Tag: CLAT

NATIONAL NEWS 

A) Mamata urges Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of Pegasus spyware row

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the Pegasus spyware row, and asked all Opposition parties to form a united front against the BJP without any delay. My humble regards to our Hon’ble Supreme Court. Why can’t the court take suo motu cognisance when judges’ phones are tapped? Either take suo motu cognisance or set up an SIT [special investigation team] monitored by you to know whose phones were affected. Only the judiciary can save democracy, she said. Banerjee was addressing the annual Martyrs’ Day rally in Kolkata, which was telecast live across several States, including Delhi. (The July 21 Martyrs’ Day rally is an annual one organised by the Trinamool Congress to commemorate the 1993 Kolkata firing). The Trinamool Congress chairperson asserted, We have to come together; we must forget our individual interests and come together to save the country. To work together, we must form a front without any delay. She would visit New Delhi later this month and would be happy to attend any meeting of Opposition leaders between July 26 and 29. I also want to meet important leaders. Chidambaram ji [Congress leader P. Chidambaram] will be there, Sharad ji [NCP chairperson Sharad Pawar] will be there, I am ready to attend any meeting between July 26 and 29, she stated. Banerjee, who is likely to visit Delhi after two years on July 25, remarked, The general election is still two-and-a-half years away but nothing will be achieved if we form an alliance just before it. The Chief Minister urged each and every Opposition party to start working together to make a front and not leave matters for the last moment. If the doctor comes after death, nothing will happen. If the treatment is done on time, the patient can be cured. Now is your time. The more time you waste, the more the situation will worsen, she emphasised. The Chief Minister alleged that her phone was tapped. She said she had put plasters on her phone as they [Centre] tap everything.

 

B) Parliamentary panel on IT to discuss Pegasus issue on July 28 

The Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, will deliberate on the use of Pegasus spyware against nearly 300 persons in India, on July 28. Officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITy), the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Department of Telecommunications have been summoned to depose on the subject, Citizens’ data security and privacy. The committee has had several rounds of meeting on the subject. It was deliberated upon in two meetings held in November 2019. The panel has not submitted a report so far because all investigation remained inconclusive. The government has neither confirmed nor denied the involvement in the snooping episode targeting activists in 2019. The latest revelations show that it is a more serious situation. Does the government have access to Pegasus or not is the key question, one of the members said.

 

C) Pandemic orphaned 1.1 lakh in India, over 10 lakh globally, says Lancet report

As many as 1.19 lakh children in India lost their primary caregiver (parent or custodial grandparent) due to Covid-19, placing the country at the third spot after Mexico (1.4 lakh) and Brazil (1.3 lakh), according to estimates in a new study published in The Lancet. Globally, this figure stood at 11.34 lakh between March 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021. Children who lost either a mother or a father were 10.42 lakh, including 1.16 lakh in India. The study developed estimates of pandemic-associated orphanhood and caregiver deaths using excess mortality and deaths for 21 countries that accounted for 76·4% of global deaths between March 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021. It then used these findings to develop global extrapolations. It was conducted by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control’s COVID-19 Response Team, the Imperial College, London, the University of Oxford, and the World Bank, among others. More than 15 lakh children around the world had lost at least one primary caregiver or a co-residing grandparent. This figure stood at 1.86 lakh for India. There were up to five times more children with deceased fathers than mothers. For example, in India, an estimated 25,500 children lost their mother and 90,751 their father and 12 children both parents. The study underlines that such children are at greater risk of family separation and institutionalisation and recommends investments towards strengthening family-based care, with the help of a surviving caregiver or through kinship, foster care or adoption.

 

D) Completely false to say no one died due to oxygen shortage: Delhi Health Minister 

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on July 21 said there have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country. If there was no shortage of oxygen, why did hospitals move court? Hospitals and the media had been flagging oxygen shortage issues daily. Television channels showed how hospitals were running out of the life-saving gas. It is completely false to say that no one died due to oxygen shortage. There have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country, he said. The Central government on July 20 informed the Rajya Sabha that no deaths due to lack of oxygen were specifically reported by states and UTs during the second Covid-19 wave. But there was an unprecedented surge in demand for medical oxygen during the second wave and it peaked at nearly 9,000 MT compared to 3,095 MT in the first wave following which the Centre had to step in to facilitate equitable distribution among the states, it said. Interestingly, Maharashtra Health Minister and senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Rajesh Tope on Wednesday clarified that there was no record in the State of any death due to shortage of oxygen during the two waves of the pandemic.

 

E) Govt seeks more time share data that RTI activist says was provided to him two months ago 

A day after the Finance Ministry told the Rajya Sabha it needed more time to furnish data on sale of electoral bonds as asked by an MP, RTI activist Kanhaiya Kumar said on Wednesday the details had been provided to him via an RTI reply by the SBI two months ago. Trinamool Congress MP Santanu Sen had sought the details of the sale of the bonds during the 15th and 16th phase, which was in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Puducherry, Assam and Kerala from March to May. Sen also asked about the bonds sold since the scheme started in 2018 and the cost of printing the same. The government seeks more time to furnish the replies, the written reply by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said on Tuesday. Kumar, a Bihar-based RTI activist, had received a reply from the SBI, the only bank authorised to sell the bonds, on May 14 to his query. As reported by The Hindu on May 18, the SBI reply had said bonds worth ₹695.34 crore had been sold from April 1 till 10. The SBI had declined to share the details of the political parties that encashed them and the commission it earned from the sales, both of which were asked by Sen too. The questions are submitted 15 days in advance. The SBI has already provided this information in response to my RTI query. So it’s quite obvious that they have information in requisite format. Still, the Ministry says it needs more time to furnish the replies, Kumar said.

 

F) Supreme Court criticises Goa, Vedanta’s delayed review pleas in mining case 

A Supreme Court Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud has slammed the Goa government and Vedanta for preferring to file their review petitions against a February 2018 judgment after the retirement of two judges who authored it. A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta, in their February 7, 2018, judgment, cancelled 88 mining leases, which were renewed by the BJP government in Goa in 2015 to benefit private mining leaseholders. Their 102-page judgment had traced the rapacious and rampant exploitation of Goa’s fragile ecology by private mining lease holders, whose sole motive was to make profits, for years. The verdict had noted how these leases were hastily renewed by the State in 2014 with retrospective effect from 2007, just in the nick of time before an amended Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act made auction of leases mandatory to mine notified minerals like iron ore. Review petitions are heard by the same Bench that passed the original judgment. Justices Lokur and Gupta retired on December 30, 2018 and May 6, 2020, respectively. The State of Goa preferred its four review petitions in November 2019, after Justice Lokur’s retirement. Vedanta preferred its four review petitions in August 2020, right after Justice Gupta’s retirement. Justice Chandrachud and Justice Shah, the second judge on the Review Bench, said no cogent grounds were furnished by either Goa or Vedanta to justify their delay between 20 and 26 months to file their review petitions. Under the Supreme Court Rules of 2013, a plea for review has to be filed within 30 days of the judgment. Dismissing the review, the Review Bench observed that such practice must be firmly disapproved to preserve the institutional sanctity of the decision-making of this court. The review petitioners were aware of the decision of this court. Keeping in mind the above, we are inclined to dismiss these review petitions on the ground of limitation alone. However, in any event, we also find that no legitimate grounds for review of the judgment… and dismiss these review petitions on merits as well, Justice Chandrachud and Shah recorded in their recent five-page order.

