Parliament Monsoon Session Highlights: Railways has strength to face every challenge, says Ashwini Vaishnaw

The Indian fishermen are apprehended for allegedly crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) and fishing in Sri Lankan waters, and there are 83 Indian fishermen currently in the judicial custody of the island nation, the government informed Parliament on Thursday.

Railways has strength to face every challenge, said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in Lok Sabha.

Stressing the need to incentivise youth so that they enter into mainstream politics, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Member of Parliament (MP) Raghav Chadha  made a strong pitch in Rajya Sabha to reduce the minimum age for contesting Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in India from 25 years to 21 years.

Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs, L Murugan Ji, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Information and Broadcasting, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, and Virendra Kumar, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment called on Vice-President and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankhar at Parliament House today.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has earned Rs. 3,513.98 crore since the establishment of the CUET exams. 87.2% of this amount, totalling Rs. 3,064.77 crore, has been spent on holding exams so far. The government shared this data with Parliament on Wednesday.

Lok Sabha Secretariat, reacting to water leakages in the Parliament building, said, "There are media reports that heavy rains in Delhi on Wednesday caused water leakage into the Lobby of the newly inaugurated Parliament Building, raising concerns about the weather resilience of the structure. It has also been reported that waterlogging was noticed around the premises, particularly near the New Parliament’s Makar Dwar, with several videos of the waterlogging going viral on social media platforms. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that keeping in view the concept of Green Parliament, glass domes have been provided in several parts of the building, including in the Lobby, so that abundant natural light could be utilized in day to day work of the Parliament. During the heavy rain on Wednesday, the adhesive material used to fix the glass domes over the Lobby of the building was slightly displaced, causing minor leakage of water in the Lobby. The problem was, however, detected timely and corrective measures were taken immediately. Thereafter, no further leakage of water has been noticed. Similarly, accumulated water opposite Makar Dwar also got drained out quickly."

While speaking in Lok Sabha, Union Minister for Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, "We are not the people who make reels, we do hard work unlike you people who make reels for show off..."

The Union Minister ML Khattar responded to the discussion on the functioning of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in Rajya Sabha.

While speaking in Lok Sabha, Union Minister for Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, "If we talk about recruitment in railways - from 2004 to 2014 during UPA's tenure, only 4 lakh 11 thousand employees were recruited in railways whereas from 2014 to 2024 - in 10 years of NDA's, this tally goes up to 5 lakh 2 thousand... What has been in demand for years - to have an annual calendar for railway recruitment, we have declared it in January 2024. For the youths who try hard to get into railways, now vacancies for the same come 4 times in a year - in January, April, July and October.  Even now, 40,565 vacancies are advertised that are to be filled..."

Arvind Kejriwal's government has turned Delhi into the most dangerous place for human beings. Delhi is the capital of the country still this useless government is sitting on its throne but they are not willing to do anything... they only focus on corruption. Two more lives were lost to electrocution... the only solution to this is to remove AAP from Delhi, you have already seen Congress... now give a chance to BJP and (PM) Modi ji," says BJP MP Manoj Tiwari on the waterlogging issue in Delhi. 

On Union Home Minister Amit Shah's 'early warnings were given to Kerala' statement, CPI(M) leader John Brittas said, "It is absolutely unfortunate that (Union) Home Minister has resorted to such a political blame game. The need of the hour is to ensure that rescue operations and relief operations are done. Further, Kerala CM has made it categorically clear that such warnings were not issued."

On landslides in Wayanad, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, "We are focusing on the hope of rescuing some people still because the truth is 200 lives have been lost but still another 200 people are missing. 2 villages have disappeared from the map in this severe crisis... The Union Home Minister said that the early warning was issued, but the CM said that the warning was not sufficiently serious it was a green or orange alert and not a red alert. All of these things can be disputed later. Eventually, preventive measures are required...I have asked for it to be declared a severe calamity because, under the MPLADS fund, any MP in Indian can donate up to Rs 1 cr for a natural calamity, once the govt declares so..."

On the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the Wayanad tragedy, RJD MP Manoj Jha says"... The Chief Minister of Kerala has written a letter that he had not received any such warning. Tragedies unite us but we do not speak in one voice even in tragedy, politics dominates. The central and state governments should work together for relief and rescue."

RJD MPs on Thursday hold a protest in Parliament, demanding that the increased reservation quota in Bihar be included in the 9th Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Speaking about their demand, RJD MP Misa Bharti said, "We are protesting that when it was MahaGathBandhan's govt in Bihar, under CM Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav was the deputy CM - it has been our longstanding demand to have caste-census. After a long time, it was done in Bihar - we want the reservation of Dalits, tribals and OBCs that we have raised to 65% that should be protected..."

The Parliament resumed its session on Thursday and the proceedings of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha started.