CURRENT AFFAIRS
24 August 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Tablighi Jamaat cases become a diplomatic headache.
5 months after the government ordered all the members of the Tablighi Jamaat to present at their headquarters in New Delhi, the matter is becoming a diplomatic headache for the government. The action ordered in March by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). This has included more than 2.5k foreigners from the ultra-orthodox Islamic sect. Furthermore, several countries have expressed their concern to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on the matter of continued custody of their nationals in India. The MEA has to coordinate several cases with real-time coordination with the MHA and the Bureau of Immigration as well. The Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Masud Bin Momen said that he had raised the issue of about 173 Bangladeshis still being held in India. He raised this issue at the time when he had met the Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla in Dhaka on 19 August.
B) AG refuses consent for contempt action against Swara Bhasker.
The Attorney General of India, Mr. K.K. Venugopal has refused to give consent to a plea that was filed in order to initiate criminal contempt action against actor Swara Bhasker for scandalizing the Supreme Court. This plea was filed against her comments relating to the Ram Janmabhoomi. She mentioned in her comment that the disputed verdict “appears to be a factual one” and her “perception”. If anyone wants to initiate a criminal contempt action in any case, then the prior consent of the Attorney General is required for the Supreme Court. The contempt plea was filed by a resident of Karnataka, M/s. Usha Shetty. She has now approached the Solicitor General of India, Mr. Tushar Mehta for his consent. The contempt plea is in relation to a public address by Ms. Swara Bhaskar in a meeting organized by Mumbai Collective by following the Judgment of the Supreme Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute case. In the Judgment, the court handed over the disputed land to the Hindus in order to build a temple. On that Judgement, Swara Bhaskar said that we are living in a country where the Supreme Court of our country states that the demolition of Babri Masjid was unlawful and it also rewards the same people who brought down the mosque.
C) MHA had warned of a plot to trigger blasts in Indian cities.
One day after an alleged terror suspect was arrested from Delhi, a team of Delhi police special cell unit seized a large number of explosives along with an ISIS flag from the house of Mohammad Mustakim Khan in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh. The Ministry of Home Affairs had warned of terror modules of religious fundamentalists, backed by Pakistan intelligence, to trigger blasts in one of the cities in India. The MHA has issued an alert to all States 2 days before the Independence day celebrations by acting on intelligence inputs that the members of some banned outfits had planned to cause IED blasts in Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal and some other places in the north-east along the border of Indo-Myanmar and Indo-Bangladesh.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) China has been administering the covid19 vaccine.
China has been administering its COVID-19 vaccines that are made domestically to a broad range of people since the month of July. The number of persons who have been given the vaccine may soon be in the hundreds of thousands. These persons include medical workers, the armed forces, and employees of the companies who are working overseas on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. China has 8 different types of vaccines that are going through clinical trials but none of them have been approved in the market. Authorities have given permission to administer the vaccines to the people including the medical workers, border officers, and the overseas employees. Vaccines are provided in 2 doses. The second dose is given after one month of the first shot.
B) Trump team releases an ad featuring Modi.
The Trump campaign in order to specifically win the votes of Indian American voters has released footage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump in which they were together approximately a year ago. The data shows that the Indian Americans mostly vote for the Democratic party. So the Republican party is trying harder to gain those voters who are likely to switch their decision based on the Modi-Trump relationship party has also been trying to pursue the Indian-American vote. In mid-July, the Chairman of Democratic National Committee (DNC) spoke at a virtual Indian Americans to draw the attention of the voters towards the battleground States. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris also sent out the greetings of the Independence Day during a Democratic event organized on August 15.
SPORTS NEWS
A) India stuns China, reaches quarters.
India has shocked China by winning a Pool A at the online Chess Olympiad held on 23 August. The juniors helped the team to pull off the memorable win because R. Praggnanandhaa and Divya Deshmukh took full points off. All the 4 boards which were featuring the seniors were drawn. Earlier, India has also beaten Georgia and Germany as well. Thus, India has won a total 8 of its 9 matches held in the league.
