The Winter Session of the Orissa Legislative Assembly began on stormy note with the Opposition stalling proceedings of the House demanding resignation of chief minister Naveen Patnaik over the Vedanta University land acquisition deal.
Speaker Pradeep Kumar Amat had to adjourn the House for at least three times as normal business could not be transacted after the Question Hour. The atmosphere inside the House was so hot and intense that the Speaker was forced to defer the supplementary budget placement by 15 minutes.
The budget was originally scheduled to be placed at 5 pm.
As the House reassembled at 5 pm, finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei hurriedly read out the supplementary statement of expenditure after which the Speaker announced adjournment of the House for the day.
It appeared that the Congress and BJP had made a floor-coordination plan to put the ruling BJD on the mat on the Vedanta University issue. Unlike previous sessions, they observed calm and restraint in the Question Hour. As soon as the Zero Hour began, Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh stood up and demanded resignation of the chief minister alleging that the high court verdict had clearly mentioned that the state government had extended all patronage for “illegal” land acquisition for the Vedanta University project at Puri.
Supporting Mr Singh, his colleague Prasad Harichandan said the government had “connived” with the Vedanta group to give huge stretches of precious land.
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Sino-India talks on Nov. 29, 30
Beijing, Nov. 23: Ahead of Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to New Delhi in December, India and China will hold the 14th round of boundary talks here on November 29-30, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Tuesday.
The Indian side would be led by National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon while state councilor Dai Bingguo would head the Chinese delegation at the talks, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular briefing. The last boundary talks were held in 2009 in New Delhi, where the two sides had agreed to push forward the framework of the dialogue process.
The November 29-30 border negotiations come ahead of Mr Wen’s planned visit to India in mid-December. —PTI