‘Tourist’ team of MPs leaves ‘tapovan’ fuming

Dharamsala: Parliamentary standing committees are today a very important part of the policy-making process in our country, but very little is known about the working of these committees, except that the worthy member MPs take up long journeys to study issues at hand. What they do during these journeys was visible during one such visit by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development, consisting of around 10 MPs, to Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram near Dharamsala, as the lawmakers left their local host Chinmaya Organisation for Rural Development (CORD), a reputed NGO, huffing and puffing over their attitude towards developmental issues. So much so, CORD national director Dr Kshama Metre, a Padma Shri awardee, could hardly control her anger and openly described them as ‘tourists’.Read Full Story