News Analysis India

Tag: Rajya Sabha

  • Pegasus row: Both houses of Parliament adjourned amid Opposition ruckus

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha proceedings were adjourned for about an hour on Tuesday after opposition parties obstructed regular business over various issues, including the Pegasus snooping controversy.

    Members of opposition parties, who had given as many as 15 notices under rule 267 requiring setting aside of the business of the day to take up the issue they want to raise, raised slogans and rushed into the Well of the House, prompting chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to adjourn the proceedings till 12 noon.

    The issues include alleged snooping of Opposition leaders, journalists and vocal critics of the government, fuel price rise and farmers agitation against new farm laws.

    No sooner had the House condoled the death of a former member, Ramadhar Kashyap, members of Congress, TMC, Left and DMK were up on their feet raising various issues.

    With the chairman disallowing all the 15 notices as he did for the 17 served on Monday, Anand Sharma of tghe Congress said either the rule 267 should be removed or the Chairman should consider notices given under them as long as it is there in the rule book.

    “These are issues of concern. We should not only read about it in newspapers or see on television,” he said.

    Naidu said he agrees with Sharma.

    ALSO READ | Pegasus row: Opposition meets to chalk up strategy against Modi government; Congress to hold press conferences in every state on Wednesday

    “There is a need for (rule) 267. I have been there in the House and I understand the problem of national security, something serious happens, you have to suspend the business and then take up that matter.”

    But this provided the Chairman goes through the notice and then admits it, he said adding the notices given on Monday and Tuesday largely relate to “variety of issues. some of them ongoing for a long time, some of them discussed earlier.”

    “What is the way for the Chairman to admit 15 267 notices and take the house forward,” he remarked adding zero hour is the time when members can raise issues on which they have given notices.

    But Opposition members were not convinced and started to rush into the Well as Naidu called for listed official papers to be laid on the table.

    As they raised slogans, Naidu adjourned the proceedings.

    “The House is adjourned to meet at 12 noon because some people have decided not to allow the House (to function),” he remarked.

    Lok Sabha proceedings were adjourned till 2 pm on Tuesday after the Opposition created a ruckus over the Pegasus snooping controversy and other issues.

    Opposition members sought to raise various issues and shouted slogans as soon as the House met for the day at 11 am.

    The proceedings lasted for barely five minutes.

  • Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to be deputy leader of House in Rajya Sabha

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has been named as the Deputy Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, sources said on Monday.

    Naqvi succeeds Piyush Goyal, who has been appointed as the Leader of House in Rajya Sabha.

    The minority affairs minister is known for his wide knowledge of parliamentary affairs and had also served as the minister of state for parliamentary affairs during the first term of the Modi government.

    The appointment of Naqvi, who is known for having cordial relations with leaders of parties across the political spectrum, assumes significance as it comes at a time when the Opposition is raring to corner the ruling dispensation over a host of issues, including handling of the second wave of COVID-19, rise in fuel prices and farmers’ stir.

  • Parliament’s Monsoon Session commences on rocky note as LS adjourned till 2 pm amid Oppn ruckus

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Monsoon session of the Lok Sabha began on a stormy note on Monday with the Opposition creating a ruckus and preventing Prime Minister Narendra Modi from introducing the newly inducted Union ministers.

    As the disruptions continued despite repeated Speaker Om Birla’s repeated pleas to maintain decorum, the House was adjourned after nearly 40 minutes till 2 pm.

    Four newly elected members — Maddila Gurumoorthy (YSR Congress), Mangal Suresh Angadi (BJP), M P Abdussamad Samadani (IUML), Vijayakumar (Congress) — took oath as the House convened after a gap of nearly four months.

    Following this, the prime minister stood up to introduce the newly inducted ministers who took oath on July 7 following a major rejig in the council of ministers.

    As soon as Modi stood up, opposition members started shouting slogans and disrupted the proceedings.

    Rajya Sabha adjourned for one hour

    Rajya Sabha proceedings on the opening day of the Monsoon session of Parliament on Monday were adjourned for an hour as a mark of respect to departed sitting MPs Raghunath Mohapatra and Rajeev Satav.

    Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu mentioned the passing away of the two sitting MPs as well as 10 former members, including Bollywood veteran actor Dilip Kumar and legendary Indian sprinter Milkha Singh.

    ALSO READ | Urge MPs, parties to ask sharpest of questions in Parliament, but should allow govt to respond: PM Modi

    He read out obituary references for each of the 13 before adjourning the proceedings for an hour “as a mark of respect to the memory of Raghunath Mohapatra and Rajeev Satav, sitting members of the house”.

    Renowned sculptor Raghunath Mohapatra died on May 9 at the age of 78 years.

