
Parliament Gears Up for Stormy Monsoon Session As Debates Loom Over Op Sindoor, Electoral Roll
Parliament will also consider resolution seeking approval for extension of President's Rule in Manipur, which was imposed on February 13, under Article 356(1) of the Constitution.
The Monsoon Session of Parliament kicks off today, July 21, amid heightened political tension, as the Opposition's INDIA bloc prepares to launch a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi-led government. Key flashpoints include the recent cross-border military operation, Operation Sindoor, and pressing domestic issues such as electoral roll revisions in Bihar.
This marks the first parliamentary session following Operation Sindoor, India's precision military response to terror camps in Pakistan. The operation was carried out after the devastating April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, which claimed the lives of 26 civilians, mostly tourists. The Opposition is expected to demand a detailed explanation from the Prime Minister on the military action and its broader implications.
Session Timeline
The session is scheduled to run until August 21, 2025, with a planned adjournment from August 12 to 17 to accommodate Independence Day celebrations. In total, there will be 21 sittings over the span of 32 days.
Legislative Agenda: 15 Bills on the Table
Income Tax Bill, 2025 – Introduced in February and currently under review by a Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by BJP MP Baijayant Panda.
Manipur Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2025 – To update the 2017 state-specific GST Act.
Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2025 – Seeks to revise existing tax frameworks.
Indian Institutes of Management (Amendment) Bill, 2025 – Aims to include IIM Guwahati under the IIM Act, 2017.
Additional maritime and infrastructure bills, such as the Coastal Shipping Bill, Merchant Shipping Bill, and Indian Ports Bill, as well as legal and cultural preservation bills like the Geoheritage Sites and Geo-relics Bill and Readjustment of Representation of Scheduled Tribes in Goa Bill.
Also expected is financial business related to Demands for Grants for Manipur (2025–26) and the accompanying Appropriation Bill.
Opposition Demands PM's Direct Response
The INDIA bloc is insisting that Prime Minister Modi personally address Parliament regarding Operation Sindoor. In addition, they have raised concerns over former US President Donald Trump's recent claims about brokering peace between India and Pakistan, calling for an official clarification.
The Opposition also plans to spotlight the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, alleging irregularities and voter deletions. Congress MP and Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha, Pramod Tiwari, stressed the need for Modi's accountability. 'Parliament is more important than travelling abroad," he said, referencing the Prime Minister's upcoming visit to the UK and Maldives from July 23 to 26.
Key Topics Expected To Dominate Debates
Beyond military and electoral concerns, the Opposition aims to bring up:
Restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
The April Pahalgam terror attack.
Alleged irregularities in the Bihar voter revision process.
Kiren Rijiju has maintained that while the government is open to discussions on any issue — including Operation Sindoor — debates must adhere to established rules and procedures. Final decisions on the schedule and content of discussions will be made by the Business Advisory Committees of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
President's Rule in Manipur
Parliament will also consider a resolution seeking approval for the extension of President's Rule in Manipur, which was imposed on February 13, 2025, under Article 356(1) of the Constitution.
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The Hindu
5 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Central projects will create a ‘developed Tamil Nadu', says Narendra Modi
The Union government-funded infrastructure projects being implemented in Tamil Nadu on an outlay of over ₹3 lakh crore will help the Centre realise its dream of achieving 'Viksit Tamil Nadu', Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday. Inaugurating the new terminal building at the Thoothukudi airport, he said his government, which had promised a 'Viksit Bharat' (Developed India), was according the highest priority for infrastructure development. Hence, the port, rail and energy sectors were getting an unprecedented facelift nationwide, from Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu. Mr. Modi said the Centre had released over ₹3 lakh crore since 2014 for strengthening Tamil Nadu's infrastructure to make it 'Developed Tamil Nadu'. This was three times higher than the funding provided by the previous United Progressive Alliance government to the State. He further said the north cargo berth at VOC Port, Thoothukudi; six-lane VOC Port Road; and four-lane Sethiyathope-Chozhapuram Highway would significantly catalyse the trade opportunities and employment generation for the locals. In an apparent reply to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin's recent assertion that the Centre was refusing to allocate funds for Tamil Nadu, he said the thrust being given for infrastructure development in Tamil Nadu by the Centre in energy, road, rail, and port sectors would phenomenally expedite the State's growth while achieving the Centre's goal of 'Viksit Tamil Nadu'. He recalled that the National Democratic Alliance government had sanctioned 11 new medical colleges for Tamil Nadu, and the Centre was also developing harbours to improve their livelihood. Terming India's recent free trade agreement with the United Kingdom (U.K.) as 'historic', Mr. Modi said this agreement would open unprecedented export opportunities for Indian products. 'As more than 99% of the 'Make in India' products will be available in the U.K. at lower prices, the rise in demand will increase production in India and generate more employment in the micro and small industries here. It will enhance the world's faith in India, which will become the third largest economy in the world soon,' Mr. Modi said. He added that home-grown weapon systems, which were used in recent 'Operation Sindhoor', had destroyed the terrorists' hideouts and had given sleepless nights to the sponsors of terror. Governor R.N. Ravi, Union Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan, Tamil Nadu Ministers T.R.B. Rajaa, P. Geetha Jeevan, and Anita R. Radhakrishnan and MP Kanimozhi were among those present. State Finance Minister Thangam Thennerasu presented a memento to Mr. Modi on the occasion.

