Rahul Gandhi is obsessed with mobile phones. Any city he goes to, he insists that a mobile phone manufacturing facility is set up there. Considering he tweets like a teenaged girl, with heart emojis and all, instead of prime minister aspirant, one can understand his obsession with the mobile phones. After making mobile phones in Mumbai, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Bhopal, Rahul Gandhi has now decided mobile phones will be made in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh if Congress comes to power.
#WATCH: “Main woh din dekhna chahata hu jab China ka yuva selfie le aur phone ke piche dekhke soche ki yeh Chitrakoot jagah kahan hai? Jaha yeh phone bana hai”, says Congress President Rahul Gandhi pic.twitter.com/kw3W51GQEK
Rahul Gandhi is so predictable that even before he made the big ‘Made in Chitrakoot’ announcement, people had already predicted he would mention the same. BJP Delhi spokesperson Tajinder Bagga had tweeted minutes before Rahul Gandhi’s speech.
Aaj Mobile Make in Chitrakoot honge but no one will tweet with #ChirkutInChitrakoot
One wonders what will the world do with so many mobile phones? No sooner had Rahul Gandhi uttered first words at the rally in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, #ChirkutinChitrakoot was trending on Twitter. Chirkut is a colloquial Hindi word for a foolish person.
Apparently, Rahul Gandhi is not just obsessed with mobile phones. Previously it was all about Congress trying to take credit that all products in India, from cars to computers, to have been brought by his family members who also doubled up as India’s prime ministers. Now, he is just redefining entrepreneurship.
So one wonders why would Rahul Gandhi indulge in something that’s now so repetitive, that it’s boring his own fans? Are his speech writers our of ideas? Or does he and his speechwriters think that people are idiots who will not see through this boring stupidity? Or is there a method to this madness?
If one Twitter user is to be believed, Rahul Gandhi is perhaps doing this so if he comes back to power in any state, he will claim that he has put all those factories, considering India has seen a sharp rise in mobile phone manufacturing after the Modi government came to power.
You are not getting his point. Since 2014, mobile manufacturing has been rising. If he wins any state, he will claim he put all those factories.
It is true that India has seen a tectonic shift in the mobile manufacturing industry. Recently, in July 2018, Samsung inaugurated the world’s largest mobile phone factory in Noida, India, which will roll out 120 million units per year. India has attracted investment from 37 mobile manufacturing companies recently and In 2017, India became the world’s second largest mobile phone producer after the proportion of global handsets produced in India increased from 3% in 2014 to 11% in 2017. Even Foxconn’s competitor and Apple’s largest contract manufacturer Wistron is also investing INR 3000 crores (US$ 450 million) for setting up a manufacturing unit in Karnataka which will produce 100 million units every year and will generate thousands of jobs.
Rahul Gandhi’s repetition is bordering on hilarity now. Not just people on Twitter, but even those ‘supporters’ attending his rally could predict what he is going to talk about. Why would he do that? Is he short of ideas? Does he think everyone is naive or as the Twitter user pointed out, he repeats the same gibberish so he can later claim the credit if he ever comes back to power? We will leave that for our readers to decide.
Rahul Gandhi has been on the campaign trail for upcoming elections. Today, Rahul Gandhi is delivering a rally speech in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi seems to be running out of lies to further because he has come a full circle and is now repeating the same lies over and over again.
During his rally in Chitrakoot, Rahul Gandhi said that Prime Minister Modi is making Sardar Patel’s statue in Gujarat and like our shirts and shoes, this statue too is going to be ‘Made in China’.
Narendra Modi Ji is making Sardar Patel’s statue in Gujarat. It will be world’s tallest statue but it will be ‘Made In China’ like our shoes and shirts: Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Chitrakoot. #MadhyaPradeshpic.twitter.com/VMxf0eTr28
In the year 2015, Outlook had claimed that L&T had given the work of constructing the statue to a Chinese Foundry. The article mocked Modi’s “Make in India” campaign, by branding the Patel statue as “Made in China”. We had debunked this lie by Outlook in 2015 itself.
