Parliamentary panels proceedings should be telecast live: Parrikar

Proceedings of parliament's various committees should be broadcast live on the lines of US Senate Committee hearings, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said Tuesday.

"Standing committees and other house committees they should also be telecast live," Parrikar said at the concluding session of the 16th All India Whips' conference in a south Goa resort.

He said in the US, all hearings conducted by the senate, the upper house of the US Congress, were shown live and in many cases, honed the skill of the lawmakers.

Parrikar also said that the flipside of broadcasting parliamentary proceedings on TV was that it often ended up goading lawmakers who are normally not keen on speaking to say their piece and at times led to ruckus in parliament, with lawmakers trying to grab attention of their voters via television.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, who also addressed the conference, said that a code needed to be evolved in order to ensure that studious and sincere efforts made by parliamentarians is given due justice, as compared to theatrics and trivia.

He lamented that if a lawmaker studies an issue for hours or days on end and gives a good speech, it is often ignored by the media, but if the legislator tears the same speech, then "it gets a lot of publicity".