Budget Session 2022 LIVE UPDATES: The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will resume today after it was adjourned on March 16 for the festival of Holi.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday approved the demands for grants for Railway Ministry for 2022-23.
Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders and the Person of Indian Origin (PIO) cardholders (being deemed OCI cardholders) are entitled to multiple entry lifelong visa for visiting India, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said in the Rajya Sabha on March 16.
Rai also informed that 16 Chinese nationals have been granted Indian citizenship since 2007. He also told that 10 applications of Chinese nationals for Indian citizenship are still pending, according to data available in the online citizenship module.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi urged the govt to put an end to the systematic influence and interference of Facebook and other social media giants in the electoral politics of the world’s largest democracy.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha Wednesday, Gandhi said global companies like Facebook and Twitter are being used to “shape political narrative by leaders of political parties and their proxies”.
“It has come to public notice repeatedly that global social media companies are not providing a level playing field to all political parties,” she said. Gandhi referred to a report published in Al Jazeera and The Reporters’ Collective claiming that Facebook had offered the ruling BJP cheaper deals “by bending their own hate speech rules” for election advertisements as compared to other political parties and suppressed “the voice of all those who were speaking up against the government”.
The second half of the Budget session of Parliament began on March 14 and will conclude on April 8. The first half of the Budget session began on January 31 and concluded on February 11