Here are the updates from Tuesday:

  1. Opposition MPs, including from the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, on Tuesday protested in the Rajya Sabha, climbing atop officers’ tables and throwing files as discussions on the new farm laws began, reported PTI. The MPs demanded the withdrawal of the farm laws, leading to the adjournment of the House multiple times. The Bharatiya Janata Party MPs also shouted slogans in support of the laws.
  2. The Union government has not yet taken a decision on implementing a nationwide National Register of Citizens, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha. The NRC is a register meant to document all legal citizens of India. More than 19 lakh people were left out of the final list of the Assam NRC that was published on August 31, 2019. The number of people left out comprised around 6% of Assam’s entire population.
  3. The Ministry of Home Affairs said that the upcoming census would be online and that there was a “provision for self-enumeration”. A mobile app has been developed for data collection and a census portal will manage and monitor various related activities. The individual data collected in the census would not be made public, and would not be “used for the preparation of any other database, including National Register of Citizens”.
  4. The Centre also told the Lok Sabha that there is no proposal to release data on caste as part of the Census 2021. The home ministry, however, said that the Census collects data on the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
  5. Members of the Shiromani Akali Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress staged a protest outside Parliament and urged the Centre to repeal the three farm laws, ANI reported. “The 2024 Lok Sabha elections are not far away,” said Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur. “The fight will continue.”
  6. The Rajya Sabha was adjourned twice during the pre-lunch period due to protests by Opposition leaders, seeking discussion on whether India used Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to monitor politicians, journalists and activists.
  7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked for the names of Bharatiya Janata Party MPs who were not present in the Rajya Sabha on Monday when the Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance, 2021 was passed, reports said. The Bill seeks to lay down uniform terms and conditions for the service and tenure of members of various tribunals. Opposition leaders had moved a statutory resolution asking that the Bill be sent to a Select Committee first. But it was passed with a voice vote.