The Government has introduced three Bills to replace the core laws, i.e., the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act (IEA), 1872, which form the basis of the criminal justice system. These Bills are being examined by the...
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently remarked that the upcoming electoral contest in Rajasthan was “very close” but he hoped his party would pull it off nevertheless. There have been a few close elections in the state, and one of them was in 1967.
The general elections that...
Resources and changes in Constitution can help strengthen Parliament but key is for legislature to respect it as a forum for debate
The much anticipated special session of Parliament begins today. There was intense speculation about its purpose when the government announced th...
Parliamentary Committees serve an important role in scrutinising the work of the Government and improving the quality of Bills brought before Parliament. The effectiveness of Parliamentary Committees is crucial to the effective functioning of Parliament. Reports submitted by the Committees allow for...
The Indian Parliament is the country’s most open institution regarding data about its functioning. It records its daily proceedings meticulously, and reports of its committees are rich in detail and insight. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have made their records electronically accessible ...
The no confidence debate showed govt-opposition acrimony has reached new levels. Parliament can look at other democracies’ legislatures for ways to reduce political noise
The no confidence motion is a rarely used parliamentary tool opposition uses to hold government accountable. In the 75 y...
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday admitted a motion of no-confidence against the government moved by Congress Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi after a headcount of 50 MPs required under the rules. The motion has been supported by constituents of the opposition INDIA alliance and the Bha...
In 1952, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha published their respective Rules of Procedure. These Rules laid down the details of how the two Houses would function. They also specified the different procedural mechanisms by which Members of Parliament (MPs) could participate in the functioning of the two ...
A modern infrastructure for the functioning of our national legislature is essential. With the inauguration of the new Parliament, we will have a state-of-the-art facility, enabling more convenience and efficiency in the sessions of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Parliament is also investing in tech...
Are you sure we are winning so comfortably?” the senior Congress leader’s voice on the phone sounded anxious. It was the night before counting day in Karnataka where an AxisMyIndia exit poll for India Today predicted a big win for the Congress. I asked the leader why he was so ...
The Tamil Nadu government led by Chief Minister M K Stalin and the state’s Governor R N Ravi have been at loggerheads for some time. An ongoing disagreement is regarding the inordinate delay in the Governor assenting to Bills passed by the state legislature.
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In 1926, while writing in the Asiatic Review journal, parliamentary reporter Edwin Haward compared the proceedings of the House of Commons in London with the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, and decided in favour of the latter.
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The role of governors is in the news again. Their actions across several states — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal — have been questioned. Recently, the Supreme Court had to hear a case where the governor of Punjab did not summon the assembly after the cabinet’s recomme...
The Supreme Court ruling devising a three-member committee to select the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs) was a landmark judgment. The committee is going to consist of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha or the leader of the single la...
The instance where the Kerala High Court, in January this year, suspended the verdict passed by the Kavaratti District and Sessions Court (in an attempt to murder case) in which the then sitting Member of Parliament (MP) of Lakshadweep and Nationalist Congress Party leader P.P. Mohamm...
On February 9, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar protesting the “directions…made by the Chair to authenticate six observations” he had made during his speech in the House the previous day. Kharge pointed out that Pa...
The 1970 Budget is not remembered for the procedural slip-up but for the change in its tone. Until then, Budget speeches were a dry recitation of facts as FMs had yet to start using poetry and couplets.
Saturday, February 28, 1970, was a special Budget day in Parliament. Prime Minister Indira Gan...
In the history of Indian democracy, the constitutional crisis in Uttar Pradesh in 1964 is one of the earliest examples of a confrontation between the judiciary and the legislature that led to the “derailment” of the “governance apple cart”.
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar ...
Laws related to religious conversions repeatedly made headlines in 2022. During the year, the state legislatures in Karnataka and Haryana made laws prohibiting forced religious conversions. A few months before elections in Himachal Pradesh, the state legislature amended the freedom of...
This year, Parliament will move from its 90-plus-year-old building to a new one. As part of that transition, it should reimagine its rules to make the institution more deliberative and one that scrutinises laws more thoroughly.
2022 was a turbulent year for our national legislature. There were co...
Ever imagined working for a politician and getting paid? That is what the Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament (LAMP) Fellowship is about. Run by PRS Legislative Research, this enables youth to engage in the domain of law-making and public...
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Kirodi Lal Meena, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from Rajasthan, has had a long legislative career. He won his first state election in 1985 at the age of 34. Four years later, the voters of Sawai Madhopur elected him to the ninth Lok Sabha, an election where he defeated his Congress opponent by a ...
The winter session of Parliament begins today. It is the year's last session and usually begins in the third week of November. This year, it is starting after the conclusion of the Gujarat elections. Our Parliament does not have a fixed calendar for its sittings. Therefore, successive ...
Parliament usually meets for its winter session in the third week of November. It is the last session of the parliamentary calendar, and generally, in this session, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha meet anywhere between 18 and 21 working days. But our national legislature is mostly in recess during the yea...
A part of the Constitution of India goes against its very spirit. It is the Tenth Schedule, that was added by the 52nd Amendment. Passed by Parliament in 1985 to prevent political defections, it is commonly referred to as the anti-defection law. It was meant to prevent legislators elected on on...
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's statue at India Gate. Along with it, he inaugurated the rejuvenated Central Avenue that the government has renamed Kartavya Path. The PM's office stated, "It symbolises a shift from er...