 

G) Centre’s wrong decisions ‘killed’ 50 lakh people, alleges Rahul Gandhi 

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said wrong decisions of the Government of India (GoI) killed 50 lakh people during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a tweet, Gandhi cited a report of the Washington-based think tank, Centre for Global Development, that offered three different scenarios of excess deaths in India between January 2020 and June 2021. The Truth. GOI’s wrong decisions during Covid second wave killed 50 lakh of our sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers, he tweeted, tagging the working paper of the Centre for Global Development. The study – authored by Abhishek Anand, Justin Sandefur and Arvind Subramanian (former chief economic advisor to the GoI) – projected three different estimates: a conservative estimate of 3.4 million deaths using civic registration data from the States; another estimate of 4 million deaths using infection fatality ratio and finally, a third estimate of 4.9 million deaths based on an analysis of a consumer pyramid household survey. Gandhi’s criticism of the government’s handling of the second wave of Covid-19 comes a day after the Rajya Sabha debated the issue on Tuesday. Participating in the debate, Congress’s deputy leader Anand Sharma raised the issue of excess deaths and urged the Centre to reconcile the figures from the States in order to give compensation to those who died of Covid-19.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan President must go

The Taliban on Friday said they don’t want to monopolise power, but insisted there won’t be peace in Afghanistan until there is a new negotiated government in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is removed. In an interview with the Associated Press, Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, also a member of the group’s negotiating team, laid out the insurgents’ stance on what should come next in a country on the precipice. The Taliban have captured territory in recent weeks, seized border crossings and are threatening a number of provincial capitals, as U.S. and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan. This week, the top U.S. military officer, General Mark Milley, said that the Taliban have strategic momentum, and he did not rule out a complete Taliban takeover. But he said it is not inevitable. I don’t think the end game is yet written, he said. Afghans who can afford it are applying by the thousands for visas to leave Afghanistan, fearing a violent descent into chaos. The U.S.-NATO withdrawal is more than 95% complete. Shaheen said the Taliban will lay down their weapons when a negotiated government acceptable to all sides in the conflict is installed in Kabul and Mr. Ghani’s government is gone. I want to make it clear that we do not believe in the monopoly of power because any governments who (sought) to monopolise power in Afghanistan in the past, were not successful governments, said Shaheen, apparently including the Taliban’s own five-year rule in that assessment. So we do not want to repeat that same formula. But he was also uncompromising on the continued rule of Mr. Ghani, calling him a war monger and accusing him of using his Tuesday speech on the Islamic holy day of Id-al-Adha to promise an offensive against the Taliban. Shaheen dismissed Mr. Ghani’s right to govern, resurrecting allegations of widespread fraud that surrounded Mr. Ghani’s 2019 election win. After that vote, both Mr. Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah declared themselves President. After a compromise deal, Mr. Abdullah is now No. 2 in the government and heads the reconciliation council.

B) Xi Jinping visits Tibet border region, first by Chinese leader in years. 

China’s President Xi Jinping this week became the first Chinese leader in many years to visit Tibet as well as its southeastern border region with India, as he inspected a newly opened and strategically important railway line. The official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday Mr. Xi arrived in Tibet on Wednesday, landing at the airport in Nyingchi, a town near the border with India’s Arunachal Pradesh. The Xinhua report said Mr. Xi drove to the Nyang river bridge to inspect the Yarlung Zangbo river, or Brahmaputra river — the Nyang is its second largest tributary. He also visited Nyingchi town and its railway station to inspect the newly built Sichuan-Tibet railway. Videos circulating on social media all through Thursday showed Mr. Xi had also visited Lhasa. Friday’s was the first official confirmation of the visit. This is Mr. Xi’s first visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) since taking over as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012. He had visited in 2011 when he was Vice-President. Xi’s visit to Lhasa in 2011 was on July 21 that year, supposedly to mark the ‘60th Anniversary of the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’, although no one’s sure why that date was chosen — it’s usually May 23. So yesterday could have been considered by the PRC as the 70th Anniversary, observed Tibetologist Robbie Barnett on Twitter. The Seventeen Point Agreement was signed on May 23, 1951. China refers to the agreement as heralding what it calls the peaceful liberation of Tibet. The agreement has been rejected by the Dalai Lama, who has said the Communist Party had both forced it on Tibet and subsequently violated its commitments, leading him to eventually flee to India in exile in 1959. Mr. Xi’s visit to Lhasa and the Potala Palace is expected to mark the anniversary. His visit to the border region and Nyingchi assumes particular significance coming a month after China started operating the first bullet train line in Tibet, linking Lhasa to Nyingchi near the border with Arunachal Pradesh. The China State Railway Group said the 435-km line, on which construction began in 2014, has a designed speed of 160 kilometres per hour and would connect the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region to the border city of Nyingchi with a travel time of three-and-a-half hours. The Lhasa-Nyingchi rail is one among several major infrastructure projects recently completed in Tibet’s southern and southeastern counties near the Arunachal border. Last month, China completed construction of a strategically significant highway through the Grand Canyon of the Yarlung Zangbo river, the second significant passageway to Medog county that borders Arunachal.

NATIONAL NEWS 

A) Pegasus snooping may have helped in toppling of Congress-JD(S) govt in Karnataka in 2019

In the run up to the toppling of the opposition-run state government in Karnataka in July 2019, the phone numbers of deputy chief minister G. Parameshwara and the personal secretaries of chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and former chief minister Siddaramaiah were selected as possible targets for surveillance, according to the news website The Wire, which reviewed records of numbers that were of interest to an Indian client of Israel’s NSO group. The records indicate that the phone numbers of some of the key political players in Karnataka appear to have been selected around the time when an intense power struggle was taking place between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress-led state government in 2019, after 17 ruling alliance’s legislators abruptly resigned to force a trust vote in the assembly, the report stated. Reacting to the development, the Congress said that the BJP used Pegasus spyware t execute Operation Lotus’ and toppled the state government.

B) SC gives two weeks to Manipur to respond to activist father’s compensation plea

The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Manipur government two weeks to respond to a plea for compensation made by the father of activist Erendra Leichongbam, who was detained for two months under the National Security Act (NSA) for his Facebook posts questioning the efficacy of cow dung and urine as a cure for Covid-19 in the context of the death of a BJP leader due to coronavirus. A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah on Monday directed the State to forthwith release Leichongbam, saying he should not spend another night in prison. On Tuesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Manipur, strove for quietus in the case. He said the activist was released immediately after the apex court order. We have shown the gesture of immediately releasing him… Now let it be. But Justice Chandrachud said this was a serious matter concerning personal liberty. Somebody lost their liberty for over two months… It is a serious matter, Mr. Mehta, he remarked. Mehta said the activist could have taken legal recourse and this petition was filed only after months. Advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for Leichongbam’s father, L. Raghumani Singh, said the petition filed by his client had two prayers. First, to quash the May 17 detention order passed by the District Magistrate of Imphal West District against his son and, secondly, payment of compensation for his detention. Then, we will have to justify the order of detention on merits, Mehta took a combative stance after his earlier one to take the case no further. Justice Chandrachud reasoned, But Mr. Mehta, this [seeking compensation] is the choice of the petitioner. Farasat submitted, Yes, responsibility [for the detention] has to be fixed. Mehta responded, Something else is being done here… It seems the petitioner is only incidental. On Monday, Farasat argued that the government was increasingly using preventive detention provisions in cases in which even ordinary penal sections did not apply. He submitted that the Facebook posts were criticism against the advocacy of cow dung and urine as a cure. The stringent NSA provisions have been slapped on the activist to chill his free speech.

