Monday, March 2, 2009

Firing.....


With 5 jobs lost globally every minute, little surprisingly the number is piling up in the Indian IT industry too.

Neutral Referee

When 14th Lok Sabha draw to a close, it was also the last day in office for Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. This Lok Sabha will be remembered for many things, including a new law in parliamentary behaviour when MPs waved wads of cash inside the House during last year's trust vote.

Like a good headmaster, Chatterjee was always coming up with measures to discipline MPs who disrupted proceedings in the House. He had controversially proposed that MPs who forced adjournment of the House should not get their daily allowance. He had also suggested invoking certain parliamentary rules that are rarely enforced. He talked about enforcing Rule 373, which allows the Speaker to throw out any member whose conduct is "grossly disorderly", and Rule 374A which provides for "automatic suspension of a member" for causing "grave disorder" and "wilfully obstructing" the business of the House.

There were times when he went over the top, only to regret it later. Just days before his term as Speaker ended, an exasperated Chatterjee said that MPs don't deserve even "one paisa" of public money after members of several political parties stormed the well and disrupted the question hour. He added for good measure that they did not deserve to be elected in the next polls. But like a good Bengali bhadralok, he later regretted his comments saying that he had made them out of "frustration".

The best thing about Chatterjee was that he was by and large a neutral referee, as a Speaker should be, and mindful of the importance of the post. Even after his party, the CPM, had withdrawn support from the UPA government Chatterjee refused to step down, arguing that as a Speaker, who was elected unanimously, he did not owe allegiance to any political party. Whether Chatterjee's interventions will have any long-term impact on the way business is conducted in the House remains to be seen. But he brought the issue of parliamentary norms and behaviour to centre stage. As we bid Chatterjee goodbye, let's hope that some of his concerns will rub off on his parliamentary colleagues.

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