On Thursday, we discussed Midnight’s Borders by Suchitra Vijayan. It was apt, as the day was International Democracy Day. And this book that we had all read, pushed our book club readers to examine the anomalies in our democracy.
“We behave like an empire- specially in our b...
The sign that a political crisis in a state is reaching a critical stage is when parties start moving their legislators to resorts. Earlier this week, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Indian National Congress flew their MLAs to Raipur. The two parties constitute the governing alliance in...
In May 1952, Members of Parliament (MPs) of the first Lok Sabha assembled to elect its Speaker.
The Congress candidate was GV Mavalankar, who had been in the Speaker’s chair since 1946. Opposing him was Shankar Shantaram More, a newcomer to Parliament. The election was a formality as Congre...
The colonial mindset in the country has been the subject of recent debate. Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to it in his Independence Day address. He urged the citizens to shed the colonial mindset and called for a national effort to make the country a developed nation by 2047, when w...
Post lunch on a Friday is a quiet time during a parliamentary session. The government has no business on its agenda, and many Members of Parliament (MPs) use this opportunity to head back to their constituencies to be with their people. Other MPs use this time to discuss matters of national importan...
The monsoon session of Parliament has finished two days ahead of schedule. Our national legislature passed four laws in a lacklustre session dominated more by political drama than deliberation. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha witnessed acrimonious scenes, which led to the sus...
Over this week, the two Houses of Parliament have suspended 27 MPs between them, the latest being two AAP MPs and an independent MP from Rajya Sabha on Thursday. Lok Sabha has suspended four Congress MPs, and Rajya Sabha 23 MPs from the Trinamool Congress, DMK, TRS, CPI...
The differences between the government and the Opposition are hardening in the ongoing monsoon session. This week, Lok Sabha suspended four Members of Parliament (MPs) of the Congress for the rest of the session. The Rajya Sabha has suspended 19 members from different political p...
Hemant Tukaram Godse is the Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) representing Nashik, Maharashtra. When the voters of Nashik first sent him to Parliament in 2014, he found himself in a peculiar position. His surname was considered unparliamentary. Parliamentary rules specify that presiding ...
In July of 1987, Mithilesh Kumar Sinha was the most protected man in the country. The authorities housed the frail 67-year-old man in a Lutyens bungalow. Police officers surrounded him, and a doctor checked on his health regularly. He headed an organisation called the Goodman’s party, which wa...
Hemant Tukaram Godse is the Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) representing Nashik, Maharashtra. When the voters of Nashik first sent him to Parliament in 2014, he found himself in a peculiar position. His surname was considered unparliamentary. Parliamentary rules specify that presiding officers c...
The foundation of free and fair elections is the secrecy of the ballot. The Rajya Sabha elections are unique in that respect, where voting is not secret. The MLAs elect their state Rajya Sabha MPs, and as the process stands now, have to show the votes to their party’s representative....
The complexities of the anti-defection law have surfaced again in the recent developments in Maharashtra. There are several questions that need to be decided. Can the Speaker (or in his absence, the deputy Speaker) decide on a disqualification petition while a no-confidence motion is pending against...
A CAG report reveals that the State’s spending across sectors has been below the budgeted amount in the last few years
On May 26, the government of Uttar Pradesh presented its Budget for financial year 2022-23. Projecting a total expenditure of ₹5,82,956 crore (excluding debt repayment), th...
The unfolding political crisis in Maharashtra has thrown the spotlight on the anti-defection law, and the roles of the Deputy Speaker and the Governor.
On Wednesday (June 22), the ruling Shiv Sena called a meeting of all its MLAs in Mumbai. Some of its legislators have aligned...
The Indirect Tax paradigm in india changed with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July 2017. The underlying compass of taxation changed, too as GST is collected at the place of supply of goods/services as compared to the earlier regime where tax was collected at the source. G...
Our Constitution promises freedom of speech and expression to everyone except MPs and MLAs. They lost their right to speak their mind in 1985. It is this right to speak freely that former Congress leader Kabil Sibal wants to secure for all elected representatives. While...
There is never a dull moment in our politics. A week ago in Maharashtra, the only blip on the radar was the Shiv Sena's candidate Sanjay Pawar losing and the Bharatiya Janta Party's Dhananjay Mahadik winning the Rajya Sabha elections. After the victory, media reports quoted&nb...
In his final remarks before the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, BR Ambedkar said, “The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depends are the people and...
Earlier this week, the West Bengal legislative assembly passed a bill to make the chief minister the chancellor of 31 state public universities. The governor of West Bengal had earlier held this position.
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Who will be BJP’s and Opposition’s presidential candidates? There are many theories and names. Let’s note one fact, though: All of our Presidents other than President APJ Abdul Kalam have been political personalities.
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The President and Parliament are joined together by a line in our Constitution. Article 79 states, “There shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consist of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People.” Beyond th...
The Ministry of Education has been allocated Rs 1.04 lakh crore in this year’s budget. This allocation constitutes 3% of the central government’s estimated expenditure for 2022-23. The allocation to the National Education Mission is the fifth-largest among all major schemes at Rs 39,553 ...
You are about to start hearing the name of justice Ranjit Singh Sarkaria. He retired as a judge of the Supreme Court (SC) in 1981 after serving for seven years. His profile on the SC’s website records that early on in his career, he was part of a two-member committee to translate the Constitut...
