Issues ranging from honour killings, plight of tea garden workers and “drastic” labour law reforms to electoral representation to people of several villages in Andhra Pradesh were raised in the Lok Sabha on Thursday during the Zero Hour.
Terming a recent case of ‘honour killing’ of a girl allegedly by her parents in Delhi as “a terrible crime”, BJP member Kirron Kher lamented that though such murders were going on in India for years, there was no legal or official recognition to ‘honour killings’ as a crime.
She said the National Crime Records Bureau “is yet to recognise such crime as a separate category and therefore there is no data available.” Ms. Kher demanded legal reforms to include ‘honour killings’ in the Indian Penal Code as the “first step” towards recognising the menace.
E T Mohammed Basheer (IUML) said government’s decisions on labour reforms was “a dangerous move” as it would give the employers the right to self-certification of whether they were following labour laws.
Observing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had himself spoken about ending ‘inspector raj’, he said the inspectors were required to visit industrial units to see for themselves whether all laws were being followed.
But amending the Factories Act to give self-certification right to the employers “will be a very dangerous move” which would violate the workers’ rights, Mr. Basheer said.
P Sreenivasa Reddy (TDP) raised the issue of lack of representation to about 34,000 families residing in 211 villages of Andhra Pradesh bordering Telangana, saying the legislators elected from there were now part of the new state.
“These people have also moved representations to the Election Commission, which for the first time must have received such a strange request,” he said.
In order to find a resolution, Mr. Reddy said these MLAs should be granted “dual membership” of the assemblies of Andhra Pradesh as well as Telangana at least till the 2019 Assembly elections.
AAP leader Dharamvir Gandhi sought to raise the issue of botched sterilisation surgeries in Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh but was disallowed by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, who said a judicial inquiry has already been ordered in the matter.
