over as Speaker, Meira Kumar issued her first directive in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, asking the House reporters to expunge certain exchanges between Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad. When Prasad was speaking to congratulate Kumar, he made certain statements which were objected to by Yadav.
'Behave yourself, maintain discipline, decorum inside the House.' This was the message Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had for as many as 302 first-time members of the Lok Sabha.
A usually soft-spoken Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Friday pulled up Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav when he sought to challenge her authority and responded angrily to her remarks.
The issue of resignation by Congress MPs from Seemandhra continues to hang fire. Their meeting with Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has been delayed further.
Embarrassed over All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members shouting slogans against a visiting Parliamentary delegation from Sri Lanka, Speaker Meira Kumar on Monday expressed anguish about the incident and offered her "sincere apologies" for it. "She expressed anguish and offered sincere apologies over slogan shouting by some Members of Parliament in the House when the visiting delegation was witnessing the proceedings of the Lok Sabha," a Lok Sabha release said.
The Communist Party of India - Marxist on Wednesday threatened to disrupt Parliament proceedings unless Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhyay apologised for shouting at a Member of Parliament of the Left party."Apologise, otherwise the House will not function," CPI-M's Leader in Lok Sabha Basudev Acharia threatened. The Lok Sabha was adjourned for over three hours on Tuesday when the entire Opposition demanded an apology from the Trinamool chief whip.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's secretary A P Pathak was on Friday removed from his post shortly after the Central Bureau of Investigtion searched his premises in an alleged disproportionate assets case during which the agency claimed to have recovered documents of properties worth crores of rupees.
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.
Union Minister M K Alagiri will no longer have to fight shy of Parliament on the ground that he is not well-versed in English or Hindi.
Five-term Lok Sabha Member of Parliament Meira Kumar on Tuesday became the consensus candidate of the ruling United Progressive Alliance and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker. Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee led a UPA delegation to submit Kumar's nomination papers to Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary for the election to the Speaker's post scheduled to be held on Wednesday. Kumar, 64, will be the first woman to head the LS.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Karia Munda was today unanimously elected as the new Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha by a voice vote.
A diplomat-turned-politician, she took the initiative to organise a number of international seminars hosted by Indian Parliament since she took oath as the Speaker on June 3, 2009.
A stench of burnt wire and furniture filled the corridors outside the Speaker's chamber at around 10 am and it was cordonned of for visitors.
A demand by two former speakers for being treated on par with former Presidents and vice presidents in relation to facilities like accommodation and some other perks was on Monday shot down by the government.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has threatened to act against 51 members including Union Minister R P N Singh and leaders like Lalu Prasad, Kalyan Singh and Babulal Marandi if they failed to disclose their assets soon.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances