Rajya Sabha Jay Panda (BJD) did not turn up due to ill health.Supriya Sule (NCP) joined other women MPs, led by CPI(M)’s Brinda Karat, to petition the Rajya Sabha chairman for a special half-hour discussion during every session on gender related issues.Kanimozhi (DMK) was not present in the delegation, but communicated her support for the move. She has gone to Chennai following the death of Tamil writer Rangarajan alias Sujata. Lok Sabha Milind Deora (cong) had four unstarred questions—on offloading of confirmed passengers from flights, railway concession to HIV patients, decision to stop issuing platform tickets during busy seasons and facilities for people of Indian origin visiting monuments in the country.Kuldeep Bishnoi, MEHBOOBA MUFTI and SUKHBIR SINGH BADAL were present in the House and had one question on the possibility of oil and gas exploration in Jammu and KashmirDushyant Singh (bjp) had four unstarred questions—on thefts in trains, new airports under the 11th Five Year Plan, decaying monuments in the country and SEZ for tourism and hospitality sectors.NAVEEN JINDAL has not been seen since the beginning of the session, but had a question on Thursday on “deceptive advertisements” by low-cost carriers. He was in Jaipur for the last few days in connection with the Asian shooting championship. He returned to Delhi on Thursday morning, but by the time he was ready to head for Parliament it was adjourned.SACHIN PILOT is campaigning for Meghalaya elections, while SHAMIK LAHIRI is away in his constituency.OMAR ABDULLAH is in Jammu, while MANVENDRA SINGH is in Barmer. They did not come to House. AKHILESH YADAV and PRIYA DUTT were not seen in the House. None of them had questions for the day.RAHUL GANDHI led a delegation of MPs to the Prime Minister to share their views on the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGS) Scheme and also offer constructive suggestions to make its implementation better. TUSHAR CHAUDHARY, MILIND DEORA, SANDEEP DIKSHIT, DEEPENDER HOODA, JITIN PRASADA, DEVBRATA SINGH, PALLAM RAJU, JYOTIRADITYA SCINDIA, TEJAWINI SRIRAMESH and BALASHOWRY VALLABHANENI were with Gandhi during the visit. The MPs suggested that under the scheme, the Central Government monitor the spending by states. They also called for a progressive implementation and a nationwide expansion of the scheme. Another point made was to create IT infrastructure which can help monitor the nitty-gritties of the project along with its actual implementation. The MPs were also unanimous in their suggestion that states which do well in implementing the scheme should be applauded.