L&T had in fact issued two statements countering this baseless story. However, facts should not be allowed to get in the way of propaganda and Rahul Gandhi seems to firmly believe in that saying.
On 26th September 2017, Rahul Gandhi while speaking at a rally had repeated this long debunked lie and claimed that this move would end up providing jobs in China and not India. Then too, we had reiterated that this was a blatant lie. But since a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth, Rahul Gandhi has decided not to be deterred by pesky little facts.
He has repeated the same lie today in his Madhya Pradesh rally. Perhaps the most tragic part is that the media, which has repeatedly behaved like Nero’s guest, have maintained stoic silence as Rahul Gandhi repeats the same lie a thousand times. Perhaps it is the silence of the media that gives Rahul Gandhi the impunity necessary to lie blatantly and we won’t be surprised if he gets a free pass from the media this time as well.
Rahul Gandhi has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘corrupt’ in September 2018. This is not the first time he has done so, in the past he had alleged ‘PM’s personal corruption’ in December 2016 too. That was on a baseless issue of Sahara-Birla dairy entries, in which the Supreme Court dismissed a plea by Prashant Bhushan demanding an inquiry into the matter.
The SC had asked the petitioner to ‘bring better material‘. and refused to order any probe first on 15 December 2016, and then dismissed the matter forever on 11 January 2017 saying ‘loose sheets are not evidence’ after giving the petitioner almost a month to bring ‘better material’. Despite the SC finding no merit in the case on 15 Dec 2016, Rahul Gandhi repeated the same charges till 11 January 2017 at least and went to the extent of demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation on 27 Dec 2016.
Then in September 2018 he again called the Prime Minister a ‘thief’, and alleged a ‘scam’ in the Rafale deal where none exists, or at least, where none has been proven till now, and this issue doesn’t seem to have been taken up even by other Opposition parties other than the Congress. Rahul Gandhi said on 22 Sept 2018 that was he was ‘absolutely convinced‘ that the ‘Prime Minister is corrupt’. Narendra Modi is known as an honest and incorruptible man, and not even the very hostile media which demonized him for 12 years from 2002 to 2014 ever accused him of being personally corrupt.
Rahul Gandhi’s party itself is in a ditch, and he is desperate to make some mud stick on the BJP, especially the Prime Minister. He is also facing a case of financial misdeeds of his own, namely the National Herald case. He hopes that his charges on the Prime Minister will deflect attention from his own case. Twitter duly trended #RahulKaPuraKhandanChor (“Entire family of Rahul is a thief”). But there is already a case where there is foolproof evidence of his party (he and his mother) saving a corrupt man, who had named Sonia Gandhi as being involved in the case on tape!
The CBI was called a ‘Caged Parrot’ by the Supreme Court of India during the UPA regime (May 2004- May 2014). On the UPA’s order, the CBI tried to frame the present BJP chief Amit Shah and Rajasthan ex-Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria. But what had the CBI done on another case with evidence?
Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi once split the BJP in Chhattisgarh in December 2001, when he walked away with 12 MLAs through money power when he was Chief Minister. In December 2003 Assembly elections were held for Chhattisgarh state for the first time, and the BJP won a full majority winning 50 out of 90 seats while the Congress unexpectedly lost power, reduced to only 37 out of 90 seats.
Ajit Jogi was said to have promised 75 seats for the Congress to the then party chief Sonia Gandhi. Stunned by the electoral loss, Ajit Jogi as outgoing Chief Minister tried to split the BJP again after losing elections and form the Government. He wrote a letter to the then Governor saying, “Our Congress Party’s all 37 MLAs give their support to a government to be formed under the leadership of Baliram Kashyap, MP. Please give us the chance to form the government”. This letter of Jogi was openly brought out in the media on 6-7 December 2003 and Ajit Jogi admitted that he wrote the letter.
Congress loyalist Outlook weekly itself gave a report of this attempt to grab power by Jogi after losing polls in 2003.
Congress was forced to suspend Ajit Jogi after that immediately. But in March 2004, before the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress brought back the tainted man.
