NATIONAL NEWS
Modi declares August 14 as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday declared that August 14 will be observed as ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ to acknowledge the pain undergone by Indians due to the partition of India in 1947. Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, he tweeted, Partition’s pains can never be forgotten. Millions of our sisters and brothers were displaced and many lost their lives due to mindless hate and violence. In memory of the struggles and sacrifices of our people, 14th August will be observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day. He added that the day, remembered for India’s partition into two countries, India and Pakistan, would remind Indians of the need to remove the poison of social divisions. May the #PartitionHorrorsRemembranceDay keep reminding us of the need to remove the poison of social divisions, disharmony and further strengthen the spirit of oneness, social harmony and human empowerment, he tweeted. The Union Home Ministry on Saturday evening issued a notification declaring that August 14 will be observed as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day. In a notification, the Home Ministry said the people of India, while celebrating Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, will salute those sons and daughters of the country who had to sacrifice their lives during the partition of India. The Government of India has decided to declare 14th August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day in remembrance of the people who lost their lives during the partition. Therefore, the Government of India declares 14th August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day to remind the present and future generations of Indians of the pain and suffering faced by the people of India during the partition, the notification said. As soon as Modi made the announcement, BJP general secretary (organisation) tweeted that it was a laudable attempt to remember the tragedy sought to be whitewashed by proponents of Nehruvian legacy. While no details were shared on any memorial events to be held on the day, the announcement comes on the eve of India’s 75th Independence anniversary. A year-long series of events connected to the anniversary, ‘Amrit Mahotsav,’ has been lined up, including recording the national anthem by ordinary citizens and uploading them on the Rashtrapati Bhavan website.
Twitter unlocks accounts of Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders.
A day after Rahul Gandhi accused Twitter of interfering with India’s political process, Gandhi’s account has been restored, a Congress leader confirmed to The Hindu on Saturday. Gandhi’s account was temporarily suspended last week after he tweeted pictures of the family of a nine-year-old victim of alleged rape and murder in Delhi. Calling it a violation of the law, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights had complained to Twitter as well as the Delhi Police. Handles of all those leaders, who had shared the same picture as Gandhi, have also been unblocked. Gandhi is yet to tweet but Lok Sabha member Manickam Tagore tweeted about the unblocking of his account. On Friday, in a video statement, Gandhi had cautioned that taking sides in a political contest will have repercussions for Twitter. It’s obvious now that Twitter is actually not a neutral, objective platform. It is a biased platform. It’s something that listens to what the government of the day says, Gandhi had said. On Saturday, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, said locking an account was an extreme step. Locking an account is an extreme step that infringes the freedom of expression of users. The rules can be upheld without such action. This may be a worldwide policy but I urge @Twitter to revise it forthwith. Its often selective application makes it worse. A rethink is overdue, Tharoor said. In my conversations w/@Twitter I took strong exception to the policy of automatically locking accounts, whether @RahulGandhi’s or @rsprasad’s. If there is a violation of law, whether POSCO or copyright, it should suffice to withhold the offending tweet & issue notice to the user, he added. In the midst of being entangled in a high-profile political contest, Twitter has transferred its India head Manish Maheshwari. The company did not specify any reason for the change. It said Maheshwari will move to the U.S. as senior director (revenue strategy and operations) and focus on new markets in his new role. Twitter, in a statement, said, As part of the appeal process, Rahul Gandhi submitted a copy of the formal consent/authorisation letter to use the referenced image via our India Grievance Channel. We have followed the necessary due diligence process to review the appeal and have updated our enforcement action based on the consent provided by the people depicted in the image. The Tweet is now withheld in India and the account access has been restored. As explained in our Country Withheld Policy, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in accordance with valid legal provisions under the Indian law(s).
Parliament is temple of country’s democracy, says Kovind in Independence eve address to nation
President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday said Parliament is the temple of the country’s democracy which provides the highest forum to discuss, debate and decide issues for the well-being of people, remarks that came against the backdrop of the recent ruckus and continuous disruptions that led to the abrupt adjournment of the two Houses. In a televised address to the nation on the eve of the 75th Independence Day, the President also referred to the second Covid-19 wave, and said the country is yet to come out of its devastating effects. He asserted this is the time for extra care and caution, and people should not let their guard down. President Kovind also sought to address the concerns raised by protesting farmers’ unions against the three contentious farm laws, saying the series of agricultural marketing reforms will empower our ‘annadata’ farmers and help them get better price for their produce. President Kovind said when India won independence, many sceptics thought democracy would not survive in India. Little did they know that roots of democracy were nurtured in this soil in ancient times, and even in modern times India was ahead of many western nations in offering franchise to all adults, regardless of any distinctions. The founding fathers had reposed their faith in the wisdom of the people, and ‘we, the people of India’ have made India a strong democracy, he added. Incidentally, in ‘Freedom in The World 2021’, the Freedom House’s annual status report on the world’s democracies, India was downgraded this year, from ‘Free’ to ‘Partly Free’. India’s status declined from Free to Partly Free due to a multiyear pattern in which the Hindu nationalist government and its allies have presided over rising violence and discriminatory policies affecting the Muslim population and pursued a crackdown on expressions of dissent by the media, academics, civil society groups, and protesters, the report by the American democracy watchdog had noted. President Kovind in his address said, We have adopted the system of parliamentary democracy. Therefore, our Parliament is the temple of our democracy which provides us highest forum where we discuss, debate and decide issues for the well-being of our people.
