CURRENT AFFAIRS
28 November 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Farmers enter Delhi after braving tear gas, water cannons.
Despite heavy security deployment, groups of farmers from Punjab managed to reach near two Delhi borders on Friday morning after breaking police barricades in Haryana as part of their protest march against the Centre’s farm laws. Delhi Police eventually gave them permission to enter the national capital and hold peaceful protests in the Nirankari Ground in Burari area of the city. All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee leader Kiran Kumar Vissa termed it a historic day and said they are prepared to stay and protest until the government repeals the farm laws. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the farmers agitation and said no government in the world can stop the farmers fighting the battle of truth. No government in the world can stop the farmers who are fighting the battle of truth, the former Congress chief said. The Modi government will have to agree to the demands of the farmers and take back the black laws. This is just the beginning! he tweeted, with the hashtag ‘IamWithFarmers’. Meanwhile, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar requested the farmers to end their protest, promising talks next week. The government has always been ready to discuss issues with farmers. We have invited farmers’ organisations for another round of talks on December 3. I appeal to them to drop the agitation in view of Covid-19 and winter, Tomar told news agency ANI.
B) Delhi govt denies permission to use stadiums as makeshift jails to hold agitating farmers.
The Delhi government, on Friday, denied permission to use stadiums in the Capital as temporary jails as sought by Delhi Police earlier in the day. In a statement, said to have been signed by Delhi Home Minister Satyendra Jain, the Delhi government denied permission to the Delhi Police saying that the agitating farmers have a Constitutional right to peacefully protest. The demands of farmers are justified. The Central government should listen to the demands of the farmers. Sending them to jails is not an option, the statement said. Earlier in the day, Delhi Police had sought the permission of the Arvind Kejriwal government to use eight stadiums in the city as temporary jails to accommodate farmers in case they need to be arrested eventually.
C) Indian economy contracts by 7.5% in Q2, in ‘technical recession’.
India’s GDP contracted 7.5% in the second quarter of 2020-21, following the record 23.9% decline recorded in the first quarter, as per estimates released by the National Statistical Office on Friday. The country has now entered a technical recession with two successive quarters of negative growth, which was preceded by seven quarters of declining growth. However, the economy’s contraction in the July to September period, during which lockdown restrictions were eased, is better than most projections of around 10% dip, and better than the 8.6% decline estimated by the RBI. Agriculture, which was the only sector to record growth between April and June this year, grew at the same pace of 3.4% in the second quarter, while manufacturing gross value-added (GVA) staged a sharp recovery to record 0.6% growth between July and September after collapsing by 39.3% in the first quarter. Electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services also recorded 4.4% growth in the second quarter, recovering from a 7% contraction in Q1. But it remained a bleak quarter for several sectors, including mining, retail trade, hotels, construction, and financial services. They should be cautiously optimistic as the economic impact is primarily due to the pandemic and the sustainability of the recovery depends critically on the spread of the pandemic. The government remains ready to come up with calibrated responses, said Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian, stressing that there was no room for either exuberance or pessimism at this point.
D) ‘Liberty is not a gift for the few, says SC in order extending Arnab Goswami’s interim bail.
The Supreme Court on Friday gave a clarion call to judges to protect personal liberty and the right of ordinary people to bail, saying that liberty is not a gift for the few. Common citizens without the means or resources to move the High Courts or the Supreme Court were languishing in jails as undertrials, the Supreme Court reminded. Deprivation of liberty even for a single day is one day too many, a Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra declared in a 55-page order pronounced on Friday. It is through the instrumentality of bail that our criminal justice system’s primordial interest in preserving the presumption of innocence finds its most eloquent expression. The remedy of bail is the solemn expression of the humaneness of the justice system, Justice Chandrachud, who wrote the judgment, observed. The State should not be allowed to use criminal law as a ruse to harass citizens, he cautioned. The judgment said that liberty survives by the vigilance of her citizens, on the cacophony of the media, and in the dusty corridors of courts alive to the rule of [and not by] law. Yet, much too often, liberty is a casualty when one of these components is found wanting.
E) Mehbooba Mufti placed under house arrest, says daughter.
Iltija Mufti, daughter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti, on Friday said her mother has been placed under house arrest in Srinagar. Her mother is not being allowed to see the family of party leader Waheed Parra in south Kashmir’s Pulwama, she said. Parra was arrested two days ago by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a militancy-related case. Is this what you call democracy where you don’t have any right to exercise your freedom of speech and expression? You are being threatened and intimidated for raising voice about anything, she said. Mehbooba Mufti had written two letters to the police department in the past two days and sought permission to visit Pulwama. Why is it that puppets and proxies can travel the length and breadth of Kashmir yet we can’t visit and express solidarity with a party worker’s family? Iltija asked. There has been no statement by the authorities on whether Mehbooba Mufti has been detained or not.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Top Iranian nuclear scientist killed.