    Padma Vibhushan awardee Mohapatra, who was a nominated member of the Upper House since July 2018, was referred as genius in the world of sculptor, Naidu said.

    “In the passing away of Mohapatra, the country has lost a legendary craftsman and a sculptor par excellence,” he said.

    Congress leader Satav passed away on May 16 at the age of 46 years.

    He was elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra in April last year.

    “It is indeed saddening to lose a young colleague in such a short span of time,” Naidu said.

    “In the passing away of Rajiv Satav, the country has lost a promising leader and an able parliamentarian.”

    Naidu also mentioned the passing away of legendary Bollywood veteran actor Dilip Kumar on July 7 at the age of 98 years.

    The ‘tragedy king’ of Hindi cinema made debut in 1944 and had a career spanning over 5 decades, he said.

    “A doyen of the Indian film industry and an inspiration to generations to film artistes, Dilip Kumar herald a new era in the film industry at a time when it was putting behind shackles of colonial rule.

    ” Winner of record eight Filmfare awards, Dilip Kumar represented Maharashtra in the Upper House from April 2002 to April 2006.

    “In passing away of Shri Yusuf Sarwar Khan alias Dilip Kumar marks the era in the Indian film industry and the country has lost a legendary film artist and an able parliamentarian,” he said.

    Naidu said legendary sprinter Milkha Singh passed away on June 18 at the age of 91 years.

    Known as ‘Flying Sikh’, Singh won gold medals in the Asian and Commonwealth Games.

    “He had been a guiding light for the aspiring athletes and left no chance to motivate and guide them,” he said.

    “In passing away of Shri Milkha Singh ji, the country has lost a legendary athlete and a great motivator.”

    The House also mourned the passing away of its former members N M Kamble, Bhagwati Singh, Balihari Babu Ajit Singh, Matang Sinh, Jitendrabhai Labhshanker Bhatt, Ramendra Kumar Yadav ‘Ravi’, Jagannath Prasad Pahadia (ex-Member) and Shanti Pahadia.

    Members stood in silence in their places as a mark of respect to the memory of the departed.

    Soon after, Naidu adjourned the proceedings for an hour.

  • CPI MP gives suspension of business notice in Rajya Sabha on Pegasus spyware issue

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Ahead of the commencement of the Monsoon session of the Parliament, Communist Party of India (CPI) Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam on Monday has given a suspension of business notice under rule 267 over revelations of the scale of Pegasus spyware.

    The Monsoon session is set to begin on Monday and will conclude on August 13.

    The development comes after the names of over 40 Indian journalists appeared on the leaked list of potential targets for surveillance by an unidentified agency using Pegasus spyware, according to a report published in The Wire.

    Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology refuted the reports of surveillance of journalists.

    ALSO READ | What is Pegasus spyware? 10 basic facts about ‘snooping’ row & the surveillance software involved 

    “The allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever. In the past, similar claims were made regarding the use of Pegasus on WhatsApp by the Indian State. Those reports also had no factual basis and were categorically denied by all parties, including WhatsApp in the Indian Supreme Court,” the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology said in its response.

    “This news report, thus, also appears to be a similar fishing expedition, based on conjectures and exaggerations to malign the Indian democracy and its institutions,” the Ministry added.

    The spyware ‘Pegasus’ is developed by Israel-based NSO Group. The company specialises in hacking devices and caters to various governments of the world for spying purposes.

    Forensic tests have also confirmed that phones of some of these journalists were successfully infected with the Pegasus malware, the report said.

    According to the report, the journalists who were targeted work for some news organisations in the country including Hindustan Times, The Hindu, India Today, Indian Express and Network18. Many of them cover matters related to Defence, Home Ministry, Election Commission and Kashmir among others.

    The Wire said phones of its founder-editors Siddharth Varadarajan and MK Venu were also targeted with Pegasus spyware.

    Some of the prominent journalists whose names are mentioned in the leaked list include Shishir Gupta, Prashant Jha, Rahul Singh, Sandeep Unnithan, Manoj Gupta, Vijaita Singh and J Gopikrishnan, the report said.

    According to The Wire, the leaked list was first accessed by France-based Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and later shared with The Wire and 15 other news organisations worldwide as part of a collaborative investigation named the ‘Pegasus Project’.

    Notably, the presence of a phone number in the list alone does not reveal whether a device was infected with Pegasus or subject to an attempted hack. But the Pegasus Project suggests potential targets for surveillance attempts.

    Independent digital forensic analysis conducted on 10 Indian phones whose numbers were present in the data showed signs of either an attempted or successful Pegasus hack, reported The Wire.

    In November 2019, messaging app WhatsApp had revealed that journalists and activists in India have been the target of surveillance by operators using the Israeli spyware, Pegasus.

