All-party meet: Govt appeals to all parties to ensure smooth functioning of Parliament
New Delhi (PTI): Amid demands from the opposition to discuss bribery charges against the Adani group, the government on Sunday said the business advisory committees of both Houses will decide on matters to be discussed in the Winter session and appealed to parties to ensure smooth functioning of Parliament.
Ruling party leaders met floor leaders of political parties ahead of the start of the Winter session on Monday.
After the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs minister Kiren Rijiju told reporters that the government appealed to all parties to ensure smooth running of Parliament.
Responding to a question on opposition's demand for taking up the Adani issue, he said the respective Business Advisory Committees of the Houses will decide on matters to be discussed in Parliament with consent from Lok Sabha speaker and Rajya Sabha chairperson.
At the meeting, Congress members raised the issue of bribery charges against the Adani group as well as the situation in Manipur.
Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi said the party wants discussion on Adani as well as ethnic strife in Manipur. He said while the chief minister of Jharkhand was arrested, the government still has confidence in the chief minister of Manipur despite bouts of ethnic violence.
The opposition party also sought a discussion on the issue of rising pollution in north India and train accidents.
Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said his party wanted the issue of Adani to be taken up in Parliament as the first thing when it meets on Monday.
It is a grave issue involving the country's economic and security interests as over Rs 2,300 crore were allegedly paid by the company to politicians and bureaucrats to get favourable deal for its solar energy projects, the Rajya Sabha MP said.
Billionaire Gautam Adani has been charged by US prosecutors for allegedly being part of a scheme to pay USD 265 million (about Rs 2,200 crore) bribe to Indian officials in exchange of favourable terms for solar power contracts.
The group has denied the charges.
The Congress, he said, also wanted a discussion on issues like severe air pollution in north India, the Manipur situation, which has gone "out of control", and train accidents.
The meeting was convened by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju.
BJP president J P Nadda, Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Gaurav Gogoi besides T Siva, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Anupriya Patel attended the meet.
The Winter Session of Parliament, beginning Monday, is scheduled to last till December 20.
The government has listed 16 bills, including the Waqf Amendment Bill, for consideration in the session.
The bills pending in the Lok Sabha include the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, which has been listed for consideration and passage after the joint committee of the two Houses submits its report to the Lok Sabha.
The panel is mandated to submit its report on the last day of the first week of the Winter session.
Opposition members on the panel are demanding an extension in the timeline to submit its report. They have alleged that committee chair Jagdambika Pal, a BJP MP, is bulldozing the committee meetings and has sought the intervention of Speaker Om Birla.
Rijiju said there is a provision to extend the tenure of the joint committee but as of now, thee have been no discussions. He underlined that that the business advisory committee of the Lok SSbha is the platform to discuss the issue of extension of time for the panel.
The presentation, discussion and voting on the First Batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for the year 2024-25 has also been listed.
The other bill listed by the government for introduction, consideration and passage is the Punjab Courts (Amendment) Bill to enhance the pecuniary (defined as the monetary value of a case) appellate jurisdiction of Delhi district courts from the existing Rs 3 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.
It also includes the Merchant Shipping Bill that seeks to ensure compliance with India's obligation under maritime treaties to which New Delhi is a party. Besides, the Coastal Shipping Bill and the Indian Ports Bill have also been listed for introduction and eventual passage.
As many as eight bills, including the Waqf (Amendment) Bill and the Mussalman Wakf (Repeal) Bill, are pending in Lok Sabha. According to a Lok Sabha bulletin, two bills are pending with the Rajya Sabha.
The Rajya Sabha bulletin said an additional bill The Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, passed by the Lok Sabha is pending with the Upper House.
A set of proposed bills to implement simultaneous elections in the country are not part of the list yet, though some reports suggested that the government is likely to bring the proposed legislation in the coming session.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Israel says rabbi who went missing in UAE was killed
Tel Aviv, Nov 24: Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE's state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan's disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan's disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action." He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai's busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan's wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
