The government is prepared to face a discussion in Parliament on animal tallow import. V P Singh, Commerce Minister, made the offer in both Houses after he made a statement on the subject in the Rajya Sabha. In the statement, Singh said that apart from tightening the regulatory provisions, the enforcement machinery had also swung into action with a large number of inspections.
The sensational Karnataka tapes which allegedly unravel Congress (I) attempts to buy Janata legislators in the state triggered uproarious scenes in both houses of Parliament following a determined Opposition bid to pillory the government for trying to topple non-Congress (I) governments.
Opposition leaders in Parliament warned the government that the Punjab issue was amenable only to a negotiated political settlement and could not be settled through administrative measures. The occasion for a reappraisal of the law and order situation in Punjab was provided by a statutory resolution of Home Minister P C Sethi seeking approval of the proclamation of October 6 placing Punjab under President’s rule.
Mrs Indira Gandhi has called a ministerial-level meeting of the non-aligned committee on Palestine on November 18 and 19. An External Affairs Ministry spokesman who announced this said the first ministerial-level meeting of the eight-member committee, set up at the New Delhi summit of the NAM, follows the contacts Mrs Gandhi as NAM chairperson had with various leaders and messages of concern she has received over developments in West Asia.
