Bengali, whose origin can be traced back to the 6th Century, is the second most spoken language in India. Not only is it a source of pride for millions today, but it also occupies an important place in India’s 18th-century Renaissance movement.
Daily struggles of ordinary men and women do not find a place in the government’s interim Budget Session speech in Parliament
Goodbye to the 17th Lok Sabha. This was a Lok Sabha of many dubious firsts.
Commitments made in President’s Address to Parliament in past decade find little mention in current Budget session speech
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.
Railways, bridges, tunnels, roads – they are marred by delays and poor quality, while government is elsewhere
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.
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.
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.
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!)
