The Insurance Bill that the Bharatiya Janata Party government had announced would be passed in the winter session of Parliament has run into rough weather.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said he was confident of the DTC being recommended by the standing committee in the coming (winter) Parliament session.
Contrary to Anna Hazare's view -- that Rahul Gandhi was behind the Standing Committee's decision to exclude the lower bureaucracy from the purview of Lokpal -- there are indications now that it may be Gandhi who may want their inclusion, says Neerja Chowdhury
Team Anna member Kiran Bedi on Thursday contended that the Parliamentary Standing Committee recommendations on Lokpal Bill will only help in making the ombdusman an "Enquiry Pal" with no powers at all. Bedi said Anna Hazare and his supporters did not fight for such an anti-corruption watchdog.
Sheela Bhatt traces how Parliament's Standing Committee on the Lokpal Bill is giving final shape to its report, finds out what the key clauses could be and discovers the political difficulties in finalising a complex legal issue before the winter session ends.
Indian Against Corruption led by Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal will undertake a survey on Jan Lokpal Bill in Uttar Pradesh seven districts, including Rae Bareli represented by Sonia Gandhi, and constituencies of members of Parliament who are on the standing committee scrutinising the measure.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Lokpal Bill will meet in New Delhi on September 7 to decide its procedure to fast track the comprehensive exercise for formulating a strong legislation. It will kick off its work by hearing Central Bureau of Investigation director A P Singh and Central Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar who have been sent notices to appear before it.
Asserting that it was for Parliament to take a final view on inclusion of Prime Minister under the ambit of Lokpal, Parliamentary Standing Committee chairman Abhishek Singhvi on Wednesday said the panel was not meant to reach out to or please Team Anna or any other group.
Disappointed over the draft report of the Standing Committee on Lokpal Bill, Team Anna member Kiran Bedi has warned that going back on the commitment given by Parliament would encourage a mass movement again. When asked for her comments on the draft report which sought to keep lower bureaucracy out of the ambit of the ombudsman, Bedi said, "This is going back on the commitment and will call for mass movement again".
The first phase of the session yielded a total of seven sittings of the Lok Sabha and eight sittings of the Rajya Sabha, the ministry said.
Social activist Medha Patkar on Wednesday expressed confidence that the Jan Lokpal Bill, now being studied by a Parliamentary Standing Committee, will finally come into effect as it has public support.
The seventh Tibet Work Forum was held in Beijing on August 28 and 29. Delhi should be deeply concerned, at a time India faces a precarious situation in Ladakh, because the TWF also defines China's western border policies, observes Claude Arpi.
The DMK parliamentary party appears to be a house divided, reports R Rajagopalan.
The differences between the Congress and the BJP are too obvious and it seems, as expected, this Parliament is a divided house on the issue of fighting corruption.
Rashtriya Janata Dal's Lalu Prasad was the odd man out in the Lok Sabha on Saturday when he questioned the need for a debate on the Lokpal issue saying a bill in this regard was already before a Parliamentary Standing Committee.
Amid Anna Hazare's agitation on the Lokpal issue, a Parliamentary Standing Committee going into the Lokpal Bill on Sunday gave signals that it could "surprise" all those skeptical or cynical about the outcome of the exercise.
From deciding on the composition of various House committees to fixing the seating arrangement of MPs, Speaker Om Birla has a full plate.
Important for India was Xi's meeting with representatives of PLA officers and soldiers stationed in Tibet. The video of the encounter was interesting to watch, especially the large number of lieutenant generals and major generals, observes Claude Arpi.
The 56-year-old leader is considered to be close to both Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
Ramesh says the best route now is to refer the amendments to Parliament's standing committee on rural development.
"What the RTI Act did was to make available to citizens any information that could be provided, that the government was obliged to provide to a Member of Parliament (MP). In theory, that channel remains open to us," says prominent economist and RTI activist Reetika Khera about how Indian citizens could still have access to information that they want
Anna Hazare is likely to end his vow of silence on Friday and head to Delhi where he may attend the meeting of the Standing Committee on the issue of Lokpal Bill.
While players in the financial ecosystem are opening up to the idea of receivables funding for the sector, this market needs a regulator, which a Parliament panel feels only RBI can provide.
The Lokpal Bill will come up for scrutiny by the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the first time on September 7.
The Direct Taxes Code Bill, introduced in Parliament on August 30 last year, proposes to replace the 50-year-old Income Tax Act.
Lok Sabha lost a sixth of its time to disruptions.
The Chinese Communist Party's all important 19th Party Congress is just months away, and President Xi Jinping finds himself confronting unlikely challenges to his pre-eminent position, says former RA&W officer and China watcher Jayadeva Ranade.
To the disappointment of the Forward Markets Commission, the commodity markets regulator, the standing committee of Parliament examining the Bill seeking to amend the Forward Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1952, has invited suggestions from the public and stakeholders, including consumer bodies.
The meeting was convened by the Congress. Six major parties -- the DMK, the SP, the BSP, the TMC, the AAP and the Shiv Sena -- choose to stay away. The BJP took a swipe at the absence of major opposition parties at the meet and also said that their anti-CAA resolution must've made Pak happy.
C P Chandrasekhar, who has served on key statistical panels in the past both as a chairman and member, said he was present in the campus when the ruckus broke out on Sunday and found the incident "disturbing" and "unprecedented", and that it further undermined the faith in the system. Somesh Jha reports.
"The Indian government approached asking us to open the airspace. We conveyed our concerns that first India must withdraw its fighter planes placed forward," Nusrat told the committee.
The army also stated that allocation of Rs 21,338 crore for modernisation is insufficient.
The first priority for the new Tibetan administration in Dharamsala should be to look at Tibetan recruitment in the PLA, suggests Claude Arpi.
India is among 75 countries with which Switzerland's Federal Tax Administration has exchanged information on financial accounts within the framework of global standards on Automatic Exchange of Information.
India on Sunday said that Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is likely to meet her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Standing Committee meeting in Bhutan early in February. This comes ahead of a possible visit by Pakistan Foreign Minister S M Qureshi to India. The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan are likely to meet in Thimpu on the sidelines of the SAARC Standing Committee meeting on February 6-7.
'We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form'
House Panel loses opportunity to correct anomalies.
Pharma major Dr Reddy's Laboratories has opposed the parliamentary Standing committee's recommendations of increasing the number of drugs under price control and cap on profit margins of all medicines.
The code, which will replace the existing Income Tax Act 1961, aims to rationalise tax rates to bring more people and companies under the tax net.
'If one puts the context of what Xi Jinping said at the UN about not wanting a 'hot or cold war with any country', one realises that his speech was quite bizarre.' 'The world does not expect such statements from China, a nation aspiring to be a superpower.
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