NATIONAL NEWS
Lakhimpur Kheri: Police file case against Priyanka Vadra; Sharad Pawar likens incident to Jallianwala Bagh massacre
The Uttar Pradesh Police has booked Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and ten other people under sections related to preventive custody due to apprehension of breach of peace, officials said on Tuesday, as party leaders questioned her detention beyond 24 hours without an FIR. The case under Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) sections 144,151, 107, 116 (all related to preventive detention due to apprehension of breach of peace) has also been registered against Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and party leader Deependra Hooda, the officials said. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has been detained in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur while speaks to the media virtually. These are preventive sections. Once we get assurance that there would not be a violation of peace by them, these sections will be removed, Sitapur Sub-divisional Magistrate Pyare Lal Maurya said. They all are kept in detention in the guest house of the 2nd battalion of Provincial Armed Constabulary, he said. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other party leaders were detained on Monday when they were going to meet the victims of the violence that erupted during a farmers’ protest in Lakhimpur Kheri a day earlier. Eight people were killed as violence erupted during a farmers’ protest, claiming the lives of both farmers and BJP workers ahead of a visit to Lakhimpur by Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. Meanwhile, Vadra on Tuesday, in a video message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, played out a 25-second viral video of Sunday’s incident at Lakhimpuri Kheri and asked why the government had not acted against those responsible. This video shows the son of a minister in your government crushing the farmers under his car. Watch this video and tell the country why this minister has not been sacked and his son has still not been arrested? asked Vadra in the video that she posted on her Twitter handle. You have arrested Opposition leaders like me without any order or warrant. I want to know why this man is still free? she added, referring to Ashish Mishra, son of Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni. Vadra said that while the Prime Minister presided over a Azad ki Amrit Mahotsav function in Lucknow, he should remember that the farmers got freedom for the country and even now, their sons defended the nation’s borders. For several months now, the farmers are trying to raise their voice and you are negating it. I request you to come to Lakhimpur. Listen to the pain of those who got us our freedom, our annadatas [food providers], the soul of the nation. It is your duty to protect them, the Constitutional duty and your responsibility towards the Constitution, she added. Several Congress leaders, including P. Chidambaram, questioned Vadra’s detention, describing it as totally illegal and unconstitutional. In a statement, Chidambaram said on Tuesday the facts and circumstances concerning Vadra’s detention in Sitapur conclusively establish that there is no rule of law in U.P.
Varun Gandhi shares video of SUV mowing down farmers, becomes first BJP MP to demand arrest of culprits
BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Tuesday shared a video clip purportedly showing an SUV mowing down farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, and demanded that police immediately identify and arrest those involved in the incident, PTI reported. This video of vehicles deliberately crushing farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri will shake anyone’s soul. Police should take cognisance of the video, identify the owners of these vehicles and their occupants, identify others involved in the incident and immediately arrest them, Gandhi said. While the BJP has officially maintained a guarded silence over the matter, with the Uttar Pradesh government assuring a thorough probe, Varun Gandhi has been vocal in empathising with the farmers.
Sharad Pawar likens Lakhimpur Kheri incident to Jallianwala Bagh massacre
Chastising the BJP-led Centre for its blatant misuse of power over the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday likened the episode to the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The manner in which the farmers were attacked revealed the true face of the Central Government. I strongly condemn this incident…The farmers have every right to protest, and they were agitating peacefully in Lakhimpur Kheri. Do not abuse power in this manner just because you [BJP] hold it in your hands at this moment, Pawar warned the BJP Governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. Speaking in New Delhi, the NCP chief demanded that a probe be conducted by a sitting Supreme Court judge for the truth to come out. He lashed out at both the Centre and the U.P. Government for their sheer insensitivity in handling the incident. The Uttar Pradesh Government has created a situation similar to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and it will have to pay its price one day…this Government cannot succeed by strangling voices of the farmers. You [BJP Governments in U.P. and the Centre] will get a fitting response not only from the farmers in Uttar Pradesh but from all over the country, said the former Union Agriculture Minister. The NCP chief said he had heard the U.P. Government was ready to get the incident probed by a retired judge but want the probe to be conducted by a sitting Supreme Court judge which would bring out the truth of the matter. Remarking that the protesting farmers were not alone and that the entire country stood behind them, Pawar slammed the U.P. Government for thwarting the Opposition leaders in their attempts to visit the families of the deceased and offer them condolences. Opposition parties across the political spectrum on slammed the BJP and demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.
