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digiyatra app, and more. But with the peak holiday season starting from 24 December to the first week of January, the ministry is assessing whether this would be enough.

The Opposition in the Lok Sabha once again demanded a discussion on the Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Wednesday. TMC MP Saugata Roy, demanding a debate, urged the government to take steps to ensure the safety and security of the entire region of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. Calling the border issue “alarming”, he said, “the government is avoiding a discussion on the Chinese aggression in Lok Sabha, the Raksa Mantri issued a statement and there is no discussion. We demand full discussion on Chinese occupation in the House.”

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Congress member Manish Tewari said it is the sixth session of Parliament since 2020 but it is “unfortunate” that not even once a discussion was held on Indo-China relationship and “situations” on the borders so far. “Nobody wants to level accusations on the government. Situations are sensitive,” he said. Extensive discussions were held in Lok Sabha on India-China relationships whenever tensions with the neighbouring country increased from 1950 to 1962, he added.

Earlier in the day, Congress MPs, led by party leader Sonia Gandhi, and TMC lawmakers walked out of the House, accusing the government of not allowing a discussion on the sensitive India-China border issue.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge chaired a meeting of floor leaders of all Opposition parties on Wednesday to chalk out the strategy for the ongoing Winter Session. The leaders of the Congress, Shiv Sena, CPI, CPI-M, NCP, RJD, NC, SP, DMK met in the chamber of Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, and decided to corner the government on the border issue.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday assured the Lok Sabha that the government will take measures to further ease inflation, which has dipped below the RBI’s upper tolerance level of 6 per cent. “We will bring down further for the sake of common people,” she said while replying to a discussion on the first batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants 2022-23 in the Lok Sabha. The government is constantly watching the price situation of essential commodities, she said.

Sitharaman also hit back at TMC MP Mahua Moitra’s criticism of the Centre’s handling of the economy and her “who is the real ‘Pappu’ now” remark. She said that the TMC leader would find ‘Pappu’ in West Bengal if she looks in her own backyard.

During a debate in the Lok Sabha over the supplementary demand of grants, the Finance Minister said Mahua Moitra should “look in her own backyard, and she will find Pappu in West Bengal.”

Citing “wonderful schemes that could benefit common people”, Sitharaman said, “West Bengal sits over it, doesn’t distribute it… you won’t need to search anywhere else for Pappu.”

She was responding to questions raised by Moitra about industrial output, the manufacturing sector and the number of people leaving India in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Moitra had said the ruling party had coined the term “Pappu”, usually used to attack Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, “to denigrate and signify extreme incompetence. But the statistics tell us who the actual Pappu is.”

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