    The then Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had informed the Parliament that Pegasus spyware was developed by an Israel-based company NSO Group in an attempt to reach mobile phones of 1,400 users globally including 121 users from India.

    The spyware first made global headlines in 2016 when an Arab activist reported a mysterious message on his phone. 

  • Piyush Goyal meets senior Opposition leaders ahead of Monsoon Session

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Newly-appointed Leader of House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal met senior Opposition leaders including former prime minister and Congress veteran Manmohan Singh, his party colleague Anand Sharma and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament beginning Monday.

    Sources said Goyal met the former prime minister Friday and Anand Sharma Thursday evening.

    He spent around half an hour with Manmohan Singh.

    The meetings were termed courtesy calls on the senior opposition leaders.

    The interactions with senior opposition leaders are also being seen as an outreach exercise by the government ahead of the Parliament session.

    The interactions come days after Goyal was named the Leader of House in Rajya Sabha in place of Thaawarchand Gehlot who has been made the governor of Karnataka.

    The session beginning Monday would conclude on August 13.

    The government has listed 17 new bills for introduction in the session, including three to replace ordinances issued recently.

    BJP MPs are also expected to introduce private members’ Bills on population control and uniform civil code.

  • Union Minister Piyush Goyal to be Leader of House in Rajya Sabha

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Union minister Piyush Goyal has been appointed as the leader of house in Rajya Sabha, sources said on Wednesday.

    He will succeed Thawar Chand Gahlot who has been appointed the governor of Karnataka.

    The Parliamentary Affairs Ministry has intimated the Rajya Sabha Secretariat that Goyal will be the Leader of House, the sources said.

    Goyal, a two-time Rajya Sabha MP, is currently the deputy leader of the NDA and is also Union Minister in the Cabinet.

    He is holding the charge of various ministries, including commerce and industry, food and consumer affairs, and textiles.

    Prior to becoming a minister in 2014, Goyal was the treasurer of the party.

    He was also engaged by the BJP in poll management activities and for managing logistics during the election.

  • Swapan Dasgupta, Mahesh Jethmalani among four new Rajya Sabha members take oath

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Four new members of Rajya Sabha, including Swapan Dasgupta and Mahesh Jethmalani, took oath on Tuesday, with Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu noting that the public representatives have a great role to play during the challenging times of the ongoing pandemic.

    The other two members were John Brittas (CPI-M) and V Sivadasan (CPI-M), both elected from Kerala.

    Dasgupta, who had quit his membership to contest the West Bengal Assembly election, and eminent lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani are both nominated.

    Sivadasan took oath in Malayalam, while others chose English.

    Congratulating the new members, the chairman said the oath-taking ceremony is usually held in his chamber but was held in the Rajya Sabha chamber due to the prevailing pandemic situation while adhering to Covid-appropriate behaviour.

    “The oath or affirmation has been arranged now as the convening of the next session will take some time,” the Chairman noted.

    While the Monsoon session is due to be held in July, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi told PTI on Tuesday that the government is hopeful it will begin on its normal schedule.

    After administering oath to the members, Naidu said as representatives of the people “we have a great role to play during the ongoing pandemic and these challenging times have presented themselves with the problems that required coordinated effort from different entities”.

    The Chairman advised members, particularly the new ones, to take interest in motivating people in and around their constituency for COVID vaccination.

    “We need to educate them and motivate them to see that they also get vaccinated at the earliest,” he said.

    Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Leader of the House Thaawarchand Gehlot, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal were also present during the oath-taking.

    “Holding a public office is a 24X7 responsibility and it entitles a never-ending accountability towards the citizens of the country,” Naidu said, adding it is the bounden duty of members to voice people’s concerns as well as aspirations through various parliamentary devices.

    He said it is also imperative for members to maintain high standards of conduct in public life and decorum in the house of elders.

  • Swapan Dasgupta, who unsuccessfully contested West Bengal polls, renominated to Rajya Sabha

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Former journalist Swapan Dasgupta, who had resigned from Rajya Sabha and unsuccessfully contested the recent West Bengal assembly elections on a BJP ticket, has been renominated to the Upper House of Parliament by the government.

    Noted lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani was also nominated to Rajya Sabha by the cental government.

    “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of article 80 of the Constitution of India, read with clause (3) of that article, the President is pleased to renominate Shri Swapan Dasgupta to the Council of States to fill the seat which has fallen vacant due to his resignation for his reminder term viz – 24-04-2022,” according to a Home Ministry notification.

    In a separate notification, the Home Ministry said Jethmalani has been nominated to Rajya Sabha to fill the seat that has fallen vacant due to the demise of Raghunath Mohapatra for the reminder his (Mohapatra’s) term i.e till 13-07-2024.