C) SC in majority verdict quashes part of 97th Constitutional amendment on cooperatives

The Supreme Court on July 20 in a 2:1 majority verdict upheld the validity of the 97th constitutional amendment that deals with issues related to effective management of cooperative societies but struck down a part inserted by it which relates to the Constitution and working of cooperative societies. A Bench of Justices R.F. Nariman, K.M. Joseph and B.R. Gavai which pronounced the verdict said, We have struck down part IX B of the Constitution related to cooperative societies but we have saved the amendment. Justice Nariman said, Justice Joseph has given a partly dissenting verdict and has struck down the entire 97th constitutional amendment. The 97th constitutional amendment, which dealt with issues related to effective management of co-operative societies in the country was passed by Parliament in December 2011 and had come into effect from February 15, 2012. The change in the Constitution has amended Article 19(1)(c) to give protection to the cooperatives and inserted Article 43 B and Part IX B, relating to them. The Centre has contended that the provision does not denude the States of its power to enact laws with regard to cooperatives. The top court’s verdict came on the Centre’s plea challenging the Gujarat High Court’s 2013 decision striking down certain provisions of the 97th constitutional amendment while holding that Parliament cannot enact laws with regard to cooperative societies as it is a State subject.

D) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments

The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,11,86,841  with the death toll at 4,18,226. While two-thirds of the general population had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, a third does not have antibodies, making approximately 40 crore people still vulnerable to infections, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Balram Bhargava said on Tuesday. Presenting the results of the fourth national COVID serosurvey, Dr. Bhargava said States, districts and areas without antibodies run the risk of infection waves. The survey noted that more than half of the children (6-17 yr) were seropositive while sero-prevalence was similar in rural and urban areas. It was also found that 85% of health care workers (HCWs) had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 while one-tenth of the HCWs were unvaccinated, he said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) U.S. condemns ‘extra-judicial surveillance’ of journalists, activists and regime critics.

The Biden administration has condemned the harassment and ‘extrajudicial surveillance’ of journalists and others in reaction to reports published by a consortium of news websites that Israeli company NSO Group’s spyware, Pegasus, was used for illegal hacking and surveillance of individuals in India and other countries. The United States condemns the harassment or extrajudicial surveillance of journalists, human rights activists, or other perceived regime critics, a White House spokesperson said via email to The Hindu in response to a question on what U.S. President Joe Biden’s position on the issue was. Only on Monday U.S. President Joe Biden had said that China and Russia were protecting and even accommodating cyber hackers and their hacking. The news reports on Pegasus say that in addition to actually or potentially targeting journalists, leaders of the opposition in India, and others, a database of phone numbers that allegedly belonged to the NSO Group contained the numbers of two U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials in New Delhi and employees of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Just as states have the duty to protect human rights, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, including by ensuring that their products or services are not being used by end-users to abuse fundamental freedoms, the spokesperson told The Hindu on Tuesday.

B) Leftist rural teacher declared president-elect in Peru

Rural teacher-turned-political novice Pedro Castillo has become the winner of Peru’s presidential election after the country’s longest electoral count in 40 years. Castillo, whose supporters included Peru’s poor and rural citizens, defeated right-wing politician Keiko Fujimori by just 44,000 votes. Electoral authorities released the final official results on Monday, more than a month after the runoff election took place in the South American nation. Wielding a pencil the size of a cane, the symbol of his Peru Libre party, Castillo popularised the phrase No more poor in a rich country. The economy of Peru, the world’s second-largest copper producer, has been crushed by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing the poverty level to almost one-third of the population and eliminating the gains of a decade. Castillo has promised to use the revenues from the mining sector to improve public services, including education and health, whose inadequacies were highlighted by the pandemic. Those who do not have a car should have at least one bicycle, Castillo, 51, told The Associated Press in mid-April at his adobe house in Anguía, Peru’s third poorest district. Since surprising Peruvians and observers by advancing to the presidential runoff election, Castillo has softened his first proposals on nationalising multinational mining and natural gas companies. Instead, his campaign has said he is considering raising taxes on profits due to high copper prices, which exceed USD 10,000 per ton. Historians say he is the first peasant to become President of Peru, where until now, Indigenous people almost always have received the worst of the deficient public services even though the nation boasted of being the economic star of Latin America in the first two decades of the century. There are no cases of a person unrelated to the professional, military or economic elites who reached the presidency, Cecilia Méndez, a Peruvian historian and professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, told a radio station.

C) Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos reaches space on 1st passenger flight

Jeff Bezos blasted into space Tuesday on his rocket company’s first flight with people on board, becoming the second billionaire in just over a week to ride his own spacecraft. The Amazon founder was accompanied by a hand-picked group: his brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands, and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas — the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space. Named after America’s first astronaut, Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a date chosen by Bezos for its historical significance. He held fast to it, even as Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson pushed up his own flight from New Mexico in the race for space tourist dollars and beat him to space by nine days. Unlike Branson’s piloted rocket plane, Bezos’ capsule was completely automated and required no official staff on board for the anticipated 10-minute, up-and-down flight. Blue Origin was shooting for an altitude of roughly 66 miles (106 kilometers), more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) higher than Branson’s July 11 ride. The 60-foot (18-meter) booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough, before separating and aiming for a vertical landing. The passengers were expected to get three to four minutes of weightlessness to float around the spacious white capsule. Then the window-filled capsule was going to head to a parachute touchdown on the desert floor, with Bezos and his guests briefly experiencing nearly six times the force of gravity, or 6 Gs, on the way back.

NATIONAL NEWS 

A) Govts need to take steps to hold NSO Group accountable: WhatsApp CEO

Following revelations that NSO Group’s ‘Pegasus’ software may have been used to snoop on journalists, politicians and activists worldwide, including holders of 300 Indian phone numbers, WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart has called on governments and companies to take steps to hold the Israeli technology firm accountable. The list of India-based phone numbers include those related to recently appointed Minister for Communication, IT and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of State for Jal Shakti Prahlad Singh Patel, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, poll strategist Prashant Kishor, former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, dozens of journalists, as well as ambassadors/high commissioners of several countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, China and Saudi Arabia. In a tweet, Cathcart said, This is a wake up call for security on the Internet. The mobile phone is the primary computer for billions of people. Governments and companies must do everything they can to make it as secure as possible. Our security and freedom depend on it. WhatsApp had in 2019 sued the NSO Group, accusing it of using the former’s messaging service to conduct cyber-espionage on roughly 1,400 user accounts, including those of journalists and human rights activists. Cathcart added that there is a need for more companies, and, critically, governments, to take steps to hold NSO Group accountable. Once again, we urge a global moratorium on the use of unaccountable surveillance technology now. It’s past time, he said. Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a jibe aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tweeted, We know what he’s been reading everything on your phone! #Pegasus. Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), said the NSO Group should bear direct, criminal liability for the deaths and detentions of those targeted by the digital infection vectors it sells, which have no legitimate use.