Courts continue to differ in views on marital rape
Four years after the Supreme Court referred to Justice J.S. Verma committee’s recommendation to make marital rape a crime, besides quoting from decisions of courts across the world that a rapist remains a rapist and marriage with the victim does not convert him into a non-rapist, Indian courts continue to take views on marital rape that are the polar opposite of each other. The recent response from courts to complaints of marital rape has been contradictory. When the Kerala High Court backed marital rape as a valid ground for divorce, a court in Maharashtra gave anticipatory bail to a man while concluding that forcible sex with his wife was not an illegal thing though she said it left her paralysed. In 2017, the top court, in Independent Thought versus Union of India, refused to delve into the question of marital rape while examining an exception to Section 375 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code which allows a man to force sex on his wife if she is above 15 years of age. However, in its judgment that declared sexual intercourse with a girl below 18 years of age is rape regardless of whether she is married or not, the Supreme Court highlighted that legislative immunity given to marital rape stemmed from the outdated notion that a wife is no more than a subservient chattel of her husband. Similarly, the Gujarat High Court has held that a law that does not give married and unmarried women equal protection creates conditions that lead to the marital rape. It allows the men and women to believe that wife rape is acceptable. Making wife rape illegal or an offence will remove the destructive attitudes that promote the marital rape, the High Court had suggested. However, legislative amnesty to marital rape continues to survive in the statute book despite a gamut of decisions by the Supreme Court upholding the bodily integrity and privacy of women. The report submitted by the Justice J.S. Verma Committee of Amendments to Criminal Law of January 2013 had recommended the removal of the marital rape immunity and underscored the fact that marital rape immunity had been withdrawn in most foreign jurisdictions. It had observed, A rape that actually occurs cannot legislatively be simply wished away.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Ashraf Ghani vows not to give up ‘achievements’ after Taliban seize Province near capital; India mulls options on Kabul embassy.
The Taliban seized a province just south of Afghanistan’s capital and launched a multi-pronged assault early Saturday on a major city in the north defended by powerful former warlords, Afghan officials said. The insurgents have captured much of northern, western and southern Afghanistan in a breakneck offensive less than three weeks before the United States is set to withdraw its last troops, raising fears of a full militant takeover or another Afghan civil war. The Taliban captured all of Logar and detained its provincial officials, Hoda Ahmadi, a lawmaker from the province, said Saturday. She said the Taliban have reached the Char Asyab district, just 11 km (7 miles) south of the capital, Kabul. The Taliban also attacked the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif from several directions, setting off heavy fighting on its outskirts, according to Munir Ahmad Farhad, a spokesman for the provincial governor. There was no immediate word on casualties. Taliban fighters pose on the back of a vehicle in the city of Herat, west of Kabul on August 14, 2021, after they took this province from Afghan government. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani delivered a televised speech on Saturday, his first public appearance since the recent Taliban gains, in which he vowed not to give up the achievements of the 20 years since the US toppled the Taliban following the 9/11 attacks. We have started consultations, inside the government with elders and political leaders, representatives of different levels of the community as well as our international allies, he said. Soon the results will be shared with you, he added, without elaborating further. The President had flown to Mazar-e-Sharif on Wednesday to rally the city’s defences, meeting with several militia commanders, including Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ata Mohammad Noor, who command thousands of fighters. They remain allied with the government, but during previous rounds of fighting in Afghanistan, warlords have been known to switch sides for their own survival. Ismail Khan, a powerful former warlord who had tried to defend Herat, was captured by the Taliban when the insurgents seized the western city after two weeks of heavy fighting. Residents of Mazar-e-Sharif expressed fears about the security breakdown. The withdrawal of foreign forces and the swift retreat of Afghanistan’s own troops – despite hundreds of billions of dollars in US aid over the years – has raised fears the Taliban could return to power or the country could be shattered by factional fighting, as it was after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Meanwhile, amidst moves by other countries to secure their diplomats based in Afghanistan, the Indian government has begun a series of consultations on whether to scale down operations at its Embassy in Kabul. The meetings on Saturday in New Delhi came amidst reports that the Taliban has taken territory around 50 km from Kabul. According to sources, security assessments had earlier been in favour of keeping the Indian Embassy in Kabul fully operational, after consulates in Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif were closed and Indian staff flown out.
U.S. troops reach Kabul to assist in evacuations.
American troops have flown into Kabul to help evacuate Embassy personnel and other civilians in the Afghan capital, a U.S. official said on Saturday. The Pentagon said two battalions of Marines and one infantry battalion will arrive in Kabul by Sunday evening, involving about 3,000 troops. They have arrived, their arrival will continue till tomorrow, the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. An infantry brigade combat team will also move out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait to act as a quick reaction force for security in Kabul if needed, the Pentagon has said. Britain and several other Western nations are also sending troops as resistance from Afghan government forces crumbles and fears grow that an assault on Kabul could be just days away. An Afghan government official confirmed on Friday that Kandahar, the economic hub of the South, was under Taliban control as U.S .led international forces complete their withdrawal. Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment, but clearly if you just look at what the Taliban has been doing, you can see that they are trying to isolate Kabul, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. Some embassies have begun to burn sensitive material ahead of evacuating, diplomats said.