An Iranian scientist long suspected by the West Of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb programme was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday that could provoke confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks Of Donald Trump’s presidency. The military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and vowed to retaliate for his killing. Fakhrizadeh died of injuries in hospital after armed tired on his car, Iranian State media reported. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Silence on attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office de dined to comment on the killing. In the U.S., the pentagon declined to comment and the State Department and the White House did immediately respond to requests for comment. president-elect Joe Biden’s team also declined to comment. Fakhrizadeh has been described by Western and Israeli intelligence services for years as the leader Of a covert atomic bomb programme halted in 2003, which Israel and the United States accuse Tehran Of trying to restore in secret. Iran has long denied seeking to weaponise nuclear energy. Regardless of who was responsible for the attack, it is certain to escalate tension between Iran and the United States in the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency. A U.S. official confirmed earlier this month that Mr. Trump had asked military aides for a plan for a possible strike on Iran. He decided against it at that time because of the risk it could provoke an uncontrollable Wider West Asia conflict.
B) China slaps 200% tax on Australian wine.
China on Friday added wine to the growing list of Australian goods barred from its markets in a trade war against Australia over disputes including its support for a probe into the origin of the coronavirus. The Ministry of Commerce imposed import taxes of up to 212.1%, effective on Saturday, which Australia’s Trade Minister said make Australian wine unsellable in China, his country’s biggest export market. China increasingly is using its populous market as leverage to extract political concessions and increase its strategic influence. Earlier, China stopped or reduced imports of beef, coal, barley, seafood, sugar and timber from Australia after it supported calls for a probe into the origin of the pandemic, which began in China in December. China’s Communist Party is trying to deflect criticism of its handling of the outbreak, which plunged the global economy into its deepest slump since the 1930s, by arguing the virus came from abroad, without providing evidence. Meanwhile, Australia is working on a mutual defence treaty with Japan, which Chinese leaders see as a strategic rival, and has expressed concern about China’s construction of military facilities on islands in the disputed South China Sea.
C) Bolsonaro says he won’t take vaccine.
Brazil president lair Bolsonaro on said he win take a vaccine against the coronavirus even after it receives approval from his own government. Brazil has recorded over 1,70000 coronavirus deaths according to an AFP tally, behind only the U.S. Mr. Bolsonaro faces criticism his handling of the pandemic, which has included playing down the virus, opposing lockdown measures and relentlessly promoting the drug hydroxy chloroquine despite studies showing it is ineffective COVID- 19. He caught COVID- 19 himself at the beginning of July, and more than half of his Cabinet have tested positive for the virus in recent months. Once any treatment is approved by Brazil’s health regulatory authorities, his government will immediately organize its purchase and distribution to those who want it, he said. But he added he was sure that Brazil’s Parliament would not make immunisation mandatory. Brazil’s Health Ministry has already to buy 100 million doses of a different vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
D) Trump says he will leave office if Biden’s victory is confirmed.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday for the first time that he would leave the White House if Joe Biden is officially confirmed the winner Of the U.S. election, even as he railed against the rigged vote. Mr. Trump has made an unprecedented attempt to defy the results of the election by refusing to concede, spreading wild theories about stolen ballots and launching baseless legal challenges that have been thrown out by courts. Answering his first questions from reporters since the 3 vote, the President moved closer to accepting that he would serve only one term in office before Mr. Biden is inaugurated on January 20. When asked if he would leave the White House if the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory, Mr. Trump said that certainty he will. The Electoral College which determines the White House Winner, will meet on December 14 to certify Mr. Biden’s Victory. With Mr. Biden receiving 306 votes to Mr. Trump’s 232. This election was a fraud, Mr. Trump said, again without providing any evidence during his remarks to reporters at the White House after he spoke to military personnel via video link on Thanksgiving holiday. He described the U.S. voting infrastructure as -like a third-world co Earlier in the day, he tweeted that -this a 100% RIGGED ELECTION,while on Wednesday he called on his Republican supporters “to the ton over.-No proof of fraud President-elect Bi&n has said that Americans -won’t stand¯ for attempts to derail the vote outcome. Aruba Americans to unite to chines deliberately millions o’ he votes. the government election curiosity agency declared it —the secure- in US history.
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