The same day as this letter went out (6-7 December 2003), an audio tape having a conversation between Ajit Jogi and a BJP leader of Chhattisgarh on phone was aired. In that tape, Jogi was talking of giving money to buy BJP MLAs to split the party. Jogi later said that the letter to the Governor was his, but the voice in the tape was not his. But this lie was exposed by the forensic lab report which said that the voice in the tape was indeed of Ajit Jogi. This single lie itself is enough to nail Ajit Jogi. This report shows that the lab said it was Jogi’s voice indeed. But on 4th June 2012, the CBI under UPA said that it cannot prosecute Ajit Jogi and had filed a closure report.
For bribing the MLAs, 45 lakh+ rupees were paid in cash to a BJP leader, directly by Ajit Jogi and his son Amit Jogi. These 45 lakhs were first given to Police and then handed over to the CBI as well on 15 February 2004 as per the Deccan Herald’s report of 16 Feb 2004. The CBI also traced the Bank account from which the money was paid.
Despite this clear evidence the CBI first said in January 2007 that it cannot prosecute Jogi and then again had said and done so in June 2012. But in January 2007, PTI reported that almost everyone in CBI was in favour of prosecuting Ajit Jogi and wanted a chargesheet to be filed against him after the tape was proved to be genuine, but Additional Solicitor General of the UPA Government influenced/pressured/ advised CBI not to do so. As a result of this pressure, the CBI said in May 2008 that there is no law to prosecute Ajit Jogi in this case. [This is the height of farcical excuses, there are many laws, e.g. Prevention of Corruption Act, under which he can be prosecuted.]
In Feb 2006 CNN-IBN reported that apart from having been charge-sheeted in the cash-for-MLAs scam, Jogi has also been named as a co-conspirator in the case of the murder of Chhattisgarh state NCP treasurer Ram Avtar Jaggi in 2003 after two of the several accused turned approver and gave statements in a Chhattisgarh court. Ajit Jogi was ultimately acquitted in the case due to lack of sufficient evidence, but 19 were convicted, which included 4 Congress workers. The then NSUI state President, Ejaz Dhebar’s brother Yahyaha Dhebar was convicted and given life term, as was Chiman Singh, who actually shot Ramavtar Jaggi dead. Singh was a close associate of Ajit Jogi.
Now let us look at the contents of those conversations between Ajit Jogi and the then state BJP Vice-President Virendra Pandey who got the talk recorded and nailed Jogi in December 2003. First are some excerpts of that talk between Jogi and Virendra Pandey carried by a Congress-loyalist weekly Outlook. Virendra Pandey pretended to fall for the bait of Ajit Jogi and got him nailed. Note that this Congress loyalist weekly carefully deletes the reference to Sonia Gandhi in the excerpts. And this tape has been proved to be genuine by the Forensic Lab on 22 Jan 2006.
“The Transcript
Virender Pandey is Chhatisgarh state BJP vice-president. ‘Khunte’ referred to in the conversation is the BJP MP who had defected to the Congress before the (2003) elections. Now, of course, he claims that he was under pressure.
Ajit Jogi: Hello
Virender Pandey: Jogiji, tell me…
Ajit Jogi: Pandeyji I had sent you a message.
Virender Pandey: I received it but some things need to be clarified.
Ajit Jogi: Tell me.
Virender Pandey: First the numbers. You have 37, right?
Ajit Jogi: Take it as 39, two from BSP
Virender Pandey: Have you spoken to them?
Ajit Jogi: Yes
Virender Pandey: So we need to arrange seven more to achieve the figure of 7
Ajit Jogi: The speaker is our man. He will not disqualify them.
Virender Pandey: So they have joined you. Now you’ll have to go to the Governor, it is better if the whole thing is done this evening
Ajit Jogi: True
Virender Pandey: But there is a slight problem. Balli Ram has a great stature in the party, in fact, Bal Thackeray had even called him an uncut diamond. He has such an ability to pull people. So if he leaves, he will be putting his life’s reputation at stake.