B) Pegasus spyware: Congress wants Amit Shah sacked, Modi probed

Accusing the government of treason and compromising on national security over the Pegasus spyware issue, the Congress on Monday demanded the sacking of Home Minister Amit Shah and a probe into the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the matter. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala held Shah responsible for the Pegasus spying issue and said his party’s first demand is his dismissal from the post he occupies. He said the Congress will take all Opposition parties on-board over the issue and decide whether to ask for a judicial or parliamentary probes in the matter. Our first demand is the immediate sacking of Minister of Home and Internal security Amit Shah and a probe into the role of the Prime Minister in the matter, he told reporters. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said Shah should immediately resign as he does not deserve to occupy the position he is holding. Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said Modiji promotes digital India, but what we are seeing is Surveillance India. Accusing the Modi government of murdering the Constitution, law and dismantling national security, Surjewala said it is guilty of treason. The Modi government is the deployer and executor of this illegal and unconstitutional snooping and spying racket through Israeli surveillance software Pegasus, he said.

C) Monsoon session of Parliament sees a turbulent start

The monsoon session had a stormy start on Monday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi unable to introduce his new Ministers, as is customary after the reshuffle, on the first day of Parliament, due to Opposition protest against fuel prices’ hike and farm laws. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that in his 24-year career as a parliamentarian he had never witnessed such a disruption of the customary introduction of Ministers and Congress MP Manickam Tagore asserted that the BJP had done the same when Manmohan Singh, as Prime Minister, had sought to introduce his Ministers in the House. As soon as the Lok Sabha convened and Modi rose to speak, Opposition members protested, carrying placards on fuel price hike and raising slogans demanding the repeal of the three controversial farm laws. Modi responded by pointing out the diversity in his new Council of Ministers and the ‘disrespect’ shown to them by Opposition members. I thought there would be an atmosphere of excitement in the House today, because women, Dalits, Adivasis have been made Ministers in large numbers… I would have been happy to introduce them, he said. It should make everyone proud that several women, several people belonging to the SC/ST community have taken oath as Ministers. Several new Ministers are children of farmers and also belong to OBC [Other Backward Classes] communities. It seems some people cannot digest more women, SC, ST, and OBC community members becoming Ministers, he added. Rajnath Singh spoke as the din did not die down. Healthy traditions have been set by following conventions in Parliament. In my last 24 years of parliamentary life, I have not seen a single instance where the Prime Minister could not introduce his Council of Ministers, even if it’s one. It is sad, unfortunate and not a healthy trend, he said.

D) Opposition attempting to obstruct development trajectory, says Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah responded to disruptions in Parliament amid news reports on large scale snooping on journalists and prominent public figures via the software Pegasus, terming them as attempts by the Opposition to obstruct India’s development trajectory through ‘conspiracies’. He wrote this in a blog on his website after both Houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day after the Opposition parties raised protests on fuel price hikes, the three controversial farm laws and the Pegasus snooping scandal, demanding a Joint Parliamentary Comission (JPC) probe on the snooping and Shah’s resignation. Using a phrase often associated with him, Shah wrote, People have often associated this phrase with me in a lighter vein but today I want to seriously say the timing of the selective leaks, the disruptions…Aap Chronology Samajhiye! [please understand the chronology] this is a report by the disruptors for the obstructors. Disruptors are global organisations which do not like India to progress. Obstructors are political players in India who do not want India to progress. People of India are very good at understanding this chronology and connection, he said.

E) Supreme Court orders release of Manipur activist held over Facebook posts

The Supreme Court on July 19 directed the release of Manipur-based activist Erendro Leichombam, who was detained under the National Security Act for his social media posts allegedly on the efficacy of cow dung and urine as cures for Covid-19 in the context of the death of a BJP leader due to the virus. A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah, remarking that the activist could not be detained in jail even for one night, ordered his release by 5 p.m. on July 19. The court said his continued detention would be a violation of his fundamental right to life and due process of law. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government would file a response in the case but did not pose any objections otherwise. Advocate Shadan Farasat, for Leichombam’s father L. Raghumani Singh, said the government was increasingly using preventive detention provisions in cases in which even ordinary penal sections do not apply. Farasat submitted that the Facebook posts were criticism against the advocacy of cow dung and urine as a cure. He said stringent NSA provisions had been slapped against the activist to chill his free speech. The lawyer submitted that his client’s son had spent days in custody pursuant to criminal cases initiated against him followed by a spell in preventive detention after grant of bail. The petition has sought the quashing of a May 17 detention order and the grounds of detention issued by District Magistrate, Imphal West District. The petition by the father contended that the detention was in violation of an April 30 order of the Supreme Court that had barred authorities from taking legal action or muzzling voices critical of the government’s COVID management.

F) SC asks Kerala to explain why it relaxed Covid-19 curbs for Bakrid

The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala less than 24 hours to explain its reasons for relaxing Covid-19 restrictions between July 18 and July 20 for Bakrid celebrations while noting that any incident which directly affected lives would be viewed sternly and result in prompt action. A Bench of Justices Rohinton F. Nariman and B.R. Gavai asked Kerala to file its affidavit by evening and posted the case for hearing as the first case on July 20 taking into consideration the situation and the celebrations going on in the State of Kerala. Kerala counsel, advocate G. Prakash, said only some shops had been opened in a controlled manner. The court, meanwhile, closed its suo motu case on the conduct of the Kanwar Yatra by Uttar Pradesh after the State informed on Monday that there will be no Kanwar Yatra at all, it has been completely postponed in 2021. Senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, for Uttar Pradesh, said the Kanwar sanghs had come forward and agreed to postpone the yatra considering the current public health situation. What My Lords have intended has had a beneficial effect, Vaidyanathan submitted. Justice Nariman said authorities needed to know that any untoward incidents which directly affect lives will be looked upon sternly and prompt action taken immediately. On Friday, the court, while rejecting Uttar Pradesh’s proposal to conduct a symbolic Kanwar Yatra amid the pandemic for compelling religious reasons, said the fundamental rights of citizens across faiths and their right to life trumped over religious sentiments. However, on Monday, senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for P.K.D Nambiar, intervened to say that while Uttar Pradesh had stopped the yatra, Kerala had displayed a casual attitude to lockdown restrictions owing to Bakrid. Kerala relaxed lockdown curbs on the occasion of Eid on the day the Prime Minister called for caution… Kerala has continued to throw up alarming numbers [of COVID cases] even while many other States have improved their situation, Nambiar said in his plea. He said the decision to open up markets were a product of discussions between Chief Minister Vijayan and the Kerala Vyapari Vyavasaayi Ekopana Samithi. Hence, no medical advice was sought. Communal and political considerations had driven Kerala to open up. Government of Kerala is ready to sacrifice the health and lives of innocent citizens during the critical situation. Political interests and causes cannot overcome the fundamental rights of the citizens of this nation, the plea said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) Pakistan accuses India of ‘using’ FATF for political ends

