CURRENT AFFAIRS
02 October 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Rahul, Priyanka detained while proceeding to Hathras.
The Uttar Pradesh Police has stopped former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on the Yamuna Expressway on the afternoon of 1 October. Both the leaders along with Congress workers were marching towards Hathras to meet the family of the gang-rape victim before they were stopped before Jewar toll plaza. They were detained under Section 188 of the IPC for violating prohibitive orders. The leaders were then taken to the Buddh International Circuit, the racing track in Greater Noida. When Gandhi told that he would leave his convoy behind and go alone on foot, it led to an impasse, and the police began pushing and shoving Congress workers. In the melee that ensued, Gandhi fell down and suffered bruises on the arm. He then sat down on a dharna on the Expressway. Confirming the sequence of events, Shyoraj Jeevan, senior Congress leader from Hathras, said it reflected the autocratic behavior of the UP police. The police indulged in the lathi charge. Had they used such force to nab the culprits, things would have been different. Earlier in the day, vehicles of Gandhi and Vadra, who were on their way to Hathras to meet the family of the Dalit gang-rape victim, were stopped in Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida.
B) After Hathras, another Dalit woman dies in the U.P. after alleged gang-rape.
A 22-year-old Dalit woman died of severe injuries in Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur village on 30 September after being allegedly gang-raped. Following her death, the victim was cremated on the night of 30 September itself, after post-mortem. The police in Balrampur district have arrested two people for allegedly gang-raping and murdering the 22-year-old, who was employed at a private firm. This has not been ascertained in the post-mortem, said Balrampur SP Dev Ranjan Verma. However, a further probe into the matter was on. In a statement to the police, the woman’s family alleged that on September 29, she did not return from work till late. However, she eventually came home on a rickshaw and was in a bad condition. The family rushed her to a hospital but she died on the way, said the officer. This death comes a day after another Dalit woman in UP, a 19-year-old from Hathras, died from a separate gang-rape incident. She was also cremated past midnight.
C) Pandemic can’t be excused to not pay wages: Supreme Court.
On 1 October, the Supreme Court of India has quashed a Gujarat government notification exempting factories from paying overtime wages to workers during the lockdown, between April 20 and July 19. A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said the pandemic could not be an excuse to deny workers the dignity of their labor. Workers have the right to proper wages and ideal working conditions. The pandemic could not be viewed by the government as an internal emergency to sideline statutory laws that protected workers’ rights under the Factories Act. While the court acknowledged the financial hardships faced by factory owners due to the pandemic, it reminded them that the brunt of the economic slowdown should not be entirely put on the workers’ shoulders.
D) Prashant Bhushan files a review petition against the Supreme Court decision convicting him of contempt.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its decision to fine him a nominal ₹1 as punishment for committing criminal contempt. Bhushan urged the court to recall the punishment. Stating that the tweets were criticism, he argued that dissent and criticism of an institution did not amount to criminal contempt. The senior lawyer asked the court to look into whether its power to initiate suo motu contempt was subject to the fundamental rights of a person. Dissent and free, fearless exchange of ideas was the central pillars of democracy, his petition said. It further said that it was a manifest error on the part of the judgment to conclude that criticism of individual judges amounted to a malicious attack on the court itself. Separately, responding to a notice from the Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) on why he should not be disbarred, Bhushan urged the lawyers’ body to stand up for truth and freedom of speech. The Supreme Court judgments holding me guilty and sentencing me for criminal contempt are a fundamental assault on the freedom of speech and independence of the Bar. The legal profession’s independence had been protected by the statutory Bar Councils established under the Advocates Act, 1961. The Bar Councils have been made completely independent of the government as well as the judiciary so that they can protect the dignity, freedom, and independence of the Bar.
E) Ordnance Factory Board rejects a report on accidents caused by poor quality ammunition.
The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has dismissed reports on several accidents between 2014 and 2019 due to poor quality ammunition manufactured by it and said it does not accept the figures. For the accidents from January 2015 to December 2019, in which defect investigation has been completed, only 19% of the cases are attributable to OFB. Further, out of the total number of accidents in which defect investigation had been completed, only 2% of the cases in which casualties had been reported were attributable to the OFB, he stated. According to internal data of the Army, between 2014 and 2019, there were 403 incidents due to poor quality of ammunition manufactured by the OFB, as a result of which the Army suffered 25 deaths and 146 injuries, and also disposed of ₹960 crore worth of ammunition before the shelf life was complete. Between 2011 and 2018, there had been more than 125 accidents involving ammunition procured from sources other than OFB, both domestic and foreign. Moreover, the cases where OFB ammunition was involved were being selectively reported. It must be emphasized here that most of these accidents involve vintage ammunition manufactured prior to 2006 when inspection of all input materials was undertaken by the Director-General Quality Assurance (DGQA) and OFB had no control over the quality of input material.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Three Indian soldiers killed by Pakistan shelling along LoC.
2 soldiers were killed and 4 others injured in north Kashmir’s Naugam Sector on 1 October, in a major escalation by the Pakistan Army along the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K. A Srinagar-based defense spokesman said Pakistan initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation along the LoC in Naugam Sector, Kupwara, on the morning of 1 October. Pakistan Army resorted to firing mortars and other weapons. 2 soldiers sustained fatal injuries. He said that the 4 injured soldiers were evacuated to a hospital. The army said that a befitting response is being given the Army. Earlier in the day, 1 soldier was killed and another injured in Jammu’s Poonch district in Pakistan’s ceasefire violation along the LoC.
B) Navalny blames Putin for the poison attack.
Alexei Navalny, who is a leading Russian opposition activist has said that he believes that President Vladimir Putin was responsible for his poisoning. He asserts that Putin is behind this act, he doesn’t see any other explanation, he gave this statement in a German news magazine Der Spiegel. Germany, where Mr Navalny is recovering, has said that he was poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent. These findings were confirmed by the laboratories in France and Sweden. The Kremlin denies any involvement. Responding to the statement made on 1 October, the spokesman of Mr. Putin has said that there was no evidence that Mr. Navalny had been poisoned with a nerve agent, and CIA agents were working with the opposition leader.
Mr. Navalny collapsed on a flight in Russia’s Siberia region on 20 August. He was transferred to the Charité hospital in the German capital Berlin 2 days later. In an interview published by Der Spiegel on 1 October, the first since he fell ill – Mr. Navalny said that the order to use Novichok could only have come from the heads of 3 of Russia’s intelligence services, all of whom work under Vladimir Putin.