The Hindu
11 minutes ago
- The Hindu
‘SIR Trying to Introduce NRC in Bihar Through Back Door': Dipankar
Published : Jul 26, 2025 20:03 IST - 13 MINS READ The Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar has sparked fierce opposition from political parties and civil society groups who see it as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise the poor, migrant workers, and minorities. Dipankar, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, calls it 'surgically invasive reconstruction' that threatens the constitutional guarantee of universal adult franchise. In this interview with Saba Naqvi, he discusses how the SIR fits into a broader pattern of democratic redesign, the political stakes in Bihar where the BJP has struggled to gain direct control, and why he believes this represents the 'biggest possible attack on the Constitution'. Excerpts: Is our democracy being redesigned by the Election Commission of India undertaking a special electoral roll revision as a pilot project in Bihar? What is going to happen to Bihar and the rights of people who do not have property and documents? The Election Commission calls it a Special Intensive Revision. The people of Bihar call it Vote Bandi, like demonetisation. I find this a surgically invasive reconstruction. This is not intensive; this is completely invasive and it's not revising; this is complete reconstruction of the electoral roll. Disenfranchisement is a real threat for the poor, migrant workers, and people who don't have enough documents. Underdeveloped is also under-documented. Bihar is a backward State in terms of socio-economic development, so it's also backward in terms of digitalisation and digital documentation. But Bihar is one State where people really love their democracy. They need this democracy. I vividly remember the 1989 election, when for the first time, people managed to confront booth-capturing, they managed to fight this feudal stranglehold over the electoral process, cast their own votes, paying a heavy price. On the day of polling, just after polling was over, some 22 people were gunned down in an electoral massacre simply because people had dared to cast their vote for their own representative. We had won that election. So people know the value of a vote. They are not going to sacrifice it easily. Also Read | SIR in Bihar: Is it time for the opposition to boycott elections? Bihar is the only State in the Hindi belt where the BJP has not directly come into power. Data shows richer, more landed, privileged caste people are more likely to vote BJP, whereas poorer people are less likely. Could this be part of that or just a bureaucratic exercise? The Chief Election Commissioner told us when we met him that a lot of questions came up in Maharashtra, and that's why we're doing this. So I told him that Maharashtra questions will have to be answered in Maharashtra. You can't balance Maharashtra with Bihar. I don't think this is just for one election. This is something all-India—the Election Commission has said this is a new kind of way elections will be conducted in India, how electoral rolls will be constructed, and they are beginning with Bihar because this is the only election happening now. I don't think this is just to win one single Bihar election because the BJP has anyway been in power. It's a double engine government. I don't think it is just their desperation to somehow grab power in Bihar that they are doing the SIR. It goes way beyond that. You rightly said this is a democracy being redesigned in India. If you look at these three things: first, the way Election Commissioners are being chosen. This is the first Election Commission appointed after the Modi government came up with legislation, which clearly says in the three-member committee, the government will have a two-thirds majority. Right now we have Modi and Amit Shah who choose their Election Commissioners. Then you have this whole push for 'One Nation, One Election'. And the third thing is the electoral roll, which is the most crucial thing because if you want universal adult franchise, that has to begin with the construction of the electoral roll. In the 1980s, people used to have their names on electoral rolls, but they couldn't cast their votes due to booth capturing. But they didn't have this existential crisis that their names would not be there. Now they are having this crisis where their names will be removed. This is probably the biggest possible attack on the Constitution. This has brought it to every home. The most fundamental right, the crucial cornerstone of our Constitution, which is universal adult franchise, is at stake. When you are talking about 'one nation, one election', you see a complete redesign that gets into federal powers, disenfranchisement, and takes away powers of States. How much can the Left today actually take on the Right? Bihar is not amused. Bihar is not going to take it lightly. Bihar is one State where even before the Emergency, the 1974 movement happened. When the Emergency really happened, in 1977, while it was still under way, elections happened, and people threw that government out of power. Bihar was one State where probably the Congress got zero seats. Bihar is all about migration, migrant workers. From the colonial period, the indentured labourers were all mostly from Bihar. Migrant labourers from Bihar are all over India. During the Corona [COVID-19] lockdown, Bihar migrant workers had to take the brunt of the whole attack. They had to walk back home on foot. And now they are being removed from the electoral roll. This is going to affect not just migrant workers because their families are there. They are the soul of Bihar. Look at what this SIR tells you: post-2003, that is a new generation. People below 40 will have to prove their citizenship. This