India is using the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for political designs against Pakistan, said the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, criticising External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar for a statement claiming credit for Pakistan’s continuance on the world body’s watchlist. According to a Pakistan MFA statement on Monday, Jaishankar’s reported comments, made to a group of BJP members as part of a training workshop, vindicated Pakistan’s repeated accusation that India had pushed for Pakistan’s grey listing in 2018 for political rather than technical reasons, which continues to date. India’s credentials for assessing Pakistan in FATF as co-chair of the Joint Group or for that matter any other country are subject to questions, which we urge FATF to look into, the MFA in Islamabad said, adding that the Pakistani government is also considering contacting the FATF President for appropriate action, although it is unclear what that action would be. On Sunday, news agency ANI had reported that Jaishankar had addressed ruling party members as part of a series of e-Chintan workshops on Indian foreign policy achievement’s under the Modi government. According to the report, Pakistan’s grey listing for the past three years, including the most recent decision of the FATF plenary session to keep Pakistan on its increased monitoring list, were cited as the outcome of Indian efforts by the Minister. Due to us (government), Pakistan is under the lens of FATF and it was kept in the grey list. We have been successful in pressurising Pakistan and the fact that Pakistan’s behaviour has changed is because of pressure put by India by various measures, Jaishankar was quoted as saying. The FATF plenary had announced on June 25 that despite completing 26 of 27 tasks required, Pakistan’s failure to complete the last task on convicting all UNSC banned terrorists, meant it would not be delisted for the moment, and had handed down another 6-point list of tasks to be completed as well. Pakistan has consistently maintained that India has politicised FATF. The recent Indian statement makes clear their malintent. Manipulating an important technical forum for narrow political designs against Pakistan is disgraceful but not surprising for the Modi Government, Pakistan’s foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi alleged in a tweet on Monday.

NATIONAL NEWS 

A) Sidhu’s likely elevation as Punjab Congress president set to see opposition

In an apparent attempt to garner support, former Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday continued to meet several party leaders across the State amid likelihood of his elevation as Punjab Congress Committee president, even as at least 10 MLAs came out openly in support of Chief Minister Captain (retd) Amarinder Singh, urging the high command not to let him down. In Delhi, Congress members of Parliament (both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) informally met over lunch at Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa’s residence and are likely to seek an appointment with party president Sonia Gandhi for a ‘rethink’ on Sidhu’s proposed elevation. Officially the meeting was to formulate the party’s position on the call given by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha to raise the farmers’ issue and not allow any other business in the House during the Monsoon session unless the farm laws are repealed. But the photo-op at Bajwa’s house was meant to convey their opposition to Sidhu’s impending elevation. The former Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief had met Capt. Amarinder on Saturday. Asked what they would do if the high command went ahead with its decision, an MP at the meeting said, The party may not actually split, but it has already virtually split. There will be no-cooperation from our side. Prominent MPs, including Lok Sabha members Manish Tewari, Ravneet Bittu, Jasbir Gill and Perneet Kaur, wife of the Punjab Chief Minister, attended the lunch. In Chandigarh, senior MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira, sharing a statement on behalf of MLAs, urged the high command not to let down the Chief Minister because of whose unrelenting efforts the party stands well entrenched in Punjab. There was no doubt that the appointment of State PCC chief was the prerogative of the party high command but at the same time washing dirty linen in public has only decreased the party graph during the last couple of months, said the MLAs in the joint statement. The MLAs backing Captain Amarinder are Harminder Singh Gill, Fateh Bajwa, Gurpreet Singh, Kuldip Singh Vaid, Balwinder Singh Laddi, Santokh Singh Bhalaipur, Joginderpal, Jagdev Singh Kamalu, Primal Singh and Sukhpal Khaira. They said that Capt. Amarinder commanded immense respect across different sections of society, particularly the farmers for whom he even endangered his chair as Chief Minister while passing the 2004 Termination of Waters Agreement Act.

 

B) In a move that runs counter to its own earlier judgement, SC mulls limit to role as policy watchdog   

The resolve voiced by a Division Bench of the Supreme Court in July to examine the extent to which the judiciary can question the government’s Covid-19 policies contradicts the court’s three-judge Bench judgment in May, which held that courts cannot be silent spectators when constitutional rights of citizens are infringed by executive policies. The May 31 judgment by a Supreme Court Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat is associated with the Centre’s reversal of its dual vaccine pricing policy. On July 14, a Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari said courts should not undermine the executive at a time when a collective effort was required to overcome the public health crisis. Can the court tell the Executive to get the formula (for vaccines) from companies abroad or decide the number of ventilators… These are times of crisis when everybody has to be cautious… Is this when the court should get into all this? Executive has the benefit of experts with their expert knowledge… We will hear submissions on how far constitutional courts should go into these matters… How much we should restrain ourselves, Justice Saran had observed orally. There are certain norms based on which every institution should function, Justice Maheshwari had noted. The oral remarks from the Division Bench hardly gel with the observations made under a sub-heading ‘Separation of Powers’ in the May judgment authored by Justice Chandrachud that a public health crisis like Covid-19 does not mean the Constitution should be kept away and forgotten by the government. The Justice Saran Bench was hearing an appeal by the Uttar Pradesh government against an Allahabad High Court order of May 17, which had described the medical system in smaller cities and villages of the State during the pandemic as Ram Bharose (at the mercy of the gods).

 

C) U.P. Assembly Elections: Mayawati tries to win support of Brahmins 

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati is again trying to win the support of the dominant Brahmin community ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022, despite suffering repeated failures since 2012. On Sunday, Mayawati appealed to the community to take ‘inspiration’ from the Dalits and remain ‘firm’ in not falling for any lure or gimmicks deployed by other parties, especially the ruling BJP. Mayawati said she was ‘proud’ that the Dalit community, to which she belongs, did not fall for any amount of lure they were tempted with by other parties, especially the BJP in the last few elections. She claimed that the Dalits voted one-way for her despite attempts to mislead them with money, visits to their homes by BJP leaders, and khichdi (meal). To attract the community to her party and build consensus among them that their interests were secure only under a BSP government, Mayawati has deputed Satish Chandra Mishra, Rajya Sabha MP and Brahmin face of the BSP, to start a campaign with special meetings for the community starting July 23. The campaign will start from the politically-sensitive town of Ayodhya. In the 2017 Assembly polls, the BSP was reduced to 19 seats. It was a huge fall for the party since it came to power with a full majority in the 403-member Assembly in 2007. Mayawati admitted that the BSP did not win many seats in 2017 but stressed that her vote percentage did not fall that drastically. Our vote percentage was even more than the Samajwadi Party’s, she said. While the BSP secured over 22% votes, the SP, which contested less number of seats due to an alliance with the Congress, got around 21.8% though it won more than double the seats won by the BSP. Mayawati said the upper caste communities, especially Brahmins, were in distress in U.P. under the BJP rule. In the last election, she said, the Brahmins voted heavily in favour of the BJP and helped it secure a five-year-term in power. But she now feels that the Brahmins are now ‘repenting’ and would not be ‘mislead’ by the BJP again.

