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Amid ruckus from the Opposition seeking revocation of suspension of 12 MPs from the House, the Rajya Sabha on Monday witnessed five back to back adjournments as they refused to participate in the short discussion on inflation.

Joint Opposition, including Congress, DMK, Trinamool Congress, TRS, AAP and the Left, continued their protest the entire day, following which, the House was adjourned for the fifth time in a day as soon as it assembled at 4 pm after the fourth adjournment.

Amid the pandemonium created by the Opposition members, Union Home Minister Amit Shah read his statement over the unfortunate killing of 13 civilians in Nagaland by security forces on Saturday, who called it an incident of “mistaken identity”.

India reported 17 more cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on Sunday - nine persons in Rajasthan capital Jaipur, seven in Maharashtra's Pune district and a fully vaccinated man who arrived in Delhi from Tanzania - taking the tally to 21 in the country.

Most of those who tested positive either recently arrived from African countries or were in contact with such people. With this, four states and the national capital have now reported cases of the potentially more contagious variant which has sparked a fresh alert across the world.

The nine people who tested positive in Jaipur include four members of a family who returned from South Africa recently. "Genome sequencing has confirmed that nine persons are infected with the omicron variant," Rajasthan health secretary Vaibhav Galriya said.

New Delhi: Amid growing concerns over the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, a parliamentary committee has recommended that the efficacy of Covid vaccines must be evaluated and the government conduct more research to examine the need for booster doses to contain the new strain. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, which presented its report on Friday, also said that concerns with regard to the new strain developing immunoescape mechanism should be critically addressed

In view of loss of life during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee noted that the measures taken by the health ministry to contain or prevent the spread of SARS-COV-2 proved to be squarely inadequate and suggested that the focus should be on strengthening health infrastructure, ensuring adequate availability of beds, supply of oxygen cylinders and essential medicines.

Redevelopment of the Central Vista Avenue that stretches from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate and is expected to be completed by December 2021 is 60 percent complete, the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry informed the Lok Sabha on December 2.

The amount incurred so far is Rs 190.76 crore and the estimated cost is Rs 608 crore, the ministry said.

The new Parliament building project, which is scheduled to be completed by October 2022, has achieved 35 percent of physical progress, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishore said in a written reply to a question by Congress MP Manish Tewari.

The opposition on Tuesday termed the order to suspend 12 Rajya Sabha MPs for an incident that happened in the monsoon session of Parliament in August as flawed and violative of the rules, even as it rubbished the argument of the Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu that the Upper chamber was a “continuous house” where punitive action was not restricted by the limitation of individual sessions. CPM MP Elamaram Kareem told media that the 12 MPs are seeking legal counsel over their suspension.

Terming the suspension as “unprecedented excessive action” in a tersely-worded letter, leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge appeared to refer to the discussion in the RS on Tuesday morning, in which Naidu had said that the opposition was wrong to claim that action could not be taken in the winter session on an issue pertaining to the monsoon session. He has argued that unlike Lok Sabha (which is renewed after every general elections), the Upper House was a “continuous house”.