Ruhi Tewari - Livemint.com
ABOUT RECENT POSTS
Member since 03-17-2009
Last visited 09-08-2009
Timezone 5.00 GMT
Total Posts 64
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  • Monday, September 07, 2009
    Posted at 5:45:00 PM
    The new Rajya Sabha website ( http://www.rajyasabha.nic.in/ ), launched a couple of months back (30 July to be precise), decided to go all pink instead of its previous white and blue avtaar. A noble attempt at adding a dash of colour and cheer to the otherwise monotonous nature (to some) of the site. However, despite its rejuvenated look, some issues with the website immediately crop up. A website should be user friendly and easy to navigate. To begin with, you have to be extremely deft with your mouse maneuvering if you want to go from one link.
  • Thursday, August 27, 2009
    Posted at 4:32:00 PM
    Guess which politician is an active Facebook member? Kannauj MP Akhilesh Yadav, the son of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Journalists are flocking to add this SP gen-next as their ‘friend' and Yadav junior is obliging most of them. What is ironic about Akhilesh's presence on Facebook is the party's anti technology stand. Remember the SP's manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha election which invited ridicule and criticism for its anti-computer, anti-English education stance? The manifesto opposed the use of computers (after.
  • Monday, August 24, 2009
    Posted at 7:53:00 PM
    At the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM press conference to discuss the issue of food security on Monday, journalists were served the trademark CPM tea, but with less sugar. After several journalists complained of inadequate sugar in the tea, the staff was forced to put a separate bowl with some sugar for those who wanted to add more to their tea. The humour of the situation came to the fore during the press meet when politburo member Brinda Karat dwelled at length on sky rocketing sugar prices, saying it had become unaffordable for the.
  • Thursday, August 20, 2009
    Posted at 3:49:00 PM
    The much-hyped NREGA workshop organized on Thursday by the Ministry of Rural Development or MoRD, to coincide with the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, turned out to be a damp squib - not so much because of the quality of discussion or level of participation, but because of its poor organization and chaotic handling of the media. While journalists were sent invitation letters (duly signed by the joint secretary, MoRD) with details about the event, it turned out that neither these letters nor PIB accredition cards were enough.
  • Tuesday, August 11, 2009
    Posted at 6:23:00 PM
    The first budget of the new Congress-led UPA government was debated on for 81.20 hours, the maximum time spent debating a budget in over 15 years. According to PRS Legislative Research, the last time a budget debate lasted for over 80 hours was in 1992 when the budget was debated for 89.90 hours. The most a budget has been debated over the last 25 years (since 1984) has been for 143.57 hours in 1986 when V P Singh was finance minister in the Congress government. When the last UPA government came to power in 2004, the budget discussion lasted for.
  • Monday, August 10, 2009
    Posted at 5:22:00 PM
    With the first budget session of the second term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance or UPA government over (and the Women's Reservation Bill yet to see the light of day), it would be interesting to take a look at the level of participation of women MPs in this session. According to data compiled by PRS Legislative Research - a Delhi-based independent research organization, while the average strength of women MPs (% of party total) in this Lok Sabha is 11%, their participation (again as % of party total) in this session fell short.
  • Thursday, August 06, 2009
    Posted at 7:36:00 PM
    A perfect illustration of the extent of absurdity and ludicrousness of our political discourse and of the inability of some of our leaders to raise relevant issues: GOVERNMENT OF INDIA RAJYA SABHA QUESTION NO 2978 ANSWERED ON 30.07.2009 UFO . 2978 SHRI RAJKUMAR DHOOT Will the Minister of SPACE be pleased to state :- (a) whether it is a fact that Romanian Government has claimed that their planes have been attacked at least four times by UFO and their pilot was injured ; (b) if so, the details thereof; (c) whether there is now an imminent danger of.
  • Wednesday, July 29, 2009
    Posted at 3:58:00 PM
    With the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM's strength in the Lok Sabha drastically reduced from 43 seats to just 16, the party has had to give up several bungalows previously allocated to its MPs. One such bungalow is the one on Windsor Place, right opposite Le Meridien in the heart of Delhi, which housed the party's parliamentary office. The research wing of the party, which used to function out of that bungalow, has now shifted to the main party office at AKG Bhavan near Gole Market. Incidentally, this bungalow had been with the.
  • Monday, July 20, 2009
    Posted at 5:41:00 PM
    The Congress chief in Uttar Pradesh - Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who finds herself in the midst of a raging political controversy, found support from an unexpected quarter on Monday. Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh held a video conference in New Delhi (he is admitted in a hospital in Singapore) to pledge support to Joshi, whose remarks against UP chief minister Mayawati landed her in jail last week. "Joshi did not say anything wrong...One has to speak to Mayawati in the language she understands," Singh said, adding that the Congress should.
  • Wednesday, July 08, 2009
    Posted at 5:20:00 PM
    The Communist Party of India or CPI on Tuesday admitted that the withdrawal of support by the Left parties from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance or UPA last year was not only badly timed, but was also based on a non-people's issue, something that could not be made into a viable election issue. Party general secretary A B Bardhan in fact indicated that while the withdrawal of support was imminent, there should have been a better strategy behind it. This, in many ways, is a veiled criticism of the CPI (M), which by virtue of being.
  • Thursday, June 25, 2009
    Posted at 3:22:00 PM
    Everybody is looking for a summer retreat, including the very exhausted officials of the Election Commission of India or EC. No wonder then that the chosen location for a review meeting of top EC officials and state Chief Electoral Officers or CEO was Shillong in Meghalaya, where heavy rains and open green spaces ensure that the weather remains pleasant and vacation-friendly. According to a senior EC official, several locations like Ooty, Kodaikanal etc were also considered before zeroing in on Shillong. "The idea was to get away from the heat.
  • Thursday, June 11, 2009
    Posted at 7:10:00 PM
    In an editorial appearing in the latest issue of People's Democracy - the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM's official mouthpiece, the party has lashed out at arch rival Trinamool Congress or TC for "misusing ministerial power to unleash its politics of terror". The CPM has accused Mamata Banerjee's party of "murderous assaults on the CPI (M) and the Left parties in West Bengal." According to Karat & Co. the fact that the TC chief has declared that its ministers in the government of India would spend five.
  • Tuesday, June 02, 2009
    Posted at 6:38:00 PM
    The 15th Lok Sabha is likely to witness some hilarious as well as embarrassing scenes with Meira Kumar being nominated as the first ever woman speaker. So used to referring to the speaker as ‘Mr. speaker sir', members of this House are surely going to take time to get accustomed to the new nomenclature of madam speaker! Parliament is likely to witness a lot of goof ups and funny moments when MPs, particularly the old-timers, falter in addressing the speaker, ending up calling her speaker sir instead! Though the saving grace is that a woman speaker.
  • Thursday, May 28, 2009
    Posted at 5:42:00 PM
    Like having Members of Parliament or MPs with criminal records wasn’t enough, we now have ministers with dubious pasts as well. According to a report on the criminal and financial details of 79 ministers of 15th Lok Sabha released by the Association for Democratic Reforms or ADR on Thursday, as many as nine ministers have criminal cases pending against them, while one of them has a serious IPC charge against him (Sisir Kumar Adhikari from TC, who has been inducted as a Minister of State or MoS). Seven of these ministers are from Congress and one.
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