NATIONAL NEWS
A) 43 Ministers take oath following Cabinet expansion
The long anticipated reshuffle and expansion of the Union Cabinet got over today as 43 Ministers took oath at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. This is the first reshuffle in his Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019. The PM inducted Sarbananda Sonowal, Narayan Rane and Jyotiraditya Scindia as Cabinet ministers while dropping almost a dozen ministers. Modi’s Cabinet now has 78 ministers. Among the new faces in the Cabinet are BJP leaders Bhupendra Yadav and Meenakshi Lekhi, Tamil Nadu BJP President L Murugan, John Barla, a prominent voice from north Bengal, and Shoba Karandlaje, vice-president of the BJP in Karnataka. Meanwhile, earlier in the day, ahead of the Cabinet expansion, several ministers, including many seniors, tendered their resignations to pave way for new faces. The incumbents who resigned include Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Information and Broadcasting Minsiter Prakash Javadekar. Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawarchand Gehlot, who has been appointed as Governor of Karnataka, has also resigned. Education Minister Ramesh Pohriyal ‘Nishank’, under whose leadership the National Education Policy was released, has also quit citing health reasons. Mr. Nishank, who tested positive for Covid-19 on April 21, was admitted to AIIMS in June again following post-Covid complications. Union Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, has stepped down. Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar confirmed to The Hindu that he has also quit. Minister of State for Woman and Child Development Debasree Chaudhuri has also resigned, and so have junior ministers Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Ratan Lal Kataria and Raosaheb Danve. Asansol MP and Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Babul Supriya has also tendered his resignation.
B) PTI challenges new IT rules in Delhi High Court.
India’s largest news agency, Press Trust Of India (PTI), has approached the Delhi High Court, challenging the 2021 Information Technology (IT) Rules. It said the Central government was attempting to regulate digital news media. A Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice J.R. Midha issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting on the petition. The court tagged the plea to be heard along with similar petitions filed by several online news outlets against the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 on August 20. PTI has challenged the constitutional validity of the rules as it purports to regulate publishers of news and current affairs content, particularly digital news portals, by imposing sweeping government oversight and a vaguely worded ‘Code of Ethics’. The plea argued that the IT Rules would usher in an era of surveillance and fear, thereby resulting in self-censorship, which results in abridgment/ violation of Fundamental Rights as enshrined under Part III of the Constitution of India. The rules were notified on February 25, 2021. PTI said the rules enabled the government to virtually dictate content to digital news portals, and squarely violate media freedom. They introduce digital portals with ‘news and current affairs content’ as a specific and targeted class to be subject to regulation by a loose-ranging ‘Code of Ethics’, and to be consummately overseen by Central Government officers, all of which is violative of the Constitution. The news agency observed that the rules went beyond the object and scope of the IT Act, as the content to be regulated by the IT Act, as offences, was limited to sexually explicit material, child pornography, showing private parts of individuals, cyber terrorism, etc. to be prosecuted and tried by normal courts. The petition drew the distinction between news outlets and intermediaries such as social media platforms. Intermediaries were immunised from the consequences of the content hosted by them, and hence they may need to be separately regulated, it stated. PTI, being in the business or practice of news and journalism, was not an intermediary, it said. The Petitioner (PTI) seeks no safe harbour and is not entitled to any safe harbour provisions for the content that it hosts and publishes and it takes full responsibility for the content it publishes, it noted.
C) Former union minister R Kumaramangalam’s wife Kitty murdered at her home in Delhi
Kitty Kumaramangalam, wife of late former Union Minister Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, was murdered in a robbery attempt at her residence in South West Delhi’s Vasant Vihar on Tuesday, July 6, 2021 night. The accused has been arrested, police said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (South West) Ingit Pratap Singh said that the accused has been identified as Raju, 24, who was the victim’s washerman. Police said that the accused visited the house around 9 p.m.. As soon as the domestic help opened the door, she was overpowered and confined in a room. Two men then entered and assaulted Kitty, following which the accused smothered her with a pillow. DCP Singh said that briefcases were found opened at the crime spot. Police said Raju has been arrested and a lookout is on for two of his accomplices. Mr. Singh said that the accused Raju was handed over a bag by his two associates after the robbery and when he opened it, only clothes were found inside. It appears that the two made a fool of him as well, Mr. Singh said, adding that they’re yet to ascertain details because the two are yet to be arrested.
D) Calcutta High Court judge recuses himself from hearing Mamata’s election petition
Calcutta High Court Justice Kaushik Chanda on Wednesday recused himself from hearing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s election petition on the Nandigram poll results. The matter will now be assigned to a new Bench. The Chief Minister had filed the petition in June, alleging irregularities in the counting process in the Nandigram Assembly election held in 2021. The matter came for hearing before Justice Chanda. Ms. Banerjee had urged the judge to recuse himself from hearing the petition alleging that the judge had links with the BJP. During the hearing, Ms. Banerjee’s counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi had referred to numerous cases where justice Chanda had represented the BJP as a counsel. Justice Chanda, however, imposed a cost of ₹5 lakh on Ms. Banerjee for maligning the image of the judge. Several Trinamool Congress leaders had publicly made statements alleging that Justice Chanda had links with the BJP. The sum of ₹5 lakhs will be set aside for the welfare of Covid-19 victims. Ms. Banerjee lost to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari in the Nandigram poll with a narrow margin of 1,956 votes.
E) Indemnity issues hold up U.S. vaccine doses donation to India.