 

D) Midday meals result in better health for next generation, says study 

Girls who had access to the free lunches provided at government schools, had children with a higher height-to-age ratio than those who did not, says a new study on the inter-generational benefits of India’s midday meal scheme published in Nature Communications this week. Using nationally representative data on cohorts of mothers and their children spanning 23 years, the paper showed that by 2016, the prevalence of stunting was significantly lower in areas where the midday mean scheme was implemented in 2005. More than one in three Indian children are stunted, or too short for their age, which reflects chronic under nutrition. The fight against stunting has often focused on boosting nutrition for young children, but nutritionists have long argued that maternal health and well-being is the key to reduce stunting in their offspring. Noting that interventions to improve maternal height and education must be implemented years before those girls and young women become mothers, the study has attempted a first-of-its-kind inter-generational analysis of the impacts of a mass feeding programme. The paper was authored by a researcher from the University of Washington and economists and nutrition experts at the International Food Policy Research Institute. It found that the midday meal scheme was associated with 13-32% of India’s improvement in height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) between 2006 and 2016. The linkages between midday meals and lower stunting in the next generation were stronger in lower socio-economic strata and likely work through women’s education, fertility, and use of health services, said the paper. The midday meal scheme was launched in 1995 to provide children in government schools with a free cooked meal with a minimum energy content of 450 kcal, but only 6% of girls aged 6-10 years had benefited from the scheme in 1999. By 2011, with an expansion in budget, and state implementation following a Supreme Court order, coverage had grown to 46%. The study tracked nationally representative cohorts of mothers by birth year and socio-economic status to show how exposure to the scheme reduced stunting in their children.

 

E) Danish Siddiqui to be buried at Jamia Millia Islamia graveyard 

Slain photojournalist Danish Siddiqui will be laid to rest at the Jamia Millia Islamia graveyard, according to a statement released on July 18. Jamia Millia Islamia [JMI] Vice-Chancellor accepted the request of the family of late photojournalist Danish Siddiqui to bury his body at the JMI graveyard meant exclusively for university employees, their spouses and minor child, the university said in the statement. Siddiqui had done his masters from the university. His father Akhtar Siddiqui was the Dean of Faculty of Education there. Danish Siddiqui had studied at AJK Mass Communication Research Centre (MCRC) from 2005 -2007. The Officiating Director of AJK MCRC said, Danish was one of the brightest stars in our hall of fame and a proactive alumnus who kept returning to his alma mater to share with students his work and experiences. We will miss him deeply but are determined to keep his memory alive. Professor Sabeena Gadihoke said his photographs were hard-hitting but he never compromised on the dignity of those within his frames. Danish had the unique ability to bestow a journalistic picture with empathy and to give dignity and grace to his subjects, she added.

 

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

A) Winds of change in Sri Lanka

From the time the pandemic struck last year, China has topped the charts in providing crucial and timely support to Sri Lanka, by way of over $2 billion in loans and a currency swap, not to mention Sinopharm vaccines totalling over a million in donation and about six million for procurement. However, China is curiously under more public scrutiny in the island nation than ever before. Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu’s correspondent in Colombo, explains this week what has changed in how Sri Lankans perceive their country’s relationship with China, and the significance of this perception shift. But how much that shift applies to the leadership is another question. In a rare diplomatic gesture last week, Sri Lanka issued a commemorative coin marking the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party. Newly appointed Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa leaves after signing documents during his swearing-in ceremony, in Colombo on July 8, 2021.  Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s leading political family, which has made no secret of its wishes to cultivate deeper ties with China, is expanding its hold over the country’s politics. Basil Rajapaksa, brother of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, was on Thursday sworn in as Sri Lanka’s Minister of Finance, becoming the fourth Rajapaksa brother and fifth member of the first family to enter the Cabinet. In this profile of the Rajapaksas, Meera Srinivasan examines the rise, fall, and rise again of this political family, and how they have managed to secure their grip on the island’s politics.

 

B) Because of Taliban’s claims, India to temporarily close its consulate in Kandahar

As the Taliban’s claims about taking Afghan territory grow, India has decided to temporarily close its consulate in Kandahar, sending a special Indian Air Force flight to evacuate about 50 diplomats and security personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) back to Delhi, government sources confirmed to The Hindu. Officials said the move was purely precautionary, and stemmed from reports that if the Taliban continue to push on to the southern city of Kandahar, which was their headquarters in the 1990s, the fighting in the city with Afghan Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) could get fierce. A day after The Hindu’s report, the Ministry of External Affairs said the move was a purely temporary measure in view of the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces. The security situation in Kandahar continues to remain grim with fierce fighting going on.  India has been closely watching the situation in the Afghan cities of Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif. Operations at India’s other Consulates in Herat and Jalalabad were suspended in April 2020, when all Indian personnel were brought back to Delhi due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ahead of a full security review. Addressing a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said India is concerned at the direction of events in Afghanistan. The Taliban, meanwhile, claimed on Friday to be in control of 85% of Afghanistan after seizing key border crossings with Iran and Turkmenistan following a sweeping offensive launched as U.S. troops pulled out of the country. With U.S. troops almost completely out of Afghanistan and the Taliban making rapid territorial gains in the country, President Joe Biden said the U.S. was not in Afghanistan for nation-building purposes and that it was for the Afghans to decide their future. Mr. Biden also said that the U.S. military mission would conclude by August 31. In a rare diplomatic gesture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar travelled to Tehran on Thursday, and called on Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi, a month before he assumes office. Mr. Jaishankar made a transit halt in Tehran on his way to Moscow.

NATIONAL NEWS 

A) Change of guard in Karnataka only after July 26, say sources

It was a day marked with high-profile political meetings held amid speculations of will-he won’t-he? Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyyurappa, facing a rebellion in the state BJP unit, has offered to resign citing ill health, sources said. The 78-year-old Chief Minister met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last evening and followed it with three other meetings held with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J.P. Nadda. When asked if had discussed the prospect of stepping down, Yeddiyurappa quipped, I don’t know of any rumour about a leadership change. You tell me? The BJP high command is likely to decide on a future course of action in the state with sources hinting at July 26, as a possible date of change of guard, if any. The date also marks two years of Yeddiyurappa’s term. Several names have cropped up as possible contenders, namely state home minister Basavaraj Bommai, mines minister Murugesh Nirani and parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi. Though there was no independent way of corroborating what exactly transpired in the meetings with the leaders, sources in the party added that Yeddyurappa had offered to resign on the one condition that his son Vijayendra should get a good position in the state party unit. The state unit of the BJP has been riven by dissent with several senior leaders openly questioning Yeddyurappa’s leadership; particularly, his son’s interference in the state administration. Senior party leaders Vijayapura City MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, Tourism Minister CP Yogeshwar and legislative council member AH Vishwanath have even accused the CM of corruption. To put a lid on dissent, the party had even explored the possibility of a cabinet expansion to rein in the dissenters. Yediyurappa, had arrived in  on a chartered flight to Delhi on Friday with his son for the series of meetings with the BJP leadership at the Centre.

