Parliament adjourned after condoling Murli Deora's death

Both houses of parliament were adjourned Monday after obituary references were made for former union minister Murli Deora, who died Monday morning.

Deora, a veteran Congress leader, died in Mumbai following a brief illness. He was 77.

The winter session of parliament began here Monday and is scheduled to run till Dec 23. The session, the first after Prime Minister Narendra Modi expanded his council of ministers, will have 22 sittings.

The Lok Sabha also condoled the deaths in the floods that ravaged Jammu and Kashmir as well as in cyclone "Hudhud" that hit Andhra Pradesh.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said: "More than 120 people died and there was huge loss of property in the Jammu and Kashmir floods."

Obituary references were also made for two other sitting members -- Hemendra Chandra Singh of the Biju Janata Dal and Kapil Krishna Thakur of the Trinamool Congress.

In the Lok Sabha, the prime minister introduced new members of his council of ministers, including Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Rural Development Minister Birendra Singh and Health Minister J.P. Nadda.

Three of the five members, elected in the recent bypolls, also took oath.

The three were Ranjanaben Bhatt of the BJP, who won from Vadodara - the seat vacated by Modi, Pritam Gopinath Munde of the BJP from Beed in Maharashtra - the seat that fell vacant following the death of her father and union minister Gopinath Munde -- and Samajwadi Party's Tej Pratap Yadav, elected from Mainpuri, vacated by Mulayam Singh Yadav.