NATIONAL NEWS
Lakhimpur Kheri violence | Who are the accused, have they been arrested, SC asks U.P.
The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the Uttar Pradesh Government 24 hours to file a status report identifying the accused in the First Information Report (FIR) registered on the Lakhimpur Kheri violence and whether they have been arrested or not. Instilling a sense of urgency in the State Government, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India ordered the State to facilitate immediate medical care for the mother of a 19-year-old man who was among the killed in the incident. While hearing this case now we got a message that the mother of one of the people who died is in a state of shock over the loss of her son and needs immediate medical attention… We want you to get her admitted at the nearest hospital, the court addressed Uttar Pradesh Additional Advocate General Garima Prashad, for the State. Prashad said it would be done immediately while describing the Lakhimpur Kheri incident as extreme, unfortunate. We also feel the same way, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana said. But we want to know who are the accused in the FIR and whether they have been arrested or not, Justice Surya Kant, on the Bench, told the Uttar Pradesh Government. Chief Justice Ramana said the status report should contain details of the eight persons killed in the incident. News reports said four of the deceased were farmers mowed down by a vehicle which was part of the convoy of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and BJP MP Ajay Kumar Mishra. Prashad said the State Government had constituted a Special Investigating Team and a judicial inquiry had begun. An FIR had been registered and the investigation was on. But the grievance here is your investigation is not proper, the CJI said. The Chief Justice was referring to a letter written by two lawyers, advocates Shivkumar Tripathi and C.S. Panda, based on which the court had taken cognisance of the Lakhimpur Kheri case. Prashad said the State would try to file the status report by Thursday itself even as the court listed the case for Friday. The court hearing comes on the same day when news channels have aired videos reportedly of the Lakhimpur Kheri incident. Thursday’s hearing of the case before the CJI’s Bench comes just three days after another Bench of the court had lashed out at farmers’ bodies, connecting their nearly year-long protests against farm laws to the violence that occurred in Lakhimpur Kheri. That Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar had said that nobody takes responsibility when incidents like in Lakhimpur Kheri occurs When such incidents happen, causing deaths, loss to property and damage, nobody takes responsibility, Justice Khanwilkar had observed on Monday. Earlier in the day, hours before the Supreme Court hearing, the Uttar Pradesh Government had announced that a single-member inquiry commission under retired Allahabad High Court judge Pradeep Kumar Srivastava will probe the Lakhimpur Kheri incident. The commission will complete its probe in two months, said a notification dated October 6 issued by the State Government.
Explain basis of fixing ₹8 lakh limit to determine EWS category for NEET: Supreme Court to Centre
The Supreme Court on Thursday posed searching questions to the Centre on its decision to fix a limit of ₹8 lakh annual income for determining Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category for reservation in NEET admissions for medical courses. The top court allowed the impleadment of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and Department of Personnel and Training and asked them to file an affidavit on what was the basis for fixing the limit of ₹8 lakh annual income to determine the EWS category. The Centre said fixing a limit of ₹8 lakh annual income for the EWS category is a matter of policy based on the National Cost of Living Index. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Vikram Nath, and B.V. Nagarathna asked the Centre to specify what was the basis and parameters for fixing the limit and whether any deliberation has taken place on the issue or simply the figure of ₹8 lakh income was picked up from the limit of determining the creamy layer in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category. The top court was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the Centre and Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) July 29 notice providing 27% reservation for Other Backward Class (OBC) and 10% EWS category in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) admissions for medical courses. We want to know what the basis for ₹8 lakh annual income is. What was the study behind this? Was there any deliberation? Can you say the ₹8 lakh limit is for all over the country? Every state has a different cost of living. Cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai have different costs of living than cities in Uttar Pradesh or any other smaller city. How can the limit of ₹8 lakh be the same for every place in the country, the bench said. It asked whether the government has undertaken the study of the Gross Domestic Product of every household in a State and whether it has ascertained the criteria for economic backwardness and what its methodology was. Even for House Rent Allowance, you have a concept of Class-1 and Class-2 cities. How can you say ₹8 lakh will be applied for everywhere in the country. You cannot just say it is a matter of policy and get away with it, the bench said. The top court asked Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj to reflect on the issue and to file an affidavit with regard to the questions asked by it and clarified that these questions are only its prima facie views. Economic Backwardness is a realistic thing. There is no doubt about it as people don’t have money to purchase books, to even have food. But as far as the EWS is concerned, they are forward class and there is no social or educational backwardness among them. So can you apply the same yardstick of ₹8 lakh limit for the creamy layer to the EWS? Please remember, with regard to the EWS we are not dealing with social and educational backwardness. What was the basis of fixing the limit or have you simply lifted the criteria for the creamy layer and put it for EWS, the bench said. The top court said that it wants to know what exercise was undertaken to arrive at these indicia for EWS as it cannot apply the same indicia which have been applied for Social and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC). The case of a creamy layer is that due to economic advancement they have crossed the threshold and the indicia of backwardness with regard to them have been completely obliterated. But in regard to EWS, there is no concept of obliteration of social backwardness, the bench said. Nataraj said that though he does not have any instruction from DoPT and the Ministry of Social Justice, as they were not the party to the case, these are larger issues that will be deliberated before a five-judge Constitution bench where the validity of the 103rd amendment is pending. The bench in its over three-and-half-hour hearing said that the court at present was not concerned with the validity of the amendment but is dealing with the implementation of the amendment.
