Last Modified: Fri, Mar 04 2016. 05 00 PM IST
The govt will meet bankers, top govt and RBI officials today
Meenal Thakur
Narendra Modi. Photo: PTI
New Delhi: Three days after the Union Budget was tabled in the Parliament, the Union government will meet bankers and top officials from the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday to take stock of the developments in the banking sector. Known as Gyan Sangam, the meet comes at a time when the government has signalled its intention to go in for consolidation in the banking sector, a move that analysts say will require a strong political will, given traditional opposition to mergers by bank unions. Read more
Today, in Parliament’s list of business, both the houses will take up Private Members’ Bill. The Lok Sabha will hold a general discussion on the Railway Budget for 2016-17, and on the steps to ensure welfare of Employees’ Provident Fund pensioners, among other things.
The Rajya Sabha, on the other hand, will discuss expenditure on elections and functioning of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), among other things.
In a major development which could reset the subsidy regime, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) introduced The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The bill seeks to make the use of Aadhaar mandatory for availing of government subsidies but at the same time tries to address concerns regarding privacy and protection of personal information. To ensure statutory backing to the bill, it has been tabled as a money bill in the Lok Sabha. Read more to know what exactly is a money bill.
All eyes were on Parliament on Thursday not only in anticipation of the Aadhaar Bill but also due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address in which he took a dig at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s speech on Wednesday. The PM invoked former Congress prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi to underscore his concern about frequent disruptions in Parliament. “60 years of Congress rule had sown the seeds of poverty in the country,” Modi said in his speech which was viewed 23,500 times within seven hours of being uploaded on the PM’s official YouTube channel. Even Twitter broke out in praise of the PM’s oratory as the hashtag #NaMoInSansad trended. While some people compared the opposition to kids getting lectured in a classroom, others roped in the Obamas into the NaMO fanclub.
While Modi paid back Gandhi in the same coin inside Parliament, he faced similar heat outside the house and that too from a student. Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who got interim bail for six months after being released from Tihar jail, took on the PM and his government in an impassioned speech. “We want freedom within the country, not from the country,” said Kumar, who was arrested for a sedition charge.
Meanwhile, legislative council elections were held on Thursday for 28 seats in Uttar Pradesh. The election saw 97 candidates fight it out as an overall polling percentage of 97.22% was reported at the end of the day. The results which will be announced on 6 March will be crucial for the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the three main political players in the state, with UP going to polls in 2017.
In the poll-bound state of Assam, in a move to consolidate the vote bank, the BJP on Thursday officially announced its tie-up with Asom Gana Parishad. Assam goes to poll in April-May. The election commission is yet to officially announce the dates.