Heena Sharma Blog

  The Parliament is all set to witness a confrontation between the government and the Opposition over raging issues of the COVID-19 pandemic , farmers' protest, fuel prices hike and vaccination strategy as its monsoon session will start from today. The monsoon session will conclude on August 13. "The sixth session of the 17th Lok Sabha will commence on July 19. Subject to exigencies of government business, the session is likely to conclude on August 13," a Lok Sabha release said. Rajya Sabha press communique stated that President Ram Nath Kovind has summoned the House to meet on July 19 and the session will continue till August 13. This will be the first session of parliament since the results of assembly polls in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. Last year, the monsoon session began in September and the winter session was not held due to the COVID-19 situation. Read More

  A presentation suggesting the setting up of sewage and air surveillance systems in Parliament to detect the prevalence of COVID-19 was made before Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday. Elaborating on the relevance of sewage surveillance in his presentation, Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Shekhar C Mande said, "COVID-19 patients shed SAR-CoV-2 in stools. Apart from symptomatic individuals, asymptomatic people also shed the virus in their stools." Sewage surveillance provides a qualitative as well as a quantitative estimate of the number of people infected in a population and could be used to understand the progression of COVID-19 even when mass scale tests for individuals are not possible, an official statement said quoting the CSIR chief. It is a measure to comprehensively monitor the prevalence of the disease in communities in real time, Mande said. Read More

  Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV channels have been merged into one channel- Sansad television . Retired IAS officer Ravi Capoor has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the channel for a period of one year with immediate effect, or until further orders, whichever is earlier, read a order by Sunil Minocha, the under secretary of Sansad Television. Read More

  Seventeen MPs have tested positive for the coronavirus in tests carried out before Parliament's monsoon session started Monday, said NDTV.com. The Lok Sabha members were tested at Parliament House on September 13 and 14, the website said quoting unnamed sources. The BJP had the most infected MPs at 12, the YRS Congress has two, the Shiv Sena, DMK and RLP one each, said the report. The Monsoon Session began with numbers weighing heavily in the government’s favour. While the Opposition’s numerical strength in the Rajya Sabha has dipped significantly after the last round of elections in June (the Congress is now down to just 40 MPs in the Upper House from 46 in May), most senior leaders would be giving the Session a miss for health reasons. Opposition parties have already decided that transgressions by China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the economy, and the government’s handling of Covid would be priority issues. Read More

A fire broke out on the 6th floor of the Parliament Annexe Building in the national capital on Monday morning. As many as seven fire tenders were rushed to the site to douse the flames. The fire has now come under control. No casualties have been reported, as of now. Read More

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting with Parliamentary floor leaders of different parties on Wednesday morning at 11 am through video conference, to decide the future course of action as far as coronavirus outbreak in India is concerned, among other key issues. The primary point on the agenda will be whether to end the shutdown or extend it and if the government wishes to withdraw it, what should be the approach. The current shutdown is slated to end on April 14. Another point of discussion will be the economic impact of the shutdown on India and how to deal with it. Money released to states, future of daily wage workers who are the worst hit due to total shutdown and scope if any possible economic package will be discussed in the meeting, according to reports. Read More

The Centre is considering increasing the personal income tax threshold in next month’s budget, according to people familiar with the matter, as authorities seek to kickstart consumption in the economy. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman may raise the tax exemption limit for working-age individuals to Rs 300,000 ($4,316) of their annual income, up from the current Rs 250,000, the people said, asking not to be identified as they aren’t authorised to speak publicly about the proposals. The tax measures haven’t been finalised yet. Any tax exemptions will add stimulus to an economy that’s slowed sharply this year, with growth reaching a five-year low of 5.8 per cent in the first three months of the year. The proposed tax move would put at least Rs 2,500 more in the hands of each of India’s 50 million taxpayers. It could also add to pressure on the budget deficit, which is pegged at 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product for the current fiscal year that began on April 1. The f