Maneka, Varun, Swamy out; Scindia, Smriti inducted into BJP national executive
Lok Sabha members Maneka Gandhi and her son, Varun Gandhi, were dropped from the BJP’s national executive, while Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Jyotiraditya Scindia were among those inducted into the 80-member decision-making body that was announced on Thursday. The list was announced hours after Gandhi said via a tweet on Thursday morning that the video of the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, where a group of farmers was on Sunday allegedly mowed down by cars in Union Minister of State Ajay Kumar Mishra’s convoy, was crystal clear. Protestors cannot be silenced through murder. There has to be accountability for the innocent blood of farmers that has been spilled and justice must be delivered before a message of arrogance and cruelty enters the minds of every farmer, Gandhi tweeted. On Monday, Gandhi had written to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking action in the matter. BJP president Jagat Prasad Nadda appointed the 80 members, which included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, and former party presidents and current Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari. In a statement, the party said 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees, including Chief Ministers, Deputy Chief Ministers, national spokespersons, presidents of national wings and state unit leadership, would also be a part of the national executive committee. Since Nadda took over as party president in January 2020, this was the first appointment of the national executive by him. According to sources, a meeting of the national executive, which was last held in 2019 during Shah’s tenure as party president, could be held on November 7. Among the national executive members dropped by Nadda are former Union Ministers Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Vijay Goel and Dr. C.P. Thakur; current Union Ministers Rao Inderjit Singh, Ashwani Kumar Choubey and Prahlad Singh Patel; and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy. Some new entrants to the party have been included in the national executive, including Scindia and Dinesh Trivedi, a former Trinamool Congress MP who joined the BJP in the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly elections earlier this year. Prominent BJP campaigners and candidates in the Bengal polls like actor Mithun Chakraborty and MP Swapan Dasgupta have also been included in the national executive. Union Ministers G.Kishan Reddy, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Hardeep Singh Puri, V. Muraleedharan, Bhupender Yadav, Anurag Thakur, Meenakshi Lekhi and S. Jaishankar are among those in the national executive.
Two teachers shot dead inside a Srinagar school
Two teachers were shot dead inside a government school in Srinagar on Thursday, just two days after three civilians, including a well-known Kashmiri Pandit chemist, were killed in the Valley. A police official said unknown gunmen barged into the Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Iddgah Sangam, in the old city and fired from a point-blank range at two teachers. Both the teachers were declared brought dead at a nearby hospital, officials said. The victims were identified as Satinder Kaur, principal of the school, and Deepak Chand, a teacher, both residents of Allocha Bagh in Srinagar. Locals said Chand, a Kashmiri Pandit, had shifted back from Jammu after his family migrated in the 1990s, when militancy broke out. A teacher told The Hindu that they were sipping tea when they heard gunshots outside the principal’s room around 11:15 a.m. We saw our colleague Chand falling to the ground outside the principal’s room, the teacher said. The Resistance Front (TRF), floated after the Centre ended J&K’s special constitutional position, has purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on the social media platforms. The Shaheed Gazi Squad carried out the targeted attack on two non-locals who were domicile holders and had harassed the parents of the students to salute the occupier’s flag on August 15, a TRF spokesman said. Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh, who visited the spot, said, This is an attempt to defame the local Muslims of Kashmir. Killing innocent civilians, including teachers, is a move to attack and damage the age-old tradition of communal harmony and brotherhood in Kashmir. The police have got some clues and leads about the killers in the previous cases. Police will nab the killers very soon, he said. The Union Territory’s political parties have condemned the killings. Disturbing to see the deteriorating situation in Kashmir where a minuscule minority is the latest target. (Government of India) GOI’s claims of building a Naya Kashmir has actually turned it into a hellhole. It’s sole interest is to use Kashmir as a milch cow for its electoral interests, Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti said. A spree of civilian killings, seven in the past 10 days, has come at a time when Union Ministers are on a nine-week outreach programme in Jammu and Kashmir. Three civilians, including famous M.L Bindroo of the Bindroo Medicate, were shot dead on Tuesday. Around 27 civilians have been killed this year so far.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Literature Nobel goes to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah
Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose work focuses on colonialism and the trauma of the refugee experience, won the Nobel Literature Prize on October 7. Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar but who arrived in England as a refugee at the end of the 1960s, is the fifth African to win the Nobel Literature Prize. The Swedish Academy said Gurnah was honoured for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents. His novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world, the Nobel Foundation added. Gurnah has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is best known for his 1994 breakthrough novel Paradise, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work. Born in 1948, Gurnah fled Zanzibar in 1968 following the revolution which led to oppression and the persecution of citizens of Arab origin. He began writing as a 21-year-old in England. Although Swahili was his first language, English became his literary tool. In an article he wrote for The Guardian in 2004, Gurnah said he hadn’t planned to be a writer when he was living in Zanzibar, but once in England he felt overwhelmed by the sense of ‘a life left behind’. If one way of seeing distance as helpful to the writer pictures him or her as a closed world, another argument suggests displacement is necessary, that the writer produces work of value in isolation because he or she is then free from responsibilities and intimacies that mute and dilute the truth, he wrote. Gurnah has until his recent retirement been Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury, focusing principally on writers such as Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Salman Rushdie. The Nobel Prize comes with a medal and a prize sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million). Ahead of the October 7 announcement, Nobel watchers had suggested the Swedish Academy could choose to give the nod to a writer from Asia or Africa, following a pledge to make the prize more diverse. It has crowned mainly Westerners in its 120-year existence. Glaringly, 102 men have won and only 16 women. The Academy has long insisted its laureates were chosen on literary merit alone, and that it did not take nationality into account. But after a #MeToo scandal that rocked the Academy — prompting it to postpone the 2018 prize for a year — the body said it would adjust its criteria towards more geographic and gender diversity. Previously, we had a more Eurocentric perspective of literature, and now we are looking all over the world, the head of the Nobel committee, Anders Olsson, said in 2019. The Nobel season continues on October 8 in Oslo with the Peace Prize, followed next October 11 by the Economics Prize.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Sherman in Pakistan; discusses regional security, economic ties.
Pakistan and the U.S. have discussed regional security issues, including the situation in Afghanistan, and bilateral economic cooperation as America’s Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held talks with the country’s NSA Moeed Yusuf here, the official media reported on October 8. The two countries expressed a desire to promote their bilateral relations during a meeting between Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on National Security Yusuf and the visiting U.S. diplomat on October 7. No statement was issued after the meeting but according to Radio Pakistan, both sides discussed economic cooperation and the regional security situation. In his talks with Ms. Sherman, NSA Yusuf said that the world must maintain contacts with the interim government in Afghanistan, which is now under Taliban rule since August 15 when the Afghan militant group ousted the elected government of President Ashraf Ghani, forcing him to flee the country and take refuge in the U.A.E. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State arrived here from New Delhi on October 7 on a two-day visit to discuss various aspects of bilateral ties and the regional situation in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. According to the Foreign Office (FO), Ms. Sherman’s visit follows a recent meeting between Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in New York on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly. During Ms. Sherman’s visit, views will be exchanged on all issues of mutual interest, including the bilateral relationship as well as the regional situation. We look forward to reinforcing a balanced Pakistan-U.S. relationship that is anchored in mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas including security, trade, investment, energy and regional connectivity, the FO added. The Taliban swept across Afghanistan last month, seizing control of almost all key towns and cities in the backdrop of withdrawal of the U.S. forces that began on May 1. On August 15, the capital city of Kabul fell to the insurgents. The Afghan militant group claimed victory over opposition forces in the last holdout province of Panjshir on September 6, completing their takeover of Afghanistan three weeks after capturing Kabul. The Taliban have put in place a hardline interim 33-member Cabinet that has no women and includes UN-designated terrorists. The Taliban last ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
