NATIONAL NEWS
Restore J&K’s Statehood before announcing elections, says Farooq Abdullah
Former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday said the Centre must restore Statehood before announcing elections and pledged to continue the fight for restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. Whenever elections are held, we won’t shy away and rather participate and win as well. The Centre must first restore Statehood before holding polls, Dr. Abdullah said. He was speaking during a commemoration function held in Srinagar on the 39th death anniversary of party founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. He said his party remained firm on the demand of restoration of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution and Statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. To a question on Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and its likely impact, Dr. Abdullah said, Afghanistan is a separate country. They [Taliban] must protect human rights in Afghanistan and follow Islamic principles in spirit. Taliban must build good relations with rest of the world.
Mamata starts campaign from Bhabanipur for bypoll
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday began her campaign for the Bhabanipur bypoll by addressing a meeting of party supporters in the constituency. She targeted the BJP for allegedly indulging in political vendetta. Just after the bypoll dates are announced, Trinamool Congress [TMC] leaders are being summoned by Central agencies. Notices are being sent to Abhishek [TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee] and Partha [TMC leader Partha Chatterjee), she said. She dared the agencies to probe the allegations against Bbanerjee. Her remarks came after the Enforcement Directorate served a second notice to Banerjee in a coal pilferage case. The Chief Minister has to face the bypoll as she lost the poll at Nandigram by a narrow margin of 1,956 votes to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. I have to contest a poll again due to a BJP conspiracy. We have gone to court over the issue. If there is no merit in the petition, the court would not have accepted it, she stated. Referring to the recent polls in which the TMC registered a convincing victory over the BJP by winning 213 seats in the 294-member Assembly, she asserted that the Centre, all its agencies and ‘money power’ and ‘muscle power’ of the BJP could not defeat her. There was a planned attack on her in Nandigram in which she suffered a foot injury and had to be confined to a wheelchair during the poll campaign, she observed. The Chief Minister noted that she was happy to contest from Bhawanipur, her home constituency from where she got elected in 2011 and 2016. Not only the Assembly polls, but for the six times I contested the Lok Sabha poll from South Kolkata, people of Bhabanipur supported me, she said. She announced that she would file her nomination papers on September 10. The constituency will go to the polls on September 30. Banerjee assured Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, who resigned from Bhabanipur to pave the way for the bypoll, that he would also contest a bypoll and remain a Minister. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the real contest at Bhabanipur would be between the TMC and the BJP. There can be any number of candidates in bypolls, our voters are with us. The CPI(M)-Congress announcing or not announcing their candidates is not a factor in West Bengal polls; they didn’t get entry into the Assembly in the last polls. We’re ready, he added. The BJP is yet to announce its candidate for the Bhabanipur bypoll.
TN passes Bill seeking to dispense with NEET, to admit students based on qualifying exam marks
The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Monday passed a Bill to enact a law seeking to dispense with the requirement of qualifying in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission into undergraduate medical degree courses in the State. The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021, further sought to provide admission to these courses on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination [Plus Two marks] through normalisation methods as was done prior to 2017. The Bill, moved by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin contended that admissions to medical education courses were traceable to entry 25 of List III, Schedule VII of the Constitution of India and the State was competent to regulate the same for underprivileged social groups. The Bill said it aimed to ensure social justice, uphold equality and equal opportunity, protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated against and bring them to the mainstream of medical and dental education and in turn, to ensure robust public healthcare across Tamil Nadu, particularly the rural areas. A high-level committee headed by retired High Court judge A.K. Rajan had, in its report to the State government, said that the NEET clearly undermined the diverse societal representation in MBBS and higher medical studies favouring mainly the affluent segment of the society, while equally thwarting the dreams of pursuing medical education by underprivileged social groups, the Bill said. The NEET does not seem to ensure merit or standard of the students being offered MBBS under its purview. The findings [of the Committee] indicate that the NEET has only enabled and empowered comparatively the low-performing (in NEET scores and HSc scores) students to get admission to MBBS. Therefore, the question of NEET ensuring quality and merit of the students is to be ruled out, the Bill said. Among others, the Committee recommended that the State government pass an Act similar to that of the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2006 indicating the need for elimination of NEET at all levels of medical education and get the President’s assent for the same. This will ensure social justice and protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated in admission to medical education programmes, it said.
