CURRENT AFFAIRS
24 September 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Opposition parties hold a series of protests in Parliament.
Opposition parties held 3 rounds of protests in Parliament on the last day of the monsoon session. Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad met President Ramnath Kovind and urged him not to give his assent to the three farm Bills passed in Parliament. At noon on 23 September, over 75 Rajya Sabha MPs belonging to the Congress, Trinamool Congress (TMC), DMK, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), CPI, CPI-M, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party and the NCP took out a silent protest march from the Gandhi statue to the Ambedkar statue, both located within the Parliament complex. A few hours later, another bunch of lawmakers from the TRS and the TMC held a short dharna. In the evening, MPs from the Lok Sabha MPs took out another march. The Opposition parties also held 2 rounds of meetings to chalk out a strategy to continue the campaign against the three farms Bills. The parties had sent a common memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind, urging him to return the bills on the grounds that their passage in the Rajya Sabha was flawed. This petition is expected to form the basis for further legal action. Sources said the Opposition parties were divided on whether to move Supreme Court on the subject. After meeting with President Kovind, Azad told reporters that it is wrong to blame the Opposition for the pandemonium witnessed on Sunday in the upper House.
B) Leaders slam passage of Bills without discussion.
A day after Rajya Sabha passed the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and six other bills, Opposition leaders criticised the government for rushing through legislation in a near-empty house without due discussions. Trinamool Congress floor leader Derek O’ Brien said the monsoon session of Parliament was a “sham”, with no discussions on any of the important issues, while senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that the amendment to the Essential Commodities law, which would only help hoarders and black-marketers, was passed in an empty house. Ramesh, who is also the chief whip of the party in the Rajya Sabha, said the amendments to the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, are highly centralising and will erode the constitutional rights of States.
C) NCB summons Deepika Padukone, and 5 others in drug nexus case.
Actors Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh have been summoned by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in a stunning twist to the drugs probe linked to the Sushant Singh Rajput investigation. They have all been asked to appear in the next three days. These are the most high-profile names to come up in a widening probe into allegations of drug use linked to the film industry. Padukone has been summoned on Friday and Rakul Preet on 23 September. Ali Khan and Kapoor will be questioned on Saturday, and fashion designer Simone Khambatta will also be questioned tomorrow.
D) No coercive steps intended against Facebook says Delhi Assembly
The Delhi Legislative Assembly clarified in the Supreme Court that no coercive steps were intended against Ajit Mohan, vice-president and managing director of Facebook India when he was summoned to appear before its Committee of Peace and Harmony as a witness in connection with allegations linked to the Delhi riots. The person was only called as a witness. No coercion was intended. They wanted to get some safeguard suggestions from Facebook. They wanted to find out how Facebook was misused and did not say Facebook misused, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Assembly, submitted in court. Justice S.K. Kaul, heading a three-judge Bench, pointed out that there is a disparity between what Singhvi is submitting in court about the nature of the summons, and what is actually said in them. In their petition, Mohan and Facebook, represented by senior advocates Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi, respectively, accused the Assembly of threatening him with breach of privilege if he did not appear before the Committee and testify. They said the Committee had no authority to compel him to testify. Rohatgi argued that the Delhi Assembly panel had predetermined that Facebook colluded in the Delhi riots. Mohan had been summoned to appear before the Committee on September 23. After Singhvi told the court that the Committee has deferred the meeting, the court asked the Assembly to not fix any further meeting with the Facebook official for now since it is seized of the case. Issuing notice, the court asked Singhvi to file its counter, putting the clarifications on record. The next hearing of the matter has been scheduled for October 15.
E) Government issues notice to Sudarshan TV
The Union government on 23 September informed the Supreme Court that a show-cause notice has been issued to Sudarshan TV under the Cable TV Network Act against the content of its programme, ‘Bindas Bol’, which accuses Muslims of “infiltrating” the civil services with the help of funding from terror-linked organisations abroad. On September 15, a three-judge Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had stayed further telecast of the programme episodes. Four episodes had been telecast by the time the court issued the injunction. Had the court not intervened, the programme would have been over by now, Justice Chandrachud told the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who informed the court about the notice issued to the Hindi channel on September 23. Mehta said the court’s intervention is usually seen as a last resort. The court agreed to the law officer’s submission to defer further hearings in the case. The channel has been given time till September 28 to respond to the show-cause notice. Meanwhile, the September 15 injunction on the telecast of the programme would continue. The Bench is examining various questions, including the point beyond which free speech in the media breaches the dignity of a community. The court is also examining the larger aspect of strengthening the self-regulatory mechanism for electronic media. It had observed that the manner of the portrayal of the Muslim community in ‘Bindas Bol’ was plainly hurtful.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Saudi Arabia banned flights from and to India.
Saudi Arabia has banned all the flights to and from India from Tuesday onwards amid an increase in novel coronavirus cases. In a circular issued on 22 September, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) of Saudi Arabia said they were suspending travel to and from India, Brazil and Argentina as well as any person who has been in any of these countries in the past 14 days prior to their arrival to the country. However, they had excluded those passengers who have official government invitations. The GACA circular titled ‘Suspension of travel to countries where the coronavirus has outbreak’, was marked to all the airlines and chartered flight companies operating in the airports of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates host a significant Indian migrant population.
B) CAG’s rafale vendors yet to confirm tech transfer.
French aerospace major Dassault Aviation and European missile maker MBDA have till date not confirmed the transfer of technology for the indigenous development of an engine for the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), under the offset contract relating to the crore deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said in a report tabled in Parliament on 23 September. The report on offset clauses in defence deals observed that in October 2019, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) informed that the vendor had not yet been able to confirm their capability for doing the requisite up-gradation. Thus, it is not clear whether this technology transfer will take place, and there is a need for MoD/DRDO to identify and acquire the right technologies in order to comply with the directions of Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) given in September 2016.