Delegation of five TMC MPs eludes police, meets families of Lakhimpur Kheri victims
A five-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress managed to sneak into Lakhimpur Kheri on Tuesday and meet the families of farmers killed when vehicles in Union Minister Ajay Kumar Mishra’s convoy allegedly ran amok. Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen, who was part of the delegation, said it was shameful that in the 75th year of India’s Independence, the MPs and MLAs, who are meant to uphold the law, were brazenly committing murders and getting away with it. A delegation from the Trinamool Congress met the family members of the victims of the Lakhimpur violence in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. Sen, along with her Rajya Sabha colleagues Abir Ranjan Biswas and Sushmita Dev and Lok Sabha MPs Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Protima Mandal spent 14-hours on the road from Delhi to reach Lakhimpur Kheri on Monday night. At various checkposts en route where they were stopped, they escaped police scrutiny by posing as tourists. They stayed the night at Lakhimpur Kheri avoiding detection. Early on Tuesday, they managed to visit the homes of 20-year-old Lovpreet Singh and 60-year-old Nachattar Singh. Justice is all that the families are demanding. Their mouths can’t be shut down by compensations. They want immediate arrest of MOS Home Ajay Mishra Teni and his son Ashish Mishra, whose culpability in the incident has been proven beyond doubt, Sen told The Hindu. It was only when the TMC delegation was leaving Nachattar Singh’s home, that the police discovered them. Sen said the police misbehaved with them and tried to obstruct their way as they left the village. It is shameful, she said, that elected representatives of the country are barred without any valid reasons from visiting parts of Uttar Pradesh. The BJP MPs and MLAs are getting away with brazen murders under the Narendra Modi regime. What can be more shameful and shocking than this? And let us not forget that this is happening when the country is celebrating 75th year of Independence, Sen said.
Medical education has become a business, notes SC, pulls up govt for last minute changes to NEET-SS pattern
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the tragedy of medical education in the country was that it had become a business. The observation from a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud came while the court pulled up the government and the National Board of Examinations (NBE) for making last-minute changes to the pattern of the National Eligibility-cum- Entrance Test- Super Specialty (NEET-SS) 2021. The court wondered whether the 11th hour changes were a move to facilitate the filling of the seats in private medical colleges. Justice Chandrachud remarked, The impression we get is medical education has become a business, and medical regulation has also become a business. That is the tragedy of medical education in this country. The court noted that questions under the revised pattern were wholly from General Medicine, which was a feeder category. The earlier pattern had 60% of the questions coming from the student’s chosen field of speciality and the rest from the feeder category. The court reasoned that this sudden change was meant to favour General Medicine, in which the largest pool of students were found, to fill the seats. For 12 super specialities, 100% questions are from General Medicine. The entire examination is going to be only be on General Medicine. The logic seems to be, General Medicine is the largest pool, and tap them to fill the seats. That seems to be the idea, the Bench noted. In an earlier hearing, the court lashed out at the government, saying that young doctors cannot be left to the mercy of insensitive bureaucrats and cannot be treated like football. The court surmised that private institutions benefited with the change in exam pattern. It remarked that since seats in government colleges never lay vacant, it must be for their private counterparts that the pattern was altered. The interest of students is far higher than that of the institutions, it said. Arguments will continue on Wednesday.
