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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | TV plea on House panels

TV plea on House panels

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published Published on May 21, 2012   modified Modified on May 21, 2012
-The Telegraph

Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari has suggested that meetings of parliamentary standing committees should be open to public or televised live, as in many western democracies.

Such panels do “excellent work” but remain unsung, Ansari said as he made the proposal at a two-day orientation programme for new entrants to the Rajya Sabha that began yesterday. He said he had discussed the issue with MPs.

But some of the MPs disagreed. They alerted the chairman to the practical difficulties in starting live telecasts or allowing media coverage of the committees’ proceedings.

The members pointed out that unlike their conduct in the two Houses, their activities during the meetings of such parliamentary committees did not always reflect their party lines and, therefore, there was an absence public posturing or grandstanding. The MPs fear opening such discussions to public viewing could send wrong signals to constituents where their conduct could be construed as dilution of the stand taken by their parties.

But Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar disagreed with Ansari’s view that the House committees did laudable work. He said most of the time, the MPs failed to attend committee meetings with officials spending a lot of energy to “raise the quorum (the minimum attendance)”.

Often, the MPs come and sign their attendance sheets but do not sit through, Aiyar said, adding only five or six MPs do all the work in any such committee.

Ansari also stressed the need for longer sessions and for the “question hour” to be sacrosanct. The two Houses start their day at 11am with the hour-long ‘question hour’. On average, 10 questions are listed, to be answered by the ministers concerned.

But Ansari conceded that he felt “happy” on days he managed to accommodate five to six questions. He said he usually failed to get past the second or third question, either because of disruptions or the members asking long-winded questions. Ansari said this allowed ministers in their reply to the question “to roam around like driving on an airport tarmac in any direction”.

The Telegraph, 21 May, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120521/jsp/nation/story_15512975.jsp#.T7m86FIjy9s


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