The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs (SCOHA) is a department related standing committee (DRSC) of selected

members of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

, constituted by the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the ...

, for the purpose of legislative oversight of the

domestic policy Domestic policy is a type of public policy overseeing administrative decisions that are directly related to all issues and activity within a state's borders. It differs from foreign policy, which refers to the ways a government advances its inter ...

internal security Internal security is the act of keeping peace within the borders of a sovereign state or other self-governing territories, generally by upholding the national law and defending against internal security threats. Responsibility for internal secu ...

and decision making of the

Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...

. It is one of the 24 DRSCs that have been mandated with the onerous task of ministry specific oversight. The committee currently is headed by MP Anand Sharma.

Current composition

Each of the committees have 31 members – 21 from

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

and 10 from

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

. These members are to be nominated by the

Speaker of Lok Sabha The speaker of the Lok Sabha ( IAST: ) is the presiding officer and the highest official of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India. The speaker is elected generally in the first meeting of the Lok Sabha following general e ...

or the

Chairman of Rajya Sabha The vice president of India ( IAST: ) is the deputy to the head of state of the Republic of India, i.e. the president of India. The office of vice president is the second-highest constitutional office after the president and ranks second in th ...

respectively. The term of office of these committees does not exceed one year. These committees are serviced either by

secretariat or the

secretariat, depending on who has appointed the chairman of that committee. Following are the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs

Comments and reports

Tek Fog

In January 2022, MP Derek O'Brien (

Trinamool Congress The All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress ( TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in West Bengal. The party is led by Mamata Banerjee, the cur ...

) and a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs wrote to Anand Sharma, head of the committee to discuss the secret app " Tek Fog" that "has serious ramifications and could jeopardise national security". He wrote, "This application is capable of penetrating encrypted messaging platforms and secure social media conversations, in order to heavily manipulate and exploit narratives on said platforms." On 12 January, Congress leader and leader of the party in the Lok Sabha

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (born 2 April 1956) is an Indian politician serving as the leader of the Indian National Congress in the 17th Lok Sabha and the Member of Parliament from Berhampore. He is also the current president of West Bengal Prades ...

also wrote to the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, Anand Sharma, asking the committee discuss the "Violative Software Application 'Tek Fog'", in their next meeting. The Parliamentary standing committee asked the Union Home Ministry to provide information about the 'Tek Fog' app that was allegedly used for manipulating social media trends. On 12 February, responding to the request, MoS for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, "The ministry has searched for the app on all prominent app stores and APK stores and could not find so called app in any of these online stores."

Police reforms

In 2022, the committee submitted to Rajya Sabha, its report titled "Police — Training, Modernisation and Reforms", the committee expressed concern about the low representation of women in police forces, at only 10.30%.

Chairpersons

References

Committees of the Parliament of India Ministry of Home Affairs (India)