To govern effectively, to legislate successfully, Modi must reach out to the Opposition. As long as he does not and he is showing no signs that he accepts the reality, the drift his fans are anguishing over will remain, cautions Aakar Patel.
The increased numbers of the Opposition bloc would mean that their MPs are likely to head several more panels than the four that they did by the end of the term of the 17th Lok Sabha.
The report is likely to recommend that India adopt the German model of 'constructive no-confidence' which stipulates that the unseating of a government must be immediately followed by the formation of a new one, which will serve out the remainder of the legislative term.
Given the gap between budgetary allocation and use, a parliamentary standing committee has asked the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (Ayush) to take steps to prevent underutilisation of funds under the National Ayush Mission (NAM) scheme. According to the data, the ministry was allocated Rs 1,200 crore for the mission in the Budgetary Estimate (BE) for FY24. The Revised Estimate (RE) for the year fell to Rs 815 crore, of which Rs 589 crore, or 74 per cent, has been spent till January.
The bills -- the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill -- were introduced in the Lok Sabha by Home Minister Amit Shah on August 11.
The government on Tuesday introduced in Parliament three redrafted bills to replace the existing criminal laws by including various recommendations made by a parliamentary panel.
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.
Till Tuesday evening, the law panel had received nearly 8.5 lakh responses on its public notice.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Wednesday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla flagging alerts received by several opposition leaders about 'state-sponsored' attacks on their iPhones, and urged him to provide them protection to continue doing their duties.
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.
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.
It has noted that melting glaciers due to any impact of climate change will not only severely affect the flow in Himalayan river system but will also give rise to natural disasters.
It is being suggested that apps, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, should share their APIs with each other to ensure there is interoperability, just as it exists across email services.
Opposition parties have not been given the chairmanship of any of the four key parliamentary panels including the committee on home affairs and information technology, which were with the Congress, in the latest rejig announced on Tuesday.
A parliamentary panel has observed that mere medical insanity cannot be a ground for the acquittal of an accused and legal insanity is required to be proved for claiming a valid defence.
Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and some other MPs suspended from Parliament will not be able to attend the meetings of parliamentary committees of which they are a member or chairperson till their suspension is revoked.
Besides the bills, the government has listed the first batch of supplementary demands for grants for 2023-24 for presentation, discussion and voting during the session.
Fondly remembering the contribution of retiring members from the Rajya Sabha, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday said the wisdom shared by them would be greatly missed and their departure would leave a void.
Highlighting the low representation of women in the Central Armed Police Forces, a parliamentary committee has asked the Union home ministry to take steps to encourage them to join the services, besides recommending a reservation for transgenders.
The standing committees have not been holding their sittings due to the severe second wave of COVID-19.
A parliamentary committee on Friday batted for reducing the minimum age to contest Lok Sabha and assembly elections, saying it would give the youth equal opportunities to engage in democracy.
Some of them also flagged a lack of consultation before finalising the reports.
People taken into custody for economic offences should not be handcuffed and clubbed with those arrested for heinous crimes such as rape and murder, a parliamentary committee has recommended.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday met top officials of the finance and corporate affairs ministries to review the implementation of various announcements of the Union Budget FY24. "The finance minister underlined the importance of continuous assessment of progress to ensure that various announcements are implemented in a time-bound manner," the finance ministry said in a tweet. Sitharaman also discussed in detail various issues on the digital competition laws with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the minister of state for entrepreneurship, skill development, electronics and technology.
It said that the opportunities presented by an open and competitive South Asian market may also be grasped and consolidated from both security and economic perspectives.
The ICMR-National Institute of Virology has been regularly undertaking studies to understand the protective efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines against emerging variants.
Holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state assemblies would need at least five constitutional amendments and a large number of additional EVMs and paper-trail machines costing "thousands of crores of rupees", but will yield a huge long-term saving to the public exchequer, officials said on Friday.
Sushmita Dev said it would have been better if there were more women MPs in the panel.
Mishra said the department-related parliamentary standing committee on home affairs in its 146th report had recommended that there is a need for a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system of the country.
In the letter, they said as members of the committee, it is their moral and constitutional responsibility to discuss this matter with utmost urgency and the required sincerity.
'There is a huge risk of misinformation and disinformation, and targeted campaigns that could potentially happen against candidates or to push certain narratives.'
Companies making electric two-wheelers, through their association Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), have taken on the Department of Heavy Industries (DHI), saying they did not get subsidies for even half the mandated 1 million units they manufactured. Subsidies are given under Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles 2 (FAME II). In a petition to the parliamentary standing committee on industry energy and estimates, the SMEV said the department had done an "accounting error" by showing that it (the department) was close to achieving the mandated target by including sales of the EVs that were "not funded" under the scheme.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said as chairperson of a parliamentary committee, he was not consulted at all over the recent appointments of personnel attached with committees under the ambit of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.
A parliamentary committee report on empowerment of women from February 2019 noted that the number of cases 'could be higher as many times cases against coaches also might have gone unreported/not complained against.'
Opposition alliance INDIA on Thursday boycotted a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi not making a statement on Manipur violence in Parliament, a senior leader said.
BJP members of the panel who were present in the meeting room didn't sign the attendance register in protest leading to a lack of quorum required for holding the meeting.
In a letter to Birla, Karti Chidambaram also said that over the course of the past few years, his family and he himself have become targets of a 'relentless campaign by the present government and its investigating agencies which are trying to silence our voices of dissent by foisting one fake case after another'.
It also suggested that the IPC provision related to adultery should be retained in the Sanhita by making it gender neutral "for the sake of protecting the institution of marriage".
Panel chairman Thakur is believed to have informed Dev that the issue was not on the agenda for the meeting.
Presentations were given by the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the principal scientific adviser to the government before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Climate on the Centre's COVID-19 preparedness.
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