More than a month after the U.S. announced the donation of 80 million doses of American-made Covid-19 vaccines to dozens of countries including India, and Vice-President Kamala Harris called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convey the decision, the vaccines are being held up by regulatory issues over indemnity, Indian and U.S. officials confirmed. According to the officials, the demand by the U.S. companies, including Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson to be granted an indemnity or waiver of liability has yet to be resolved for commercial distribution, which is also holding up the donations from the U.S. Since June 3, the U.S. has already distributed 40 million doses to about 12 countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh. The delay is not from the U.S. side, an American Embassy spokesperson said to queries about the fact that the shipments are yet to be announced. India has determined that it needs further time to review legal provisions related to accepting vaccine donations. Once India works through its legal process, our donation of vaccines to India will proceed expeditiously. The MEA declined to comment on the issue, directing queries to the Ministry of Health. Health Secretary Bharat Bhushan told The Hindu that the specific provisions of indemnification are still under discussion, indicating that not only are the U.S. vaccine donations on hold for the moment, but also that a cloud of doubt hangs over the delivery of Moderna vaccines, which have already received Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) in India. The first consignment of Moerna vaccines was due to arrive this week. Last month, the U.S. announced the distribution of 80 million doses of American made vaccines as part of its COVID-19 Global Response and Recovery Framework. The countries that have received the U.S. donations so far include South Korea, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, Honduras, Colombia, Pakistan, Peru, Ecuador, Malaysia, & Bangladesh. Other nations like Sri Lanka received the first batch of an expected five million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines that are being funded by the World Bank, while Maldives had earlier received Pfizer vaccines through the international COVAX alliance. Before we can ship doses, each country must complete its own domestic set of operational, regulatory, and legal processes that are specific to each country, the U.S. Embassy spokesperson said, in an explanation of how other countries had received their doses.
F) Legendary actor Dilip Kumar dies at 98 due to prolonged illness
Dilip Kumar, India’s enduring film legend through the decades, died at a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday after prolonged illness, his family and doctors treating him said. He was 98. The actor, known to generations of film-goers as ‘tragedy king’ for his portrayal of the brooding, intense romantic in classics such as Mughal-e-Azam and Devdas, had been admitted to the Hinduja Hospital, a non-Covid-19 facility in Khar, since last Tuesday. He passed away due to prolonged illness at 7.30 a.m., Dr. Jalil Parkar, who had been treating Kumar, told PTI. The Hindi cinema veteran, the last of the golden troika with Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand, was admitted to hospital last month following episodes of breathlessness. He was then diagnosed with bilateral pleural effusion, a build-up of excess fluid between the layers of the pleura outside the lungs, and underwent a successful pleural aspiration procedure. He was discharged after five days only to be admitted to the hospital again. Kumar, born Yousuf Khan and often known as the Nehruvian hero, did his first film, Jwar Bhata, in 1944 and his last, Qila, in 1998, 54 years later. The five-decade career included Mughal-e-Azam, Devdas, Naya Daur, and Ram Aur Shyam, and later, as he graduated to character roles, Shakti and Karma.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Megaship heads out of Suez after Egypt deal.
Egyptian authorities announced the release on Wednesday of a hulking shipping vessel that had blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week in March after running aground. The m.v. Ever Given left the canal’s Great Bitter Lake, where it had been held for more than three months amid a financial dispute. The development came after its Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd ., reached a settlement with canal authorities over a compensation amount following weeks of negotiations and a court stand-off. The settlement deal was signed in a ceremony on Wednesday in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, after which the vessel was seen sailing to the Mediterranean Sea. The company said the vessel would undergo a dive survey in Egypt’s Mediterranean city of Port Said, before resuming her voyage to the next port where her cargo will be discharged. Officials did not reveal details on the terms of the settlement. At first, the Suez Canal Authority had demanded $916 million in compensation, which was later lowered to $550 million. In addition to the money, local reports said the canal would also receive a tugboat. The money, according to canal authorities, would cover the salvage operation, costs of stalled canal traffic, and lost transit fees for the six days the ship had blocked the crucial waterway.
B) Amnesty, Citizen Lab launch online platform to map the use of Pegasus spyware to target activists, jouwaterway
An online database about the use of the spyware Pegasus was recently launched by the Forensic Architecture, the Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab to document attacks against human rights defenders. In a statement on July 3, Amnesty said the interactive platform — Digital Violence: How the NSO Group Enables State Terror — showed the connections between ‘digital violence’ of Pegasus spyware and the real-world harms lawyers, activists, and other civil society figures face. Amnesty said NSO Group, which makes the spyware, was a major player in the shadowy surveillance company and Pegasus had been used in some of the most insidious digital attacks on human rights activists in the world. The spyware enabled an attacker to get complete access to a person’s phone, including contacts, calls, camera and messages, it said. The investigation reveals the extent to which the digital domain we inhabit has become the new frontier of human rights violations, a site of state surveillance and intimidation that enables physical violations in real space, said Shourideh C. Molavi, Forensic Architecture’s researcher-in-charge. The platform, available at digitalviolence.org, lists out targets of the spyware in India, which include activists Bela Bhatia and Anand Teltumbde. In 2020, Amnesty and Citizen Lab had revealed that the spyware was used on nine human rights defenders who were accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. The spyware campaign…targeted lawyers and activists Nihalsing B. Rathod, Degree Prasad Chouhan, Yug Mohit Choudhary, and Ragini Ahuja; academics Partho Sarothi Ray and P.K. Vijayan, a journalist who prefers to stay anonymous, and a human rights collective – Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (JAGLAG), received malicious e-mails on the group’s official ID, which is accessed by all of its members, including lawyer Shalini Gera. Another JAGLAG member, Isha Khandelwal also received malicious emails on her personal account, a blog post by Amnesty on June 15, 2020, said
