NATIONAL NEWS
Supreme Court declines interim relief in plea to extend validity of expired FCRA licences of NGOs
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to pass an interim order directing the government to extend the validity of licences of NGOs under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) which expired on September 30 last year, instead opting to pronounce its judgment first in a pending case challenging the very constitutionality of the amendments to the law on the flow of foreign funds into India. A Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar was hearing a plea made by a U.S.–based organisation, Global Peace Initiative, represented by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, which challenged the expiry of the FCRA licences of nearly 6,000 NGOs. The organisation urged the court to let these NGOs continue with their licences until further orders. Countering the plea, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government had extended the licences of 11,594 NGOs which applied within time. Mehta further questioned the locus standi of the petitioner, asking how an organisation based in Houston was concerned with the FCRA licences in India. The court refused to intervene in the issue though it allowed the petitioner to approach the authorities with a representation which would be considered on its merits. The court said the petition would be taken up after it had pronounced its judgment in the pending Noel Harper versus Union of India case on the validity of the amendments made to the FCRA in 2020. The apex court had reserved its verdict on the question of validity of the amendments on November 9, last year. The government, through the Ministry of Home Affairs, had maintained that the NGOs had no fundamental right to receive unbridled foreign contributions.
Supreme Court notice on parties’ promises of ‘irrational freebies’ before elections
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Union government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the continued ‘tamasha’ of political parties promising or distributing ‘irrational freebies’ using public funds. A Bench of Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, Justices A.S. Bopanna and Hima Kohli issued notice to the Centre and the top poll body on a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, represented by senior advocate Vikas Singh, to issue stringent guidelines to deregister the errant political parties and seize their election symbols. The ‘tamasha’ has been going on for decades. Promises always remain as promises. Most of them, except freebies, are not implemented, the petition said and contended that the offer of these freebies amounted to bribery and undue influence. The court, however, drew a skeptical note about how Upadhyay, in his petition, named only a few, select political parties and States. Upadhyay said he did not mean to target only a few parties and offered to make all political parties respondents in the petition. The court said it would start, for the time being, by issuing notice to the Centre and the ECI, which have been named respondents now. The court listed the case after four weeks. In the hearing, Singh submitted that parties, even in debt-ridden States, were promising/distributing these freebies to garner votes and to create an uneven playing field before the elections. Singh said the election commission’s guidelines on the freebies, issued after a Supreme Court judgment in the Subramaniam Balaji case, reported in 2013, were toothless. Promise/distribution of irrational freebies from public fund before election unduly influences the voters, shakes the roots of free-fair election, disturbs level playing field, vitiates the purity of election process and also violates Articles 14, 162, 266(3) and 282, the plea said.
U.P. Assembly polls: Polarisation suits both BJP and SP to consolidate vote bases, says Priyanka Gandhi
Alleging that polarisation suits both the BJP and the SP to consolidate their vote bases in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday said the ruling party may end up being the largest beneficiary of this divisive rhetoric and therefore people need to be given a choice of another kind of politics that doesn’t divide society on religious or caste lines. Citing that farm laws and the Lakhimpur Kheri incident caused immense pain to farmers, she also said the government’s indifference’’ and hostile approach towards the farmers will play an important part in determining the outcome of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh’s western belt. In an exclusive interview to PTI, Priyanka Gandhi said her party will take a call on whether to forge a post-poll alliance once the election results are out and if and when such a situation should arise. With her party going to the polls with a focus on women and announcing that it will give 40% of tickets to them, she said women are 50% of the population and if they consolidate into a political and electoral force by recognising their own value and strength in political terms, they can change the politics of our nation. The saffron party, in turn, has accused the Akhilesh Yadav-led party SP of invoking Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Pakistan to vitiate the discourse. Priyanka Gandhi said people are suffering and they have to be made to connect this suffering to the lack of governance. Event management is not the same as effective governance. People have to be made to understand that, and demand good governance. Despite the crores it spends on advertising itself as one of the leading state governments in India, the truth is that the BJP government in UP does not know how to govern, she alleged.
