The
House of Parliament of India, which contains the Lok Sabha and the Rajya
Sabha, is located in New Delhi.
It was designed by the British architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir
Herbert Baker in 1913 as part of their wider mandate to construct a new administrative
capital city for British India. It is said
that the circular structure of an 11th-century Hindu temple in
Madhya Pradesh may have inspired the design of the building. Construction of
the Parliament House began in 1921 and it was completed in 1927. The
opening ceremony of the Parliament House, which then housed the Imperial
Legislative Council, was performed on 18th January, 1927 by Lord
Irwin, the then Viceroy of India. On the very120 next day, the third
session of Central Legislative Assembly was held in this house. Two
floors were added to the140 structure in 1956 due to a demand for
more space. The Parliament
Museum, opened in 2006,
stands next to the160 Parliament House in the building of the
Parliamentary Library. The shape of the building of Parliament is
circular, at the centre of which is the Central Chamber, and
surrounding this are the semicircular halls that were constructed for
the sessions of the Chamber of Princes, the State Council, and the
Central Legislative Assembly. The Chamber of Princes is now used as the Library
Hall, the State council is now used for the Rajya Sabha, and the Central
Legislative Assembly is240 now used for the Lok Sabha. The
building is surrounded by large gardens and the perimeter is fenced off by
sandstone railings.
A
new Parliament building may replace the existing complex. The new building is
being considered on account of280 the stability concerns regarding
the current complex. A committee to suggest several alternatives to the
current building was set up by the ex-Speaker, Meira Kumar. The present
building, which is an 85-year-old structure, suffers from inadequacy of space
to house320
members and their staff and is thought to suffer from structural issues. The
building also needs to be protected because of its heritage. In August,
2019 the Vice President and the Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Shri Venkaiah
Naidu proposed360 to Prime Minister Modi to have a new
building for the Parliament. In January, 2020, Lok Sabha Speaker Shri Om Birla
announced that Parliament will be holding its sessions in a new building in
2022 when the country would be celebrating its 75th Independence
Day. Renovation of Central Vista from
Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate is also underway. Lok Sabha420
chamber is expected to have increased seating capacity to accommodate more
members as number of MPs may increase with India’s population.
Lok Sabha may need to have 848 members by 2026. New complex will be able to
house 900 Lok Sabha MPs and 1350 members in total. According to the architect
in charge of the redesign of the Central Vista, 480
the new complex is likely to have a triangular shape. It will be
built next to the existing complex and will be much bigger than former one.
North and South Blocks which house ministries will be converted into museums
and relocation of Prime Minister’s Office and ministries and redesign of
Rajpath will take place.
Last
week, Australia
announced that it will now force technology giants such as Facebook and
Google to pay new companies for using content. The Government560
of Australia
said that this was meant to ensure a level playing field and the
announcement came after an 18-month investigation into the power of
these digital platforms by the country’s competition and consumer
commission. Earlier this month, France’s top competition600
authority asked Google to negotiate with media companies including both
publishers and agencies for using snippets on its search engine and news
aggregator and pay them proper remuneration. Both Australia and France are right. For too long,
there has been640 an unfair ecosystem that has been
built around the digital news landscape. Media organizations invest tremendous
resources, such as personnel, editorial gatekeeping, overhead costs and
distribution. Big digital intermediaries such as Facebook and Google take their
content and push it on their platforms. But operating under ambiguous regimes,
they pretend not to be media companies. This means they neither700
have the legal accountability that media organizations have, nor do they incur
the same levels of expenditure. But they monopolize the720
revenue that streams into the digital news world. This has made several genuine
media organizations unviable, forcing them to scale down their operations or
even close down. This hits not just particular companies but hurts
democracy and the right of citizens to be informed. This crisis has become even
more acute given the economic slowdown after the coronavirus pandemic. India is not
immune from either the trends in the digital news world, or the slowdown. Media
companies now face additional800 challenges. For traditional print
platforms, circulation has dipped because of unfounded fears about the
possibility of the infection spreading through newspapers. Revenue is hit due
to the curtailment of advertisement expenditure by private companies as
well as the Government. In840 this backdrop, it is time for
the Government to institute clearer rules for intermediaries. It is time to
get Facebook and Google to meet their legal obligations. It is no
surprise that there is a proliferation of fake news on some of these
platforms in the absence of stronger accountability rules. It is also time
to get them to pay the rightful share of compensation to those platforms whose
content they use and leverage to build their own audience and profits. India must
carefully consider other global examples and put a stop to the reckless and
unfair trade practices adopted by digital intermediaries. It is, indeed, time
for a level playing field, not just to help India, but also to960
preserve democracy and keep up the news-gathering mechanisms that are so
essential to keeping citizens informed.
On
21st April, the980 price of Texas oil futures fell below zero dollars
per barrel. In theory, an empty barrel of crude oil was worth more than
a full one. This was a symbolic milestone which was a consequence of a lack of
storage and quarter-end fire sales rather than a stable market situation. Oil
price futures have recovered, but only to their still absurdly low band of
20 to 25 dollars per barrel. Brent crude price which is the relevant one
for India
continues to stay around 20 dollars. All of this reflects the enormous mismatch
between global supply and demand. There was1080 already a surplus of oil before the
coronavirus pandemic. After the outbreak and the continuing economic
retrenchment, the world is awash with black gold. The recent 15 million-barrel
oil production cuts announced by various countries proved toothless in the face1120
of a 30 million-barrel drop in demand. The brief fall of Texas oil prices into negative was a
headline-catching symptom of the current problem of surplus. There have been
other signs such as the record 160 million barrels of oil stored on
stationary tankers, and countries such as Nigeria being unable to sell
sweet light crude at even 11 dollars. Natural gas prices have followed a
slippery slope as well. As one of the world’s largest importers
and a country1200 repeatedly brought to its knees by
crude spikes, India
has always been happy when prices have crashed. But it has moved beyond the
days when it looked at oil solely in terms of how much foreign exchange it
could save. Today, it should look at how it can quickly enhance its
strategic reserves to benefit from the falling price. For1260 instance, China is doing
just that. It should assure future supplies. This is a good time to enter
into long-term1280 contracts. Finally, it should
also judge how the present oil crisis will affect, for better or for worse,
its long-term energy strategy. New
Delhi should keep a firm eye on its long-standing
goals of promoting solar and wind energy, shifting more baseload
power to natural gas, and shutting its most-polluting coal-fired power
plants. But it is unlikely that even the most cost-effective of these will
be able to match oil prices in the short and maybe even medium term.
The
national lockdown has entered its fifth week. It is also the second day
of selective relaxations in districts and zones that have seen either
limited or no cases of the coronavirus disease. With the lockdown, India
is seeking to preserve1400 public health and slow down the rate
of the spread of the virus. With the partial relaxations, it is seeking to
revive economic activities. But this picture obscures the variations
within states. Health is a state subject, which requires state1440
governments to be open to evolving responses based on the disease burden, best
practices, and successful models. Some states have rightly decided
to exercise more caution than others. Despite the economic toll of the
lockdown, Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab
and Telangana are not easing restrictions for now. Telangana has even extended
its lockdown till May 7. India
stands at a crossroads, with both the Centre and the states on test. The next
fortnight will determine if India
can flatten the curve of infections enough for the partial relaxations to
expand both in scope and geography or there is a somewhat unmanageable rise in
cases, which leads to a continued stalling of economic activities. There is now
a consensus on health protocols, from testing to isolation, provision of
protective gear for healthcare workers to ramping up health infrastructure
for severe cases. This must continue. The actions in weeks five and six
of the lockdown will define India’s
course beyond May 3. 1600