B) Dissent refuses to die down in Punjab Congress

It’s not just the BJP state unit of Karnataka which is in turmoil. There are rumblings in the Punjab Congress unit over the elevation of MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu to head the party unit and his uneasy equation with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who has aired his concern against the move in a letter to the party high command. Even as this mail finds you dear reader, Sidhu’s elevation appears certain. Sidhu met with Punjab unit chief Sunil Jakhar even as the AICC state affairs incharge Harish Rawat had arrived in Chandigarh for a meeting with Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to iron out  differences. Through the day Sidhu also met with Minister Sukhjinder Randhawa’s house in Chandigarh. Apart from Randhawa, Sidhu also met minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, senior leader Lal Singh, MLAs Raja Warring, Kulbir Zira, Darshan Brar and Barindermeet Singh Pahra who have in the past spoken against the CM. The Punjab Congress is battling some serious infighting and the open rebellion of Sidhu against the CM. The high command has also failed so far to implement its peace formula, which seems to centre around Sidhu’s elevation as the PCC chief. Talks of Sidhu’s proposed elevation have not gone down well with the Chief Minister who has reportedly written a letter to the party president Sonia Gandhi claiming that the move would split the party in Punjab. While Singh has demanded that Sidhu delete his tweets which were seen as a direct attack on the chief minister, he has also said that he will abide by the high command’s decision on the matter. Watch this space.

C) Sharad Pawar meets Prime Minister Modi

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the latter’s residence in a meeting that lasted for over 40 minutes. It is learnt that Pawar had flagged off his concern at the newly-formed Ministry of Cooperation under Amit Shah, reminding the prime minister that cooperative banking is a state subject. Pawar, it is learnt, has also raised several issues concerning farmers. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister’s Office had tweeted Rajya Sabha MP Shri Sharad Pawar met PM Narendra Modi, on Twitter along with a photo of the two leaders meeting. Earlier this week, the Rajya Sabha member sought to draw attention on the formation of the new Ministry of Cooperation a day before the mega reshuffle of PM Modi’s cabinet. Pawar had said laws for the cooperation sector had been framed in the Maharashtra assembly and that the centre has no right to interfere with legislation drafted by the state. The meeting with Prime Minister Modi two days ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament, assumes importance amid reports of strains in the Shiv Sena-led alliance in Maharashtra, of which Pawar’s NCP  is a constituent. Pawar who was seen as instrumental in cobbling up an opposition  ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, also said no decision has been taken about the 2024 elections. The political situation keeps changing, he added. Pawar was part of a meeting held by the newly-appointed leader of Rajya Sabha and Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday, ahead of the Parliament session. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior Congress leader Anand Sharma were present in the meeting.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) First Covid case in Tokyo 

The Organisers of the Tokyo Olympic Games have revealed the first Covid-19 case in the Games Village, sending ripples of concern in the city which is currently battling a surge in COVID cases.  With six days to go for the inaugural ceremony, organisers said an unnamed person had tested positive for coronavirus in the Games Village. There was one person in the Village. That was the very first case in the Village that was reported during the screening test, Masa Takaya, spokesman for the Tokyo organising committee, told a press conference. Japanese media had alluded to the person as a foreign national. The Games are being held despite a fierce backlash. Japanese media reported  Seiko Hashimoto, the chief organiser of the Tokyo 2020 Games, as having said that, We are doing everything to prevent any Covid outbreaks. If we end up with an outbreak we will make sure we have a plan in place to respond. The organisers of the Games which were postponed for a year because of the pandemic, will be hoping that this would be the first and the last instance of COVID.

B) Disturbance of foundation of the bilateral relationship between India and China. 

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said there has been a lot of concern about the India-China relationship since the past one year because Beijing has not observed agreements on the border issue which has disturbed the foundation of the bilateral relationship. Chinese nationals displayed banners in protest from across the Indus river, close to the Line of Actual Control, when Indian villagers were celebrating the birthday of the Dalai Lama in Demchok in eastern Ladakh. According to Urgain Tsewang, village head of Koyul (Kakjung), one of the last settlements in the Demchok sector, the Chinese, comprising of Army personnel and civilians, came in five vehicles down unpaved roads and raised the banners 200 metres from a community centre where the Dalai Lama’s birthday was being celebrated. We look at the rise and fall of the Chinese ride-hailing app Didi, the latest casualty of a tug-of-war between big tech and Communist Party regulators. Former Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale speaks about his new book which examines how China negotiates with India, drawing on six significant events in the relationship.

NATIONAL NEWS 

A) Supreme Court asks U.P. to reconsider plan to hold Kanwar Yatra

The Supreme Court on July 16 disagreed with the Uttar Pradesh government’s proposal to conduct a symbolic Kanwar Yatra amid the pandemic for compelling religious reasons, saying the fundamental rights of citizens across faiths and their right to life trumped religious sentiments. A Bench of Justices Rohinton F. Nariman and B.R. Gavai gave Uttar Pradesh time till July 19 to rethink their proposal and file an affidavit. If the State did not change its plans, Justice Nariman said the court will deliver whatever we have to deliver on July 19. We are of the prima facie view that this is a matter that concerns everyone of us as citizens of India and goes to the very heart of Article 21 (right to life), which has the pride of place in the Fundamental Rights Chapter of the Indian Constitution. Health of the citizenry of India and the right to life are paramount. All other sentiments, albeit religious, are subservient to this basic fundamental right, Justice Nariman dictated in the order. The hearing began with Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitting that the State must not permit movement. The top law officer explained the logistics of the yatra, its destination and what participants do, including that they collect Ganga jal (water) from Haridwar and perform abhishek at various Shiva temples. An affidavit was filed by the Centre late in the Supreme Court. After speed-reading the affidavit, Justice Nariman announced peremptorily, State of Uttar Pradesh cannot go on with this, 100%. The Bench refused to permit a physical yatra. Senior advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan, for Uttar Pradesh, intervened saying, We only want a symbolic yatra. Past experience shows that a total ban would be inappropriate, the senior lawyer submitted for Uttar Pradesh. Vaidyanathan then proceeded to read out from Uttar Pradesh’s affidavit, explaining that its decision to hold the yatra was reached after considering the faith and religious sentiments and after consultations with the disaster management authorities. He explained the yatra would be held with a minimum number of people maintaining social distancing. The holy Ganga jal would be made available for abhishek at the nearest Shiva temples, he submitted.

 

B) Over 86% of breakthrough infections caused by Delta variant: ICMR 

A majority over 86% of the breakthrough infections after Covid-19 vaccination have been caused by the Delta variant, with hospitalisation of 9.8% of such cases and fatality observed in 0.4% of cases, according to the results of a nationwide study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on breakthrough Covid-19 infection. A breakthrough infection is a case of illness in which a vaccinated individual becomes sick from the same illness that the vaccine is meant to prevent. For the study, Clinical characterisation and Genomic analysis of COVID-19 breakthrough infections during second wave in different States of India’’, ICMR collected 677 clinical samples of individuals who have been partially or fully vaccinated but contracted the infection. The samples were collected from 17 States and Union Territories, including Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Manipur, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Chandigarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh. The study found that a total of 482 cases (71%) were symptomatic with one or more symptoms, while 29% had asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Fever (69%) was the most consistent presentation followed by body ache, including headache and nausea (56%), cough (45%), sore throat (37%), loss of smell and taste (22%), diarrhoea (6%), breathlessness (6%) and 1% had ocular irritation and redness, it noted. The southern, western, eastern and north-western regions predominantly reported breakthrough infection mainly from Delta and then the Kappa variant. Alpha was predominant behind reinfection in the northern region, it stated. Though this was not a study on the effect of the vaccines, it had been noted that among the 677 patients, 604 received Covishield, 71 Covaxin and two got China’s Sinopharm.

