FirstUp: Budget Session in Parliament, ED to question Hemant Soren... News today

The last day of the first month is going to be a busy one. The Budget Session of the Parliament will begin today, marking the last sitting of the current Lok Sabha. The government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, is prepared to deliver its interim budget in advance of the general elections that are scheduled for April or May. The Enforcement Directorate will question Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren in Ranchi in a money laundering case and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will re-enter West Bengal. Here’s a glimpse of how the day will unfold. Budget session begins today Beginning on 31 January, the Parliament’s budget session will conclude with an unprecedented 17th Lok Sabha without the election of a Deputy Speaker, a position required by Article 93 of the Constitution. [caption id=“attachment_13666472” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] This year’s Budget will be Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s sixth time presenting the annual financial statement. She also holds the honour of delivering the longest Budget speech in 2020 – at 2 hours and 42 minutes. File image/PTI[/caption] On 1 February, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliver the interim budget. A general discussion on the budget is probably going to happen following the Prime Minister’s responses in both Houses. ED to question Hemant Soren The Enforcement Directorate will question Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday in Ranchi in a money laundering case probe linked to an alleged land scam and has seized Rs 36 lakh, a BMW SUV and some “incriminating” documents after it searched his house in the national capital. A day after an ED team visited the JMM executive president’s Delhi home and agency officials said he was “untraceable”, Soren reached his official residence in the Jharkhand capital on Tuesday and chaired a meeting of his alliance MLAs, ending the over 24-hour-long suspense over his whereabouts. Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra to re-enter West Bengal Congress MP Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is set to re-enter West Bengal today via Malda and then after travelling through Murshidabad. It will leave the state on Friday. [caption id=“attachment_13612432” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and others upon their arrival in Imphal ahead of the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’. File image/PTI[/caption] For those unversed, the yatra is scheduled to travel 6,713 kilometres over 67 days, traversing 110 districts across 15 states before culminating in Mumbai on 20 or 21 March. SC hearing on Umar Khalid’s bail plea The Supreme Court will be hearing a bail petition filed by former Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid in an Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case linked to the February 2020 Delhi riots. He has been an undertrial for over three years. The trial court has not framed charges in the case yet. Allahabad HC hearing plea against Varanasi court’s order on ‘wazukhana’ survey The Allahabad High Court will be hearing a plea challenging the Varanasi district court’s refusal to direct the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a scientific survey of the “wazukhana” area except the “Shivling,” inside the Gyanvapi mosque complex. [caption id=“attachment_13519562” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The matter is being placed before the Chief Justice who will nominate another judge to hear it. File photo[/caption] The matter is being placed before the Chief Justice, who will nominate another judge to hear it. Boeing Q4 results The Boeing Company will release its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2023 on Wednesday. A conference call will follow at 10:30 a.m. EST with CEO David Calhoun and chief financial officer Brian West. US Senate hearing with bosses of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap and Discord The Congress will grill the chief executives of several tech giants on Wednesday, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, about the potential harm from their products on teenagers. [caption id=“attachment_12833362” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Mark Zuckerberg. REUTERS/Erin Scott[/caption] According to CNN, many tech CEOs are likely to use Wednesday’s hearing to tout tools and policies to protect children and give parents more control over their children’s online experiences. This day in history

• In 2010, Avatar became the first film to gross over $2 billion worldwide
• Scotch Tape was first marketed by 3M in 1930
• The first large-scale use of poison gas in warfare was made by Germany in the Battle of Bolimów against Russia in 1915
• In 1958, James Van Allen discovered the Van Allen radiation belt, the layers of charged particles around the Earth held in place by the planet’s magnetic field
• About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp were forcibly marched into the Baltic Seaby the Nazis and machine-gunned in 1945

Famous birth anniversary

• Birth anniversary of the first recipient of the Param Vir Chakra Major Somnath Sharma
• Birth anniversary of spiritual leader and founder of BAPS Shastriji Maharaj
• Birth anniversary of American chemist and Nobel laureate Theodore William Richards
• Birth anniversary of actress Amrita Arora
• Birth anniversary of actress Preity Zinta

With inputs from agencies