In West Bengal, parents demand reopening of schools, colleges
A campaign is on in West Bengal in favour of reopening of educational institutions, with many angry parents demanding to know why it is always the students who are made to sit home whenever pandemic–related restrictions are imposed. Schools and colleges, which had reopened late last year, were to resume classes on January 2 after winter vacations but were shut again after the Omicron-driven third wave caused an explosion in the number of COVID-19 cases. As of now, they are to remain shut till January 31 but there is no official word yet on whether they will reopen after that date. The campaign is reflecting online, with demands for re–opening of institutions being made under the hashtag #openschoolcollegeuniversities. There was a time when the closure was a necessity. But now that we are trying to normalise ourselves, why are students being made to stay home? asked Sunetra Mitra, a professor of history at the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission Vivekananda Vidyabhavan in Kolkata. You see the young people go everywhere — on vacations, to malls, to restaurants, to pandals — to seem to be going everywhere except to their schools or colleges. Also, it is not possible for a vast majority of students to afford online classes. How many of them actually have access to a smartphone or laptop? Such students are eventually dropping out. Bandyopadhyay, who recently wrote in the letters-to-the-editor column of a leading Bengali daily calling for resumption of offline classes, said closure of educational institutions was necessary two years ago because no one was prepared for a pandemic but now schools and colleges must reopen with COVID protocols in place. Closure is not a solution. The biggest disadvantage of online teaching is I cannot see the faces of my students. I have no idea how receptive they are. The online mode also compromises on the assessment during exams — meritorious students are at a great disadvantage, Bandyopadhyay said.
Pfizer starts Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine trial Pfizer and its partner
BioNTech have begun enrolment for a clinical trial to test the safety and immune response of their Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine in adults aged up to 55, the companies said in a statement on January 25. Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla has previously said that the pharmaceutical giant could be ready to file for regulatory approval of the shot by March. The company’s head of vaccine research Kathrin Jansen said in a statement that while current data showed that boosters against the original COVID-19 strain continued to protect against severe outcomes with Omicron, the company was acting out of caution. We recognise the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future, she said. Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, added that the protection of the original vaccine against mild and moderate COVID-19 appeared to wane rapidly against Omicron. Combo photo shows logos Pfizer and BioNTech. This study is part of our science-based approach to develop a variant-based vaccine. The trial will involve 1,420 people aged 18-55. A spokesperson for Pfizer said that it did not include people older than 55 because the goal of the study was to examine the immune response of participants dosed, rather than estimate vaccine efficacy. The trial is taking place across the United States and South Africa, and the first participant was dosed in North Carolina. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first COVID-19 shot to be authorised in the West, in December 2020. Because it is based on messenger RNA technology, it is relatively easy to update to reflect the genetic code of new variants. Several countries have begun to emerge from their latest waves driven by Omicron, the most transmissible strain to date, even though global new cases are still rising. The coronavirus has killed some 5.6 million people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
NATO sends ships, fighter jets to eastern Europe as Russia continues troop build-up near Ukraine
NATO said Monday that it’s putting extra forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe as Russia continues its troop build-up near Ukraine. It said that it’s beefing up its deterrence presence in the Baltic Sea area. A number of members of the 30-country military organisation have offered troops and equipment. Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania. Spain is sending ships to join NATO’s standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria, NATO said. NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.
Julian Assange granted appeal in UK to fight extradition to US WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s battle to avoid extradition to the US will go to Britain’s Supreme Court after he was granted the right on Monday to appeal a lower court ruling. The High Court in London allowed Assange to appeal its decision that he could be sent to the US to stand trial on espionage charges. The decision is the latest step in Assange’s long battle to avoid trial on a series of charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents more than a decade ago. Just over a year ago, a district court judge in London rejected a US extradition request on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions. US authorities later provided assurances that the WikiLeaks founder wouldn’t face the severe treatment his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk. The High Court last month overturned the lower court’s decision, saying that the US promises were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely. The court on Monday gave Assange permission to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court.
Group opposes protection from caste discrimination in California Varsity’s faculty union.
A group of faculties in the California State University (CSU) system has written to the Board of Trustees asking that caste not be added as a ‘protected category’ to the system’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA), on the grounds that it would apply to Indian-origin faculty alone and single them out for targeted scrutiny. A protected category in the U.S., refers to a category that has specific protections against discrimination. The proposed changes to the agreement with the union follow from a change across the system’s 23 campuses announced on January 20, in which caste was specifically made part of the institutions’ anti-discrimination policy. The faculty letter, a copy of which was released by the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), was, according to the writers, written by over 80 CSU faculty (the list of names was withheld, so the number has not been verified by The Hindu). The letter requests that the CBA only be approved after caste, as a category, is taken out. Meetings to ratify the agreement between the CSU and the union (the California Faculty Association or CFA), are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. The reason why caste oppressed people are asking for the category to be made explicit, is that when institutions make it explicit, they’re extending the existing rights more clearly, for caste oppressed people, she told The Hindu on Monday over the phone. Because once it’s listed, institutions then will build competency around it. The faculty letter alleges that Equality Labs is an anti-Hindu activist organization and that a member of the group was called in as a witness to the January 14 Union meeting.
