Parliament must use budget session to discuss key pending bills The budget session of Parliament begins today. The last few sessions have been characterised by disruptions and consequent loss of productive time. To see one indicator, the 15th Lok Sabha, half-way through its term, has lost 30 per cent of scheduled time — the worst ever. As a result, many important bills have been pending. It is to be seen whether...

-The Times of India   The UPA government is bracing for a mega strike on February 28, backed by trade unions cutting across party lines, in protest against rising prices, disinvestment of profit-making PSUs and violation of labour laws among other reasons. They will be joined by around 8 lakh bank employees who are protesting against reforms and outsourcing of jobs.  Almost all sectors, except railways, are likely to come to a stop...

-PTI Voicing safety concerns over encroachments along rail tracks and trespassing which claim nearly 15,000 lives every year, a high-level railway panel has suggested amendments to existing acts and setting up of a task force in Mumbai where such deaths are highest. "No civilised society can accept such massacre on their own railway system," the Anil Kakodar-led safety committee said and suggested amendments in the Public Premises Eviction Act and the Railway...

Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly,who was part of the two-judge Supreme Court bench that delivered the 2G verdict on Thursday, has written the following article in response to The Telegraph report on Saturday that had quoted former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. The former Speaker has since said The Telegraph report had given rise to a wrong impression and his comments were strictly confined to policy, not executive decisions. “What I...

-The Economic Times   The enacting of the Lokpal Bill has been deferred in the Rajya Sabha but that need not end the discussion on how focused the proposals are when it comes to tackling corruption. For instance, what exactly are the quotas in the Lokpal meant to do? If out of an eight-or-nine-member Lokpal, four or five should be from SCs, STs, OBCs, minorities and women, what is the message going...