Gujarat riots: Supreme Court to hear plea of Zakia Jafri against SIT’s clean chit to Modi on October 26
The Supreme Court today said it would hear on October 26 a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, challenging the Special Investigation Team (SIT) clean chit to Narendra Modi, who was the Gujarat Chief Minister during the 2002 riots in the state. A Bench headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar made it clear that no request for further adjournment at the instance of the petitioner (Zakia Jafri) will be entertained on future dates. At the request of the petitioner, hearing is deferred till October 26, said the Bench, also comprising justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C.T. Ravikumar. It is made clear that no request for further adjournment at the instance of the petitioner on any count will be entertained on future dates, said the Bench, which granted liberty to the petitioner to file additional compilation in the matter. At the outset, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Zakia Jafri, said this matter has suddenly come up and there are about 23,000 pages of record and they would circulate a convenience compilation. The Bench said the matter was notified well in advance. No my lords, it was suddenly notified on Friday, Sibal said, adding, it was adjourned in April this year and because of the pandemic, it did not come up. He requested the Bench to list the matter on a fixed date. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the request on the ground of convenience compilation is being raised for the last one-and-a-half year. There is no notice issued, there is no stay, my friend cannot possibly object, Sibal said. However, the Bench observed, Mr. Sibal, we think that Mr. Solicitor General was very considerate in saying only one-and-a-half year. The matter is pending from 2018. In April this year, the apex court had said that the matter would be listed after two weeks as the petitioner had circulated a letter seeking adjournment in the case. Zakia Jafri’s counsel had earlier told the top court that notice needs to be issued in the plea as it relates to an alleged larger conspiracy from February 27, 2002, to May 2002. Ehsan Jafri, the former MP, was among the 68 people killed at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, a day after the S-6 Coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra killing 59 people and triggering riots in Gujarat. On February 8, 2012, the SIT had filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi, now the Prime Minister, and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was no prosecutable evidence against them. Zakia Jafri had filed a petition in the apex court in 2018 challenging the Gujarat High Court’s October 5, 2017 order rejecting her plea against the decision of the SIT. The plea also maintained that after the SIT gave a clean chit in its closure report before a trial judge, Zakia Jafri filed a protest petition which was dismissed by the magistrate without considering substantiated merits.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Nobel physics prize goes to three for climate discoveries
The Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to scientists from Japan, Germany and Italy. Syukuro Manabe (90) and Klaus Hasselmann (89) were cited for their work in the physical modeling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming. The second half of the prize was awarded to Giorgio Parisi (73) for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales. The panel said Manabe and Hasselmann laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it. Starting in the 1960s, Manabe demonstrated how increases in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase global temperatures, laying the foundations for current climate models. About a decade later, Hasselmann created a model that linked weather and climate, helping explain why climate models can be reliable despite the seemingly chaotic nature of the weather. He also developed ways to look for specific signs of human influence on the climate. Parisi built a deep physical and mathematical model that made it possible to understand complex systems in fields as different as mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning. After the announcement, Parisi said that it’s very urgent that we take very strong decisions and move at a very strong pace in tackling climate change. It’s clear for future generations that we have to act now, he added. The winners were announced on October 5 by Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Last year, the prize went to American Andrea Ghez, Roger Penrose of Britain and Reinhard Genzel of Germany for their research into black holes. Over the coming days prizes will also be awarded for outstanding work in the fields of chemistry, literature, peace and economics.
Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa asks anti-graft commission to probe people named in.
Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa said revelations made in the Pandora Papers must be investigated and the government members should not prevent such an impartial inquiry from being conducted. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday gave a one-month deadline to the country’s anti-graft commission to investigate the people accused of maintaining offshore accounts in the unprecedented leak of financial documents known as the Pandora Papers. Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa told Parliament that revelations made in the Pandora Papers must be investigated and the government members should not prevent such an impartial inquiry from being conducted. The President this morning asked the Bribery and Corruption Commission to investigate all Sri Lankans mentioned in the Pandora Papers and their transactions and report to him within a month, President Rajapaksa’s spokesman Kingsly Rathnayake said. The move came a day after the Opposition raised the issue in Parliament following Rajapaksa’s niece Nirupama Rajapaksa and her husband Thirukumar Nadesan’s mention in the Pandora Papers. The government disowned them and claimed that the couple had no political links with the current SLPP coalition and all transactions mentioned in the Pandora Papers were those done before the SLPP’s assuming government office. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) this month claimed it obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files to find secret financial dealings of many super-rich. More than 600 reporters from around the world, belonging to 150 media organisations spanning 117 countries, participated in the research for two years for the Pandora Papers, which contain 11.9 million files containing 2.94 terabytes worth of confidential information. The leak uncovers the financial secrets of more leaders and public officials than the Panama Papers did and reportedly provides more than twice as much information about the ownership of offshore companies. The Pandora Papers investigation is bigger in size and revelations about politicians and public officials are also far more than what has previously come to public attention.