    The President nominates renowned personalities to the Upper House on the advice of the government.

    The nominated members are drawn from fields such as literature, science, sports, art and social service.

  • Jairam Ramesh urges parliamentary standing committees be allowed to meet virtually

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday demanded Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla allow parliamentary standing committees to meet virtually to discuss issues of urgent public importance.

    Ramesh, the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, has been calling for allowing the holding of Committee meetings virtually in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Naidu had earlier disallowed the request, citing rules and secrecy issues.

    “I am requesting this once again for the umpteenth time. Speaker Lok Sabha Om Birla and Chairman Rajya Sabha M Venkaiah Naidu, please allow virtual meetings of Standing Committees. There are so many issues of utmost public importance that need to be discussed urgently,” he said in a tweet.

    Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Information Technology, said he agreed with Ramesh’s request as physical meetings are not possible during the current times.

    Some meetings of the panel have earlier been cancelled due to the lack of quorum.

    “I agree strongly with Jairam Ramesh and had made the same request last year. We are stymied because virtual participation is not allowed and physical meetings are impossible in the present circumstances (the last one I convened had to be cancelled for lack of a quorum as MPs pulled out),” Tharoor said on Twitter.

    The two leaders had earlier also made requests to the presiding officers of both houses of Parliament to allow the holding of virtual meetings of Parliamentary panels

  • Rajya Sabha MP writes to railways over non-renewal of contracts of hospitality supervisors employed with IRCTC

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: A Rajya Sabha member on Friday wrote to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal questioning the non-renewal of contracts of hospitality supervisors employed with the IRCTC, and said they offered their services to the national transporter at the “peak” of the COVID-19 crisis.

    RJD MP Manoj Jha said he is writing on behalf of these workers who had been hired by the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on April 23, 2019, for supervision of catering services, quality inspection in trains as well as catering units on Indian Railway premises.

    “These contractual employees gave their best to the Indian Railways even during the peak of COVID-19 as they were actively engaged in the management and supervision of food delivery services in ‘Shramik Special’ trains run by the Indian Railways,” he said.

    ‘Shramik Special’ trains were run by the railways last year following the COVID-19 outbreak to ferry migrants, who were stuck in different parts of country due to restrictions, back to their home states.

    “To our utter shock, I am informed by these employees from various locations that they have been categorically told by IRCTC authorities to search for new jobs, adding further that after 20 days they would not be part of the service anymore,” Jha said in his letter.

    “The feeble argument from the IRCTC is that they were hired on a two-year contract which is ending now,” he said.

    Jha said that these supervisors are trained hoteliers and many have professional degrees in hospitality.

    “We all know that the hotel industry was among the worst-affected during the COVID crisis and therefore, it is unimaginable that they would be employed by the hotel industry amidst an unprecedented crisis,” the RJD Rajya Sabha member said.

    “I remember during the course of an intervention by me in the Budget Session of Parliament, you had emphatically assured that nobody shall be terminated from their jobs,” Jha said in his letter to Goyal.

    The MP said the non-renewal of services of these men and women was against the assurance given by the minister in Parliament.

    “This goes against the assurance given by @RailMinIndia on the floor of the house…shall do whatever we can,” Jha also tweeted.

    He urged Goyal to look into the matter with utmost urgency and save the jobs of hundreds of hospitality supervisors engaged with the IRCTC.

    Earlier in a letter, dated June 25, to all railway zones, the IRCTC informed that there was no requirement for these contractual workers under the present circumstances and they be given one month notice and their contracts be terminated.

    “The requirement of supervisor (hospitality) engaged on contract basis has been reviewed in the revised catering model and it has been decided that under the present circumstances, services of supervisor (hospitality), engaged on contract basis are no more required,” the letter stated.

    This virtually meant job losses for around 560 such workers.

    However, after the workers took to social media and raised the issue, the IRCTC board rolled back the decision, but maintained that their two-year contracts are unlikely to be renewed.

    Many such workers took to social media to air their grievances.

    “@PMOIndia @RailMinIndia we are Hospitality supervisors working under IRCTC (Indian Railways). They fire us. So please save our job & family,” tweeted Naveen Kumar.

    “Sir, In this pandemic situation we don’t have any other option for survival. So request you to please do something to save our job,” tweeted Rahul Mona tagging the Railway Minister. IRCTC spokesperson Anand Kumar Jha said that currently, catering services in special trains are limited to sale of ready to eat food, packaged drinking water, tea and coffee, among others.

    Base kitchens are non-operational and the scope of work for hospitality supervisors is very limited, the official said.

    Regarding the period of contract of hospitality supervisors, he said that action is being taken as per terms and conditions of their contracts.