is all about proving your citizenship, even though the Election Commission doesn't admit it—they call it only eligibility testing, but they are actually getting into the National Register of Citizens [NRC] thing in Bihar. The young generation below 40, the women of Bihar, migrant workers, and Muslims—they are going to have to prove their citizenship. So I'm sure people will fight back. This fight gives the Left energy. Struggle is the mode of existence for democracy, for the people in Bihar. In the last Assembly election, you won 12 of 19 seats in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress. In areas where you won, the BJP often lost out to you. Since then, equations are different—Nitish Kumar is ailing, Lalu Yadav is ailing, Chirag Paswan has entered. What do you anticipate? South Bihar is the region where we did our best. And the BJP fared worst in south Bihar. Look at the Lok Sabha results. There are four seats from Shahabad. All four have been won—two by our party, one by the Congress, one by the RJD. And neighbouring three seats in the Magadh region. So of the 10 seats won by the INDIA bloc, seven are from south Bihar, which is Shahabad and Magadh. You can see the BJP paying a lot of attention. Modi's second rally was in Bihar, probably the first time Prime Minister came to Bihar. After that, there was a rally by Chirag Paswan in Ara, which was basically pan-south Bihar mobilisation. He said that I'm going to contest 243 seats and there are talks that he may well be the NDA [National Democratic Alliance] candidate for Chief Minister. But you do not think they're going to dump Nitish Kumar, even though his popularity has declined, he is ailing, and there has been loss of control over law and order? It's a reign of terror now in Bihar. It's a government of the criminals, by the criminals, for the criminals. If you have seen that CCTV footage, that murder in Paras hospital. The way those five young people came, carried out the shooting, and left. None tried to hide their face. It shows a complete lack of fear because they know they enjoy absolute impunity and patronage. Nitish Kumar's main plank was Sushasan, good governance. If this is good governance where criminals call all the shots, I think they have just lost it. But the BJP still needs Nitish Kumar. Without Nitish Kumar, Modi 3.0 would not have happened. That's why he had to be hijacked just before the elections. Even now, if you compare Odisha and Bihar—in Odisha, it was all about Naveen Patnaik's health, Modi was so worried. And here everybody perceives that last one and a half years, Nitish Kumar's health, his public conduct, it is no longer like Nitish Kumar. So definitely something is wrong, but nobody will talk about it, especially in the NDA. Probably, they need Nitish Kumar for the time being and for the elections. But people know that something else is cooking. What about the gathbandhan (opposition) led by the RJD with Tejashwi Yadav, the Congress, and you? Intriguingly, Rahul Gandhi made a statement in Kerala equating the Left with RSS. I won't call it equated, but somehow he has found a way of clubbing the two together, which is completely unwarranted. Quite unfortunate. Given India's diverse political geography, you'll find States where there will not be a completely unified INDIA coalition. The INDIA coalition is basically the coming together of all the major political streams of India's freedom movement. We are the successors of Bhagat Singh. The Indian Left movement is nothing else. Bhagat Singh was probably the first authentic Left leader of India. So the Bhagat Singh legacy, Ambedkar's legacy, the legacy of Gandhi and Nehru, the legacy of Periyar—all these legacies, which are part of the freedom movement, we have to come together to fight this one force, which was never part of the Indian freedom movement, who acted against the freedom movement. There may be differences. You will find Bengal where the Congress and the Left are in opposition. You will find Kerala, where the Left is in power, the Congress in opposition. For me, all non-BJP forces should also be anti-BJP forces because the BJP appropriates everybody. Non-BJP parties—it's not enough to be non-BJP. You have to fight against the BJP. In the INDIA coalition, we have decided to march together and strike together. Structurally, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are temporary government servants, and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) are always RSS workers. How does the RJD, the Congress, CPI(M-L)L fight against the largest cadre organisation in the world? I'll tell you two things. One, there is this whole talk about Bangladeshis and people from Myanmar and Nepal, BLOs on house visits discovering such things. But on July 10, 2019, when Ravi Shankar Prasad was Law and Justice Minister, he told Parliament, citing the Election Commission, that 2016 to 2019, it got only three complaints from across India of foreign nationals on electoral rolls. Those three cases were in 2018—one from Telangana, one from West Bengal, one from Gujarat, none from Bihar. So this sudden discovery of influx of foreign nationals in Bihar villages defies credibility. Number two, they are introducing NRC by the back door. On February 25, 2020, the Bihar Assembly took a consensus resolution, unanimous resolution—Nitish Kumar was then with the BJP—that Bihar doesn't need NRC. There will never be an NRC in Bihar. Now they are trying to introduce NRC in Bihar through this electoral roll route. People in Bihar are not going to accept this. The BLOs and BLAs are under pressure. When BLOs are seen as instruments of exclusion, they will have to face the people. If they just act as instruments of disenfranchisement, people are not going to accept it. What has been the arc of your 40 years working