Rajya Sabha passed two contentious agriculture bills

The Rajya Sabha descended into chaos as the House passed two contentious agriculture bills amid a prolonged outpouring of anger by the opposition parties. The two ordinances – Farmers’ and Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 – were passed by a voice vote.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020

Key-Points

The first is by discussing it on the floor of the two Houses. The second mechanism is by referring a Bill to a parliamentary committee. But referring of Bills to parliamentary committees is not mandatory.

India’s Parliament has multiple types of committees. They can be differentiated on the basis of their work, their membership and the length of their tenure.

First are committees that examine bills, budgets and policies of ministries. These are called departmentally related Standing Committees.

Departmentally related Standing Committees have a tenure of one year, then they are reconstituted and their work continues throughout the term of a Lok Sabha.

Then there are committees constituted for a specific purpose, with MPs from both Houses. The specific purpose could be detailed scrutiny of a subject matter or a Bill. These are Joint Parliamentary Committees (JPC).

And finally, there is a Select Committee on a Bill. This is formed for examining a particular Bill and its membership is limited to MPs from one House.

Since both the JPCs and Select Committees are constituted for a specific purpose, they are disbanded after their report. Both these types of committees are chaired by MPs from the ruling party.