 

C) Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui killed in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province 

Noted Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was killed during a Thursday night clash between the Afghan special forces and Taliban attackers. Tolo News, a leading news channel of Kabul, reported that Siddiqui, working for Reuters news agency, was covering the clashes between the two sides in Kandahar over the last few days and he died in Spin Boldak district, which has a contentious international border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in a condolence message, expressed solidarity with the media, saying his government was committed to upholding freedom of expression. I am deeply saddened with the shocking reports that Reuters Photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was killed while covering the Taliban atrocities in Kandahar, he said.  Reuters has reported that Siddiqui was in the main market of Spin Boldak when he was caught in a crossfire. Tolo News has reported that a senior commander of the Afghan special forces, Sediq Karzai, too was killed in the incident. The Indian journalist was embedded with Afghan security forces. Danish Siddiqui was travelling in an armoured Humvee with Afghan soldiers and he had shared videos over the past few days that showed the vehicle coming under attack on several occasions. In his last report filed on July 13 from Kandahar under highly difficult circumstances, Siddiqui had recorded the experience of Afghan commandos who conducted a raid to save a kidnapped policeman. Siddiqui was known for his compassionate photographic coverage of current developments in South Asia. In recent years, his photographs of the Rohingya refugees who were displaced by the Myanmar military from the Rakhine province, drew global attention to the plight of the displaced community that is currently living in camps in Bangladesh. The photographs of the Rohinyga refugees was recognised with a Pulitzer Prize. Earlier this year, he used innovative methods like drones to capture the scale of the second wave of Covid-19 in India. His photographs that showed funeral pyres burning in open spaces drew global attention to the tragedy that India faced during March-May 2021.

 

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

A) 10,000 ‘jihadi’ fighters have crossed into Afghanistan from Pak., says Ashraf Ghani 

Pakistan has not severed its relationship with terror groups, said Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani in a pointed charge at the neighbouring country as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan sat a few feet away on stage at the Central and South Asia connectivity conference held in Tashkent on Friday. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who also attended the conference, referred to the problems with transit trade in his speech alluding to Pakistan. He said economic development and prosperity go hand in hand with peace and security. In a hard-hitting speech, Ghani said more than 10,000 ‘jihadi’ fighters have entered Afghanistan in the last month, according to intelligence reports, while the Pakistan government had failed to convince the Taliban to participate seriously in the peace talks. Contrary to repeated assurances by Prime Minister Khan and his Generals that Pakistan does not find a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in Pakistan’s interest and short of use of force will use its power and influence to make the Taliban negotiate seriously, networks and organizations supporting the Taliban are openly celebrating the destruction of the assets and capabilities of the Afghan people and State, Ghani said at the inaugural ceremony of the conference, as he listed the challenges and threats to regional connectivity. Responding to the charges a few minutes later, Khan said he was disappointed by the allegation that Pakistan had a negative role in the conflict. President Ghani, the country that is going to be most affected by turmoil in Afghanistan is Pakistan. Pakistan suffered 70,000 casualties in the last 15 years. The last thing Pakistan wants is more conflict, Khan said, addressing the Afghan President directly. I can assure you that no country has tried harder to get Taliban on the dialogue table than Pakistan. Khan said that apart from the violence in Afghanistan, outstanding disputes like Kashmir between regional players like India and Pakistan was the other big challenge to regional connectivity, and in comments to the media later, he blamed the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) for creating hurdles to India-Pakistan dialogue.

 

B) Eric Garcetti to be the Ambassador to India from U.S.

More than a month after the United States announced the donation of 80 million doses of American-made COVID vaccines to dozens of countries including India, and Vice-President Kamala Harris called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convey the decision, the vaccines are being held up by regulatory issues over indemnity, Indian and U.S. officials told. President Joe Biden has nominated Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to the post of Ambassador to India. Mr. Garcetti’s nomination, which had been expected for weeks, was announced by the White House as part of a set of ambassadorial nominations. The Biden administration reacted to the death of Father Stan Swamy in custody in India and called on all governments to respect the role of human rights activists, saying it was saddened by his death.

 

C) Navjot Singh Sidhu meets Sonia Gandhi as Punjab Congress crisis escalates 

Former Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her residence, 10 Janpath, after the infighting in the State Congress intensified following reports that he will be made the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief. All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge of Punjab Harish Rawat, who was part of the meeting along with former party chief Rahul Gandhi, told reporters that Gandhi was yet to take a call on the proposed changes to revamp the PCC. After the hour-long meeting, Sidhu avoided speaking to the media but Rawat did. I had come here to submit my report on Punjab to the Congress chief and as soon as a decision is taken by the party president, I will come and share it with you, he said. Asked if Sidhu would be made PCC chief, he said, Who says this. On Thursday, however, Rawat, in response to the same question (whether Sidhu would be the new PCC chief), observed that a formula was being worked around it. What one puts as breaking news, it is their own interpretation. I don’t interfere in their area. And secondly, until the Congress president has cleared it, I don’t know what is on her mind and her last decision, he stated.

The leadership is desperate to broker peace between Chief Minister Captain (Retd.) Amarinder Singh and Sidhu before the State goes to the polls early next year. The crisis in the State Congress is said to have escalated on Thursday after Rawat hinted that Sidhu could be elevated as the PCC chief, with two working presidents, one from a Hindu community and the other a Dalit.

The suggestion, however, did not go do well with Captain Amarinder Singh’s camp. He is said to have reiterated his view that both the party and the government cannot be headed by Jat Sikhs (both him and Sidhu) and the party organisation should be headed by a Hindu leader.

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, who met Gandhi on Thursday, is learnt to have batted for the Chief Minister. While Capt. Singh met his loyalists at his farmhouse on Thursday, Sidhu met a group of MLAs, including dissident Ministers.

 

D) SBI-led consortium realises ₹792.11 cr. by sale of Kingfisher Airlines’ shares in Mallya case 

The State Bank of India-led consortium on Friday realised ₹792.11 crore by sale of shares in the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines in the Vijay Mallya case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had handed over the shares to the consortium. In the cases involving Mallya, diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, the ED has so far transferred assets worth ₹12,762.25 crore to public sector banks. The accused persons have caused a total loss of ₹22,585.83 crore to them.

As on date, assets worth 58% of the total loss have been returned to the banks or confiscated in favour of the Central government. The ED has attached or seized assets worth ₹18,217.27 crore in these cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In the Mallya case, the consortium had recovered ₹7,181.50 crore by liquidating the assets transferred to the lenders by the ED. A few days ago, the ED handed over assets worth ₹3,728.64 crore to the SBI-led consortium, including shares worth ₹3,644.74 crore, demand draft for ₹54.33 crore, and immovable properties valued at about ₹29.57 crore, said an ED official.