Ajit Jogi: That shouldn’t be a problem
Virender Pandey: The other thing we need is a guarantee that they will not withdraw support for five years. So your party should make an announcement that these people are joining us against communal forces, and then they should say which is why we shall not withdraw support. Then we can work out a common minimum programme.
Ajit Jogi: That can be easily done.
Virender Pandey: It’s important because we all know what happened with the Chandrashekhar Government.
Ajit Jogi: Chandrashekhar is a different story, I am Jogi and I shall do what I say.
Virender Pandey: I got a call from Khunte and I spoke to him and told him to think about who are the people who can leave. In his Lok Sabha constituency, there are four people – his son, Bedu Ram Kashyap, Lachchu Kashyap, Mahesh Baghel. These four-five names are doing the rounds, but for the other names, we will need cash, without that nothing happens nowadays.
Ajit Jogi: That will be arranged.
Virender Pandey: We will have to pay them some money in advance, 2 to 4 lakhs right now, today, the rest can be settled later.
Ajit Jogi: That’ll be done.
Virender Pandey: So send 15 – 20 lakhs to me through Khunte, then I shall talk to Balli Ram and then get back but send the money in the next two hours
Ajit Jogi: I shall call Khunte right away. How much? About 15 – 20?
Virender Pandey: Yes about 20 – 25 is enough.
Ajit Jogi: I shall send it, but only if the deal is done.
Virender Pandey: Definitely, only if it comes through, otherwise the money will come back to you.”
Courtesy: Telegraph
Congress loyalist weekly Outlook carefully deleted the reference to Sonia Gandhi in its excerpts published. Here is this reference included in excerpts by another daily The Telegraph. The original tape and full text may have even more. Sonia Gandhi herself gave a statement condemning Ajit Jogi in public claiming ‘high moral ground’ while re-embracing him again within 4 months, and even for many years after January 2006, when the tapes had been proved to be genuine.
Ajit Jogi is a very cunning and a very dangerous man. Note that former BJP chief Bangaru Laxman was convicted and given 4 years imprisonment on a fictitious case, where all the so-called dealers and deals were unreal. If he could be convicted for an imaginary thing, then Jogi can definitely be convicted for this real attempt to split the BJP giving 45 lakh in cash, which was given to CBI and this was second attempt to split the BJP after splitting once in 2001, also through money.
All anti-corruption crusaders like Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev etc should be asked to raise this issue to nail the CBI under UPA and the Congress for trying to let Jogi get away with this. Rahul Gandhi, of course, has no answer and no comments to make on this. He has no comments to make on many other issues of the Jogis, which we will see soon here, and many other issues as well.
And CBI under UPA had ‘evidence’ against Amit Shah and Kataria, but not against Ajit Jogi! What ‘action against corrupt leaders’ by the UPA Government, as Sonia Gandhi had claimed so often! Sonia Gandhi is herself named as someone who gave full approval to this attempt to split the BJP by none other than Ajit Jogi himself in the tape. The use of Sonia’s name was condemned by the Congress, but it re-embraced Ajit Jogi later, who had taken her name.
Congress MP P R Khunte, who was in the BJP till November 2003 and defected to the Congress before the Assembly polls, and was said to be Jogi’s ‘prize catch from the BJP’ and involved in the failed attempt to break the BJP, also said that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had given her approval to break the BJP in Chhattisgarh, as reported by The Economic Times on 9 December 2003.
Many people believe that the Rahul-Sonia combine had used CBI to fabricate cases against Narendra Modi’s aide Amit Shah and Rajasthan BJP leaders, and used this same CBI to save their ‘blue-eyed boy’ Ajit Jogi and their own skins. Ajit Jogi is also on record saying as Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh that tribals are not Hindus.
This is a blatant case of evidence of corruption, shielding the corrupt, misuse of CBI, etc by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi was taken into full confidence by Ajit Jogi before his attempt to break the BJP, he confidently said to the person on phone “Do you wish to speak to her? Take this number and call her?” meaning that Sonia Gandhi had given full approval to the buying of BJP MLAs. And then it would seem like Sonia-Rahul combine saved Ajit Jogi in the case. And this Rahul Gandhi has the audacity to call the Prime Minister of the country, Narendra Modi as ‘corrupt’!
The complainant Virendra Pandey had challenged this closure report by the CBI in court. In December 2013, the CBI was ordered to continue probing this case vs Jogi by the court. The efforts of the complainant Virendra Pandey need to be appreciated, while the role of the mainstream media in suppressing this case needs to be condemned by one and all. When the AAP was claiming ‘moral high ground’ and ‘fighting corruption’ in December 2013, it was urged many times to raise this issue of Ajit Jogi being saved by UPA, before the elections in Chhattisgarh in December 2013, but it too kept a stony silence.
Now, dear Mr Rahul Gandhi, will you break your silence on this case?
A poster with a group of State leaders of the Congress party along with the party president, Rahul Gandhi, depicting the respective caste groups the leaders belonged to emerged on Wednesday in Patna. The poster displays a group photograph of state Congress leaders with their President Rahul Gandhi and has the caste of each person printed on the front.
Source: India Today
The Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee was revamped last week with the appointment of new office-bearers. Siddharth Kshatriya, a former secretary of Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) put up a poster in Patna to thank Congress president Rahul Gandhi on appointing new office bearers in the party’s Bihar unit.
The poster, along with the pictures of the new office-bearers also mentioned the individual caste of the leaders.
The poster exposing the caste-based politics the party resorts to read: “We congratulate party president Rahul Gandhi for ensuring that the newly appointed Bihar Congress working committee sets a benchmark of communal harmony by giving representation to all castes/communities”.
The BJP state spokesperson lambasting at the Congress said, “In sheer desperation, the Congress has been resorting to gimmicks like proclaiming Rahul Gandhi as one who wears the sacred thread, worships Lord Shiva and goes to Kailash Mansarovar on pilgrimage. The posters mark a new low in the history of the Congress which Mahatma Gandhi had, rightly, wished to abolish after Independence. The party and its national president should apologise to the nation for the antics while the EC should take note of the attempts to whip up caste and religious feelings and initiate appropriate action.”
JD(U) MLC Neeraj Kumar, strongly criticising Congress’ tactics said that the poster exposes the party’s real face. “Rahul Gandhi is touring temples and distributing certificates of being a Hindu. Whereas in Bihar, the party’s popularity has taken such a hit that it is now compelled to publicize castes of their leaders”.
This is not the first time Congress has taken recourse to caste-based politics. During the buildup to the Gujarat elections, the Congress party had surprised many by openly declaring its intention to woo Hindus, with Rahul Gandhi going on a literal “temple run” during the state’s campaign. The party further ‘saffronised’ Rahul as a Janeu-dhari Shiv Bhakt’ when rumours spread about his name being registered in the non-Hindu register of the Somnath temple.
We have seen Congress supporting Bhim Army in Uttar Pradesh. They fanned the Bhima-Koregaon violence hailing the protests and blaming BJP for ignoring Dalits. While playing these caste-based politics the party has methodically used the Rohit Vemula suicide case, extended support to people like Hardik Patel and Jignesh Mevani in their attempt to appease the Dalits. They have also tried to encash the ‘Lingayat‘ card prior to the Karnataka elections.
In fact, the deep-rooted, horrendous, casteist bias of the Congress Party was boldly out in the open when their loyalist Mani Shankar Aiyer had audaciously passed a casteist remark calling PM Modi a ‘neech’ aadmi. The Congress subsequently revoking Mani Shankar’s suspension, which had come in lieu of his ‘neech’ comment furthered the parties penchant.
Sonia Gandhi, the party supremo, reportedly too had used the same word to describe Modi in 2014, at a rally in Kushinagar (UP).
While the Congress desperately tries to prove itself to be a secular party, comments coming from party veterans like Ghulam Nabi Azad referring to Modi as a “Gangu Teli” (Modi comes from the