NATIONAL NEWS
A) Pegasus snooping may have helped in toppling of Congress-JD(S) govt in Karnataka in 2019
In the run up to the toppling of the opposition-run state government in Karnataka in July 2019, the phone numbers of deputy chief minister G. Parameshwara and the personal secretaries of chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and former chief minister Siddaramaiah were selected as possible targets for surveillance, according to the news website The Wire, which reviewed records of numbers that were of interest to an Indian client of Israel’s NSO group. The records indicate that the phone numbers of some of the key political players in Karnataka appear to have been selected around the time when an intense power struggle was taking place between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress-led state government in 2019, after 17 ruling alliance’s legislators abruptly resigned to force a trust vote in the assembly, the report stated. Reacting to the development, the Congress said that the BJP used Pegasus spyware t execute Operation Lotus’ and toppled the state government.
B) SC gives two weeks to Manipur to respond to activist father’s compensation plea
The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Manipur government two weeks to respond to a plea for compensation made by the father of activist Erendra Leichongbam, who was detained for two months under the National Security Act (NSA) for his Facebook posts questioning the efficacy of cow dung and urine as a cure for Covid-19 in the context of the death of a BJP leader due to coronavirus. A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah on Monday directed the State to forthwith release Leichongbam, saying he should not spend another night in prison. On Tuesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Manipur, strove for quietus in the case. He said the activist was released immediately after the apex court order. We have shown the gesture of immediately releasing him… Now let it be. But Justice Chandrachud said this was a serious matter concerning personal liberty. Somebody lost their liberty for over two months… It is a serious matter, Mr. Mehta, he remarked. Mehta said the activist could have taken legal recourse and this petition was filed only after months. Advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for Leichongbam’s father, L. Raghumani Singh, said the petition filed by his client had two prayers. First, to quash the May 17 detention order passed by the District Magistrate of Imphal West District against his son and, secondly, payment of compensation for his detention. Then, we will have to justify the order of detention on merits, Mehta took a combative stance after his earlier one to take the case no further. Justice Chandrachud reasoned, But Mr. Mehta, this [seeking compensation] is the choice of the petitioner. Farasat submitted, Yes, responsibility [for the detention] has to be fixed. Mehta responded, Something else is being done here… It seems the petitioner is only incidental. On Monday, Farasat argued that the government was increasingly using preventive detention provisions in cases in which even ordinary penal sections did not apply. He submitted that the Facebook posts were criticism against the advocacy of cow dung and urine as a cure. The stringent NSA provisions have been slapped on the activist to chill his free speech.
C) SC in majority verdict quashes part of 97th Constitutional amendment on cooperatives
The Supreme Court on July 20 in a 2:1 majority verdict upheld the validity of the 97th constitutional amendment that deals with issues related to effective management of cooperative societies but struck down a part inserted by it which relates to the Constitution and working of cooperative societies. A Bench of Justices R.F. Nariman, K.M. Joseph and B.R. Gavai which pronounced the verdict said, We have struck down part IX B of the Constitution related to cooperative societies but we have saved the amendment. Justice Nariman said, Justice Joseph has given a partly dissenting verdict and has struck down the entire 97th constitutional amendment. The 97th constitutional amendment, which dealt with issues related to effective management of co-operative societies in the country was passed by Parliament in December 2011 and had come into effect from February 15, 2012. The change in the Constitution has amended Article 19(1)(c) to give protection to the cooperatives and inserted Article 43 B and Part IX B, relating to them. The Centre has contended that the provision does not denude the States of its power to enact laws with regard to cooperatives. The top court’s verdict came on the Centre’s plea challenging the Gujarat High Court’s 2013 decision striking down certain provisions of the 97th constitutional amendment while holding that Parliament cannot enact laws with regard to cooperative societies as it is a State subject.
D) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments
The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,11,86,841 with the death toll at 4,18,226. While two-thirds of the general population had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, a third does not have antibodies, making approximately 40 crore people still vulnerable to infections, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Balram Bhargava said on Tuesday. Presenting the results of the fourth national COVID serosurvey, Dr. Bhargava said States, districts and areas without antibodies run the risk of infection waves. The survey noted that more than half of the children (6-17 yr) were seropositive while sero-prevalence was similar in rural and urban areas. It was also found that 85% of health care workers (HCWs) had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 while one-tenth of the HCWs were unvaccinated, he said.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) U.S. condemns ‘extra-judicial surveillance’ of journalists, activists and regime critics.
The Biden administration has condemned the harassment and ‘extrajudicial surveillance’ of journalists and others in reaction to reports published by a consortium of news websites that Israeli company NSO Group’s spyware, Pegasus, was used for illegal hacking and surveillance of individuals in India and other countries. The United States condemns the harassment or extrajudicial surveillance of journalists, human rights activists, or other perceived regime critics, a White House spokesperson said via email to The Hindu in response to a question on what U.S. President Joe Biden’s position on the issue was. Only on Monday U.S. President Joe Biden had said that China and Russia were protecting and even accommodating cyber hackers and their hacking. The news reports on Pegasus say that in addition to actually or potentially targeting journalists, leaders of the opposition in India, and others, a database of phone numbers that allegedly belonged to the NSO Group contained the numbers of two U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials in New Delhi and employees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Just as states have the duty to protect human rights, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, including by ensuring that their products or services are not being used by end-users to abuse fundamental freedoms, the spokesperson told The Hindu on Tuesday.
B) Leftist rural teacher declared president-elect in Peru
Rural teacher-turned-political novice Pedro Castillo has become the winner of Peru’s presidential election after the country’s longest electoral count in 40 years. Castillo, whose supporters included Peru’s poor and rural citizens, defeated right-wing politician Keiko Fujimori by just 44,000 votes. Electoral authorities released the final official results on Monday, more than a month after the runoff election took place in the South American nation. Wielding a pencil the size of a cane, the symbol of his Peru Libre party, Castillo popularised the phrase No more poor in a rich country. The economy of Peru, the world’s second-largest copper producer, has been crushed by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing the poverty level to almost one-third of the population and eliminating the gains of a decade. Castillo has promised to use the revenues from the mining sector to improve public services, including education and health, whose inadequacies were highlighted by the pandemic. Those who do not have a car should have at least one bicycle, Castillo, 51, told The Associated Press in mid-April at his adobe house in Anguía, Peru’s third poorest district. Since surprising Peruvians and observers by advancing to the presidential runoff election, Castillo has softened his first proposals on nationalising multinational mining and natural gas companies. Instead, his campaign has said he is considering raising taxes on profits due to high copper prices, which exceed USD 10,000 per ton. Historians say he is the first peasant to become President of Peru, where until now, Indigenous people almost always have received the worst of the deficient public services even though the nation boasted of being the economic star of Latin America in the first two decades of the century. There are no cases of a person unrelated to the professional, military or economic elites who reached the presidency, Cecilia Méndez, a Peruvian historian and professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, told a radio station.
C) Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos reaches space on 1st passenger flight
Jeff Bezos blasted into space Tuesday on his rocket company’s first flight with people on board, becoming the second billionaire in just over a week to ride his own spacecraft. The Amazon founder was accompanied by a hand-picked group: his brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands, and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas — the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space. Named after America’s first astronaut, Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a date chosen by Bezos for its historical significance. He held fast to it, even as Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson pushed up his own flight from New Mexico in the race for space tourist dollars and beat him to space by nine days. Unlike Branson’s piloted rocket plane, Bezos’ capsule was completely automated and required no official staff on board for the anticipated 10-minute, up-and-down flight. Blue Origin was shooting for an altitude of roughly 66 miles (106 kilometers), more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) higher than Branson’s July 11 ride. The 60-foot (18-meter) booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough, before separating and aiming for a vertical landing. The passengers were expected to get three to four minutes of weightlessness to float around the spacious white capsule. Then the window-filled capsule was going to head to a parachute touchdown on the desert floor, with Bezos and his guests briefly experiencing nearly six times the force of gravity, or 6 Gs, on the way back.