in Bihar? How do you adapt when the world has shifted from feudalism and land to social media and money? When we started, the key issues in the 1970s were three: land, wages, and dignity. Dignity was probably the most important thing—whether somebody can sit on a cot, ask for wages for work done. Then gradually in the 1980s, we fought for voting rights. Now, dignity means that you lead a dignified life where you have your rights—education, health, employment, and secure employment with decent wages. The agenda has become bigger. There has been enrichment. That generation, which had to fight for their right to vote, for basic human rights—this current generation takes things for granted. But they are an aspiring generation. They want education, jobs, decent wages. We see it as a continuum. World has shifted, but at the end of the day, it's still about the people who matter. Especially in Bihar, that's one State where it still pulsates, the life of the people. The BJP is not seen just as a party that practices communalism in Bihar. It's also a party that represents the feudal forces. So the rise of the BJP is being seen as the rise of feudal restoration in Bihar. Also Read | 'People have said: we want our republic': Dipankar The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won a few seats in Seemanchal and seeks an alliance with the RJD. Your thoughts on the world situation—Gaza genocide, Pahalgam attack? AIMIM is an all-India party. Last election they won five seats, but Lok Sabha they didn't do that well. There is a feeling that concerns of the Muslim community are not being addressed adequately by people who care for Muslim votes, but they should also care for Muslim voters and their concerns. That's where AIMIM entered Bihar after the anti-CAA movement. Pahalgam—it has been more than 90 days now. We still don't know those four or five terrorists who came and did all this. Where are they? The main question was to bring them to justice. The Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, gives an interview, says this was a major security failure, I take responsibility. I don't know how you take responsibility sitting on the chair. If the government admits this is a security failure, then they should also admit that stripping Kashmir of its statehood was a big mistake. Kashmir has to get its statehood back. This foreign policy isolation—the primary reason is that India has mortgaged its foreign policy to Trump and Netanyahu combined. If you don't have the guts to condemn genocide in no uncertain terms in the United Nations, which most countries in the world are doing, even England and Germany and France, and we abstained—how can we expect that people will be concerned about Pahalgam? That's what has brought us this isolation and complete derailment of Indian foreign policy. It has been a complete betrayal, a complete failure on every field from economy to governance to foreign policy and increasingly India's unity. If you pit one language against another, one religion against another, if you go on dividing the country, the beauty of the national movement was it united India. The Constitution is the basis that can keep India united. This whole last year's experience has made the people of India more experienced. I'm sure with the SIR and all that, the BJP is exposing itself more clearly to more people. The people will definitely give their final verdict. Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.


Time of India
16 minutes ago
- Time of India
Union govt to launch ‘one airport, one product'
Tuticorin: The ministry of civil aviation is planning to launch an initiative called 'one airport, one product' for cargo terminals to facilitate transportation of the best products from an area across the country and the world, civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said in Tuticorin on Saturday evening. This draws inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'One District, One Product' initiative, the minister said at the inauguration of the new terminal building of Tuticorin airport. He said that like the Cholas, who built grand temples and harbours, today we are building world-class modern infrastructure under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The budget for railways, roads, airports, ports, electricity, water, and gas pipelines increased by nearly 6% in the last 10 years. A remarkable phase of airport development in the country was operationalising one airport every 50 days in the last 10 years. No other country has done it, he said. The minister said the new terminal of Tuticorin airport blends tradition with modernity, showcasing Tamil Nadu's rich cultural heritage through its design and interiors. Built at Rs 452 crore, it will be the gateway for travel, trade, and tourism for the entire southern Tamil Nadu. If there were only 1,300 aircraft movements in the old terminal in 2014, it will now increase to almost 3,600. The building spans 17,341 square metre, which is 17 times bigger than the old terminal. The runway was extended from 1,300 metre to 3,100 metre, which is 2.5 times bigger. In the old terminal, only small flights were operated, but now, bigger flights could be operated, which could provide bigger opportunities and growth. He said the old terminal will be made a dedicated cargo terminal, unlocking new possibilities for farmers, fishermen, traders, and small industries from Tuticorin. "Right now, fisheries are transported all the way to Kochi and Bengaluru. With this dedicated cargo terminal, Tuticorin can become a seafood export hub," he said. Thovalai flower market in Kanyakumari district, which is just 70 km away, won't have to use Thiruvananthapuram airport to send flowers across the world anymoe. Banana and palm farmers can also utilise the new cargo terminal, he added.