-CNN-IBN On May 13, 2012, the Indian Parliament completed 60 years since its first sitting. To mark the occasion, a special sitting of both Houses was organised on the day. Recently, there has been much public scrutiny of the work of MPs and the functioning of Parliament. This document presents some information on the changing profile of MPs and the trends in the working of Parliament over the past 60 years. Fewer under-matriculates,...

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...

Kanak Dixit: We have with us Aruna Roy, from Devdungri village in Rajasthan, who has, among other things, been able to take the Right to Information (RTI) from janasunuwais, or public hearings at the village level, all the way to national legislation that encompasses all of India. It is a movement that is truly global in scale. Aruna, a question that has been troubling me quite a bit in the context...

The government's zero transparency enabled Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill has got thumbs down from a Parliamentary standing committee. The Atomic Energy Department had introduced NSRA Bill for setting up independent nuclear safety watchdog in Parliament last year with specific clauses limiting the applicability of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, the government's first such move. The bill propose to incorporate additional proviso in section 8 --- listing exempted clauses ---...

Further work likely to be done by an agency to be designated by Centre The curtains will come down on enrolments for Aadhaar, the Central government's ambitious unique identification programme, by February 15 at all 2,245 enrolment centres across Karnataka. A letter sent to Deputy Commissioners, in 23 districts where Aadhaar is being rolled out, by the State department of e-governance, informs them of the decision to stop enrolments, adding that “further...