The Lok Sabha witnessed shocking scenes on December 13 when two persons jumped into the House from the public gallery, carrying what appeared to be gas canisters.
As soon as the duo entered the House during the Zero Hour, one of them was seen leaping over the benches while the other dangled from the public gallery, spraying some kind of gas substance. This led to chaos and confusion inside the House.
Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the two persons were carrying tear gas canisters. He described it as a “serious breach of security” on the 21st anniversary of the Parliament attack.
Sources said one of the persons was named Sagar Sharma, and that the pass was reportedly sponsored by BJP MP from Mysore Pratap Simha. Some eye-witnesses said there were two more protesters who remained in the gallery.
BSP MP Danish Ali demanded to know how the duo managed to enter the premises and who recommended the pass for them. Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant, providing more details, said, “The MPs caught hold of one of them while the other went around jumping on the benches. He opened his shoes to take out the cannister which emitted yellow smoke.”
“The incident that happened during Zero Hour is being investigated by the Lok Sabha, and Delhi Police has been given requisite directions regarding the same. However, the smoke, which was the reason of our worry, has been found in preliminary investigation that it’s not a matter of concern,” said Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
In a post on X, Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi said, “Saw two young men unleash foul smelling yellow coloured gas from canisters inside Parliament gallery. MPs rushed to grab these men. One person was raising some slogans. This raises serious questions on another aspect of the new Parliament building: security.”
Congress MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla caught one of the two men and grabbed the canister he was holding before throwing it out. “He had something in his hand which was emitting yellow-coloured smoke. I snatched it away and continued throwing it outside... This is a major security breach,” he told ANI.
As the House met at 2 pm, amid concerns raised by various leaders, including on the threat video recently released by designated terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, Speaker Birla said it will not be right to discuss the issue in the House.
Speaker Birla said the security lapse in the House is being thoroughly probed and called a meeting of MPs from all parties later in the day to address their concerns over the matter.
Birla also informed the House that four persons have been arrested — two from inside the House, and two from outside Parliament in connection with the incident.
He said the Lok Sabha is conducting a probe and the Delhi Police has also been instructed to do so. The smoke that was released by the intruders appeared to be harmless in the initial probe, he said, adding it looked like it was sprayed to create sensationalism. He called a meeting of MPs later in the day, where he said all concerns will be addressed.
A man and a woman were detained for protesting outside the Parliament building carrying cans that emitted a yellowish smoke, police said in New Delhi.
Identified as Neelam (42) and Amol Shinde (25), the two were detained in front of Transport Bhawan, police officials said, adding that further probe is underway.
Security has been beefed up in the area following the incident.
Parliament security breach | Parents of Mysuru-based Manoranjan condemn son’s act
The parents of Manoranjan, 33, an engineering graduate and resident of Mysuru, who was involved in the security breach at Lok Sabha on Wednesday, December 13, expressed shock over their son’s act and strongly condemned it.
Father Devaraj, a farmer and mother Shylaja, a home maker, were both unanimous in condemning their son’s act but vouched for his good behaviour and conduct. Speaking to reporters outside his house in Vijayanagar II stage in Mysuru, Devaraj said “My son has never harmed anybody. He was very fond of reading and was interested in doing a lot of social work.” he said.
After completing his engineering from a college in Bengaluru in 2012-13, Manoranjan was assisting his father in his agricultural activities. Devaraj owns farmlands in Mallapura village in Hassan district’s Arakalgud taluk.
“He would accompany me to the farms, where he would stay for about a week or fortnight. When in Mysuru, he would go for morning walks and exercise,” Devaraj said. Though his son was frequenting Bengaluru and Delhi, he was not discussing the same with his family members. But Devaraj said he was confident that his son did not have any bad habits nor was he part of any undesirable activities.
Responding to queries, Devaraj said his son admired Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was of the opinion that the country was fortunate to have him as its Prime Minister. With regard to his son obtaining a pass to the Lok Sabha visitors’ gallery from member Pratap Simha, Devaraj said they were voters of the BJP MP from Mysuru. “Even I have a good rapport with Mr. Simha,” he claimed. One should not find fault with Pratap Simha for providing his son with a pass to enter Lok Sabha as he had given it for a good purpose, he said.
Stating that great leaders of the country like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were behind building an institution like the Parliament, Devaraj said he would condemn such an intrusion into the ‘temple’ of democracy by his son.
His mother said Manoranjan was a silent person who did not have many friends. He left Mysuru about two to three days ago to Bengaluru. Manoranjan, who did not like to take up a job, was not working anywhere, she said.
She said Manoranjan was one of her two children and she also had a daughter. She said she learnt about her son’s involvement in the incident only from the television channels.
Soon after receiving information about the involvement of Manoranjan from Mysuru, senior police personnel reached his house in the city and gathered information about him and his activities from his father.
Meanwhile, the Congress party in Mysuru condemned the breach of security in the Parliament and held protest outside the office of Simha in Mysuru on Wednesday evening.
Centre is nudging Kerala towards a financial crisis, says State in Supreme Court
Kerala has filed a suit in the Supreme Court accusing the Centre of violating the federal structure of governance and causing “severe damage to the economy of a small State with meagre resources” by interfering with its finances.
The suit said a State, in a federal system of governance, had the exclusive power to regulate its finance through preparation and management of its budget and borrowings.
The State, represented by advocate C.K. Sasi, contended that recent actions, amendments and executive orders by the Centre were calculated to reduce Kerala to a state of penury.
Kerala said the Centre had imposed a Net Borrowing Ceiling (NBC) on the State in a way to limit its borrowings from all sources, including the open market. The Centre had deducted borrowings by State-owned enterprises where the principal and/or interest was serviced out of the budget or where such borrowings were made to finance schemes announced by the State. The Centre had also imposed conditions on the State taking loans from outside India.
The State said amendments made to the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 had amounted to a blatant encroachment into the “legislative domain of the State as ‘Public debt of the State’ was an item exclusively in the State List in the Seventh Schedule under Article 246 of the Constitution”.
The amendments had violated “fiscal federalism” by creating unconstitutional limits and impediments on the State to borrow and regulate its own finances. The actions of the Centre had interfered with the exclusive constitutional power of Kerala to even “define” its annual budget and seek approval of the Legislature for allocation of funds. It had handicapped the plenary power of Kerala to manage its public debt, public account and the Consolidated Fund of the State; create and run State-owned enterprises; legislate on its borrowings; and borrow on the security of its Consolidated Fund.
Kerala said the Centre’s orders had “brought the operation of the State’s budget to a grave crisis”.
“Unless the Net Borrowing Ceiling, as fixed by the Kerala Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2003, based on which the State budget has been drawn up and approved by the Legislature is restored, the State is legitimately apprehensive that its treasury operations will be halted or starkly curtailed. This is a dire situation looming ahead and the immediate consequences to the State will be catastrophic,” the suit highlighted.
Kerala said it had already suffered a cumulative expenditure loss or resource deficiency of ₹1,07,513.09 crores over fiscal year period between 2016-2023.
“The inability to fulfill the commitments in its annual budgets has resulted in huge arrears that the State owes by way of welfare schemes to the people of the State, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, various beneficiary groups, the employees of the State government, its pensioners and dues to its State-Owned Enterprises… These dues have accumulated over the years because of financial constraints due to the imposition of borrowing ceiling by the Union… As on October 31, 2023, ₹26,226 crore is imminently and urgently required in order for the Plaintiff State to avert the impending grave financial crisis,” the suit said.
It is estimated that over a period of the next five years, the net loss sustained by State’s economy could be as high as ₹2 to 3 lakh crore, the State said. “If the damage is not prevented, the State, with its meagre resources, will not be able to recover from this for decades,” the suit noted.
COP28 summit | Nations reach ‘consensus’ in Dubai to ‘transition’ from fossil fuels
Nations on Wednesday took a small but decisive step towards eliminating dependence on fossil fuels, after negotiators at the 28th edition of the United Nations’ annual climate conference, or COP28 (Conference of Parties) in Dubai adopted a resolution, called the Dubai Consensus.
The standout clause of this 21 page text with 196 paragraphs is the one that “calls on Parties” to [be] “...Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”
Creating a pathway to reaching net zero by 2050 is humanity’s best shot at keeping temperatures from rising beyond 1.5°C by the end of the century, say the scientific assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This implies cutting emissions 43% of 2019 levels by 2030, and 60% by 2035 — an onerous ask — given that seven years remain and year-on-year emissions are rising.
Independent observers interpret this as a call to “phase out” fossil fuels by 2050. “This sends a clear signal that the world is moving decisively to phase-out fossil fuels, turbocharge renewable energy and efficiency, and tackle forest loss and degradation. It puts the fossil-fuel industry formally on notice that its old business model is expiring,” said Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director of international climate, at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
However, previous versions of the draft text that have explicitly incorporated terms such as a ‘phase out’ have been rebuffed. There are several countries, for instance Saudi Arabia, which have been adamant that there should be no reference to “phasing out fossil fuels” in the text as it discriminates against countries like theirs that are significantly dependent on oil exports.
December 13’s edition of the text also tones down, by a few notches, the rhetoric on the use of a coal — a point that is crucial to India, that draws about 75% of its power needs from burning coal. From a call to “rapidly phase down” coal the new text only calls for “...accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.”
While mitigating or cutting down greenhouse gas emissions is the focus of climate talks, there are two other major strands of negotiations on ‘adaptation’ — investing in making countries more resilient to present and future impacts from climate change — and ‘means of implementation and support,’ whereby developed countries are expected to provide financial support and technology to developing nations to transition away from fossil-fuel led development.
A major criticism, and at the heart of the division between developed and developing countries, is that many of the promises made by the former have been broken. Close to $500 billion should have made its way from 2020-2025 to the latter for adaptation of which less than 20% has been realised and that too as commercial loans, rather than grants or low-cost loans.
“We are not investing and thinking hard enough about adaptation in a 2°C (or greater) world,” said Anand Patwardhan of the University of Maryland, “a global net zero by 2050 does not and should not imply a net zero for all countries at that time. In fact, developed countries need to reach net zero much earlier (2035-2040) to provide even a modicum of carbon space for developing countries.”
Carbon space refers to the atmosphere’s capacity to hold carbon that will not result in temperatures increasing 1.5-2°C by the end of the century. The globe’s already 1.1°C hotter. Most of this carbon space has already been taken over by the developed nations by over a century of fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions and developing nations have insisted that what space remains ought to be taken up by them, with the West ceding space by taking on far more stringent reductions than they have committed to.
Mahua Moitra expulsion | CJI assures to look into listing aspect
The CJI on December 13 assured to look into the listing aspect of TMC leader Mahua Moitra’s plea challenging expulsion from Lok Sabha. Moitra’s plea challenging her expulsion was mentioned before the Supreme Court for an urgent listing on Wednesday.
The TMC leader moved the Supreme Court on Monday challenging her expulsion from the Lok Sabha, after the House adopted the report of its ethics committee that held her guilty of accepting gifts and illegal gratification from a businessman to further his interest.
On December 8, after a heated debate in the Lok Sabha over the panel report during which Moitra was not allowed to speak, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi moved a motion to expel the TMC MP from the House for “unethical conduct”, which was adopted by a voice vote.
Reacting sharply to her expulsion, Moitra had equated the action with hanging by a “kangaroo court” and alleged that a Parliamentary panel was being weaponised by the government to force the Opposition into submission.
In Brief:
Mahadev betting app promoter detained in Dubai
The Dubai police have detained Ravi Uppal, a key accused in the Mahadev Online Book betting app case. The Indian authorities are in touch with their counterparts in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to secure his custody. Uppal was reportedly apprehended a few days ago, on the Enforcement Directorate’s request via the Ministry of External Affairs and the Interpol. Along with another app promoter Sourabh Chandrakar, he is facing money laundering charges in the cases registered by the police in Chhattisgarh and Mumbai. Uppal allegedly obtained a passport from Vanuatu, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, despite not having relinquished his Indian citizenship. At this point, the ED suspects that the total proceeds of the crime amount to ₹6,000 crore.
Pakistan court indicts Imran Khan for leaking state secrets: media
A Pakistani court on December 13 indicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan on charges of leaking state secrets, several media channels reported, delivering a fresh blow to the jailed leader’s chances of contesting next year’s federal elections. The charge is related to a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington last year, which Khan is accused of making public. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, media organisations in the country reported. Khan has previously said contents of the cable appeared in the media from other sources. A guilty verdict under the Official Secrets Act could bring up to 14 years in prison or even a death sentence, lawyers say.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
