-The Hindu Entire Opposition was united in their call to send the Bill to a select committee The contentious General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Amendment Bill, 2021 was passed amidst shocking scenes in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday despite the Opposition’s demand to send the legislation to a select committee. The Rajya Sabha passed the Bill that would allow the government to cut its share in public sector insurance companies, paving the way for...

-The Hindu Opposition members question government’s commitment to democratic norms The Lok Sabha on Monday passed three Bills in 20 minutes as disruption by Opposition members over the Pegasus snooping controversy and the farms continued into the last week of the monsoon session of Parliament. The government also introduced three Bills in the din, prompting Congress leaders Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Manish Tewari to question the government’s commitment to democratic norms. RSP’s N.K. Premachandran...

-TheWire.in We must change the parameters we use to judge the "productivity" of parliament. My first few days in the Rajya Sabha were tumultuous enough to realise that classics like Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice, the bible of Westminster, would really have to be ‘tropicalised’ a lot to adjust to the gross realities of the world’s largest and beleaguered democracy. The small endoscopic view of parliament’s functioning also leads to the belief that...

-The Hindu Data from Assam and Uttar Pradesh show that fertility rates have been reducing over time Population policy is suddenly in the news in India with Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled States such as Assam and Uttar Pradesh proposing to bring in or bringing in draft legislation aimed at controlling their populations. The Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill of 2021 promotes a two-child policy, according to which those people having...

-The Hindu Human trafficking is a crime in itself, but it is also the propeller of several other crimes Sita was 13 years old when she was trafficked. Her parents worked in a tea garden in Assam for meagre wages. She was trafficked to a placement agency in New Delhi, and bought for about ₹20,000 as a domestic worker by a couple. Sita was not paid a single rupee. Instead, she was...