Basket of empty promises
Commitments made in President’s Address to Parliament in past decade find little mention in current Budget session speech
Articles
What’s Your IQ Or India Quotient?
As we celebrate India’s 75th Republic Day, how well do you know our great nation. Test your IQ or India Quotient with these 20 questions.
Creaking infrastructure and an absent BJP government
Railways, bridges, tunnels, roads – they are marred by delays and poor quality, while government is elsewhere
Let Young MPs Light Up Parliament Which Has Become a “Deep, Dark Chamber”
Very happy with the news that Swati Maliwal, the young firebrand chief of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), has been nominated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a candidate for election to Rajya Sabha. Maliwal (39), when elected, will be part of a small group of young MPs in Rajya Sabha who are in their 30s and early 40s.
This includes Jebi Mather from the Congress, AAP’s Raghav Chadha (35), and three of my colleagues from the Trinamool Congress.
One is Saket Gokhale (36), among India’s foremost RTI activists, who has also faced incarceration for his activism. There’s Prakash Chik Baraik (42) a popular and rising tribal leader from the Alipurduars who comes from a humble background of tea estate workers. More young blood. Meet Samirul Islam (36) an alumnus of IIT Delhi who spent a short while overseas and then gave it all up to come back to India and work at the grassroots for the welfare of the socially challenged, especially migrant workers.
Then there’s the plucky Jebi Mather of the Congress from Kerala who is an advocate, a former Municipal Councillor and, astonishingly, the first woman Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala in the last 42 years.
These young colleagues of mine have entered Rajya Sabha with a great amount of hope and with the determination to excel in their responsibilities as parliamentarians. Whenever I chat with them, I am glad to see their enthusiasm and their faith in parliamentary procedure.
Let these young people do all it takes to light up an institution that is being turned into a deep, dark chamber.
How BJP has made a mockery of democracy
The first three days of the new year witnessed a massive strike by truck drivers across northern and western India. Petrol pumps started running out of fuel, there was panic buying, and prices of vegetables and milk skyrocketed. The truckers and their owners were protesting one of the provisions in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (one of the three new criminal Acts bulldozed recently in Parliament). The Union Home Secretary finally pulled the hand-brake on the provision in the bill that called for stringent penalties in hit-and-run cases.
An A to Z List For 2023
A random A to Z List for 2023. You too can draw up your personal A to Z List for the year that just slipped by.
In Parliament, NDA May Well Be ‘No Data Available’
For over 60 years, Question Hour was taken up at 11 am, followed by Zero Hour at 12 noon in Rajya Sabha. Question Hour would often be disrupted due to MPs wanting to raise crucial issues at the start of the day. In 2014, former Chairman Hamid Ansari flipped the timings and now Zero Hour starts at 11 am, followed by Question Hour at 12 noon. A noteworthy reform by a presiding officer. (Reform and presiding officers. Let’s not say a word more!)
25 per cent of India has been silenced
At noon on December 14, the first MP was suspended. At the time of going to press, another 145 MPs have subsequently been banned from both Houses of Parliament. To provide some perspective, consider this: Across 10 years of UPA I and UPA II, about 50 MPs were suspended from Parliament.
Let’s bring laughter back to Parliament
In the cutthroat political colosseum, let’s bring back some wit into Parliamentary debates. We have our differences, but let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Nothing like friendly banter to cool off a heated exchange. Here are some other nuggets of humour that have occurred in Parliament over the years. Enjoy.
Gujarat Model Is Glasshouse Model
From Ahmedabad to New York. Is the Gujarat Model export quality?