A decision on repealing the controversial Section of the Penal Law which criminalises homosexuality would be taken only after considering concerns of all sections of society, including religious groups like the church, Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily said on Sunday.
The government hailed the consensus among major political parties on the Women's Reservation Bill on Sunday and said no single party could claim credit for it.
Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru cannot be hanged till other mercy petitions pending before his are disposed of, feels the government.
Moily, a former Karnataka chief minister and Congress spokesperson, spoke about the chances of the UPA government, the emergence of the third front and the nuclear deal.
The All India Congress Committee has asked the party's ministers and legislators in Assam to declare their personal assets before Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.Veerappa Moily, the Congress leader in charge of Assam, told mediapersons that though there was no provision in the Constitution to make it mandatory for ministers and Members of Legislative Assembly to declare their assets, all party ministers and legislators in Assam would have to do so before Tarun Gogoi.
"An impression is created that Congress president Sonia Gandhi personally talked to M Karunanidhi to keep the Hogenakkal project on hold," he said in a statement in New Delhi on Wednesday, backtracking on his previous statement in Bangalore on the subject.Karunanidhi has already said that the decision was not based on any request made by the Congress and was meant for the welfare of the people of both the states.
Union Law and Justice Minister M Veerappa Moily on Thursday welcomed the move of the Supreme Court judges to make public the details of their assets. "If they have come forward to disclose it, it is welcome," he said.
Union Minister Jairam Ramesh is back in the Congress's high-profile Group on Future Challenges, which also has Rahul Gandhi as its prominent member. Ramesh, who was earlier the convener of the Group, was dropped after its first meeting late last year, without any official explanation. Confirming his return, senior party leader M Veerappa Moily, who heads the panel said, "Ramesh is now a member of the group".
The Bill also seeks to extend nomination of Anglo-Indian communities to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies by another 10 years. The Constitution (109th Amendment) Bill 2009 moved by Law Minister M Veerappa Moily seeks to extend the reservation beyond January 25, 2010 when the time period of 60 years under Article 334 of the Constitution lapses.
Moily had last week rejected Vedanta's proposal to mine the Niyamgiri hills after 12 village councils of Dongriya Kondh tribal groups opposed the project in their forests.
Justice M F Saldanha, former judge of the Bombay and Karnataka High Court, says that the Union government has to deal with this issue very carefully and scrapping the section 377 is not as easy as it is made out to be by some gay rights activists.
Hinting that the government's options were open on the new law, Dr Singh said, "We have not reached a conclusion yet. I have asked a group of officials to study the administrative reforms commission report and then we will decide."
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday demanded that Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur immediately call the BJP to form the government as they had the required strength. Referring to reported statements by senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily, that the governor had sent a "statement of facts" to the Centre, the BJP wondered how this was made known to him as the report has not been made public.
'The party has been advocating reservation to all socially and educationally backwards irrespective of any religion," party spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi told reporters at the AICC briefing.
The fact that to save both, criminals have had to be hauled out of jails, the sick and ailing have to be brought in on stretchers, that truant film stars have to be dragged away from overseas locations kicking and screaming, and that lawmakers have to be purchased like this, tells its own story.
The panel would like to submit its final report by the month end, said Moily, who is also chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission.
'This kind of poisonous and anti-national activities happening in the country and the economic failure of the Modi government may boomerang in the form of a Congress revival.'
Quota: Govt announces 13-member committee headed by Moily
The Congress expected the DMK to allot a 'respectable number of seats'.
Right now what we need, as much as we needed them all along in the life of this nation, is proper law enforcement. Also, the law enforcement has to be done legally. That seems a little odd when said, but that's what we need.
The Administrative Reforms Commission, ARC plans to come out with a set of codes for the political executive and civil servants, to counter corruption.
The report said the grand plan for technology deployment on campuses was aimed at preparing and providing them essentially digital infrastructure ready to be used by a "plugged in, digital savvy-generation".
The ball is now in the government's court to decide on the contentious issues on OBC quota including the creamy layer with the Moily Committee submitting its final report to the Prime Minister's Office.
The conference was seen by many as a show of strength by the Opposition with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav joining in to raise their voice against oppression of backward classes.
Amid hiccups over a consensus on OBC quota, Oversight Committee Chairman Veerappa Moily has ruled out any "bulldozing" of the proposal for 27 per cent reservation in elite and central educational institutions.
Both parties refusing to yield on the key issue of number of DIC-K candidates contesting on Congress symbol.
'We in India are incredibly lucky in our judiciary. Taken as a body it is undoubtedly free of taints. But let us not pretend that every single member of this elite corps is free of controversy.'
Coming down hard against Arvind Kejriwal for ordering an FIR against him and others for raising gas prices, Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily on Saturday said the former Delhi chief minister doesn't understand fundamental laws.
Anjanappa, chief of the Chikkaballapur unit of the party, has alleged that several crores of rupees were involved in the alleged scam and hence a probe had to be initiated.
All the issues around which the grand old party wanted to fight the May 10 assembly elections have been put on the backburner as party state president DK Shivakumar in damage control mode took up a temple run.
Could Jairam Ramesh's frank comments work to the BJP's advantage?
After Moily took over as oil minister, the central government agreed to link prices with global indices.