Pegasus case: SC to pass interim orders
The Supreme Court on Monday decided to pass interim orders after the government refused to respond, through a detailed affidavit, to allegations that it used Israeli-based Pegasus software to spy on citizens. The government said such an affidavit in the apex court would be too public and compromise national security. The petitioners demanded that either the Cabinet Secretary file an affidavit or the court itself form a committee led by a sitting judge to probe the snooping controversy. A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana, Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli said there cannot be any beating around the bush in the issue. The CJI said the court had given the government a fair opportunity to file a detailed affidavit in order to get a clear idea of its stand in the Pegasus case. We thought the government would file a counter-affidavit now we will pass our interim orders, he remarked. However, after reserving orders, the court told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the government, that he could mention the case if there were any second thoughts in the next few days before the pronouncement of the order. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for senior journalists N. Ram and Sashi Kumar, said the government’s refusal to file a detailed affidavit was unbelievable. Mehta reasoned that a public discourse on whether a particular software was used or not would alert terrorists. He urged the court to allow the government to form a committee of domain experts who would look into the allegations of snooping orchestrated against citizens, including journalists, activists, Ministers, parliamentarians, among others. He assured the court that the committee members would have no relationship with the government and would place their report before the Supreme Court. The committee report will have to withstand the Supreme Court’s judicial scrutiny… I am not averse to an enquiry. The government takes individuals’ plea of violation of their privacy seriously. It has to be gone into, it must be gone into… It is the feeling of the government that such an issue cannot be placed on affidavit. It has to be gone through by a committee. It concerns national security, he submitted.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Biden vax order : ‘ We are in the tough stretch.
In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans, private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors, in an all-out effort to curbthe surging Covid-19 delta variant. Speaking at the White House Thursday, Biden sharply criticised the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives. We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us, he said, all but biting off his words.The unvaccinated minority can cause a lot of damage, and theyare. Republican leaders, and some union chiefs, too, said Biden was going too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers,a certain sign of legalchallenges to come. Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement that Biden andthe radical Democrats (have) thumbed their noses at the Constitution,while American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley insisted that changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate. On the other hand, there were strong words of praise for Biden’s efforts to get the nation vaccinated from the American Medical Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable, though no direct mention of his mandate for private companies. The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workersat health facilities that receive federalMedicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.
Spread of Delta Covid-19 knocks windout of UK economy in July.
Britain’s economy unexpectedly slowed to a crawl in July as the Delta variant of Covid-19 spread rapidly after lockdown restrictions were eased and as a pingdemic’ kept many workers at home self-isolating. Economic output rose just 0.1% in July, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday, the smallest monthly increase since January when Britain went into a new national lockdown. Economists polled by Reuters had mostly expected month-on-month growth of 0.6% in gross domestic product. Only two of the 26 analysts had expected such a weak reading. Finance minister Rishi Sunak said he was confident that the economy would continue to recover from the pandemic. But the slowdown in growth may bolsterthe case of Bank of England officials ital Economics consultancy. Britain saw a sharp increase in Covid19 cases in July as the Delta variant spread rapidly, leading to hundreds of thousands of workers being ordered to stay at home underself-isolation rules which have been relaxed. The ONS said some businesses had complained of staff being unable to come to work because they were required to selfisolate, the so-called pingdemic and a fall in construction output was linked to post. Who think it is premature to talk about withdrawing stimulus, despite growing inflation pressure. Earlier this week, BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said he saw a levelling-off in the recovery taking place, with labour shortages, global supply chain problems and Brexit disruption combining to stunt the economic rrecovery Stalling GDP and rising inflationwill leave a whiff of stagflation in the air,said Lockdown problems in global supply chains. The dominant services sector was flat in July from June with output in consumer-facing services falling for the first time since January, driven mostly by a drop in the retail sector. Industrial output grew by 1.2%, boosted by the return to production of an oil field, but manufacturing was flat. Construction output fell by a monthly Paul Dales, chief Ukeconomist at the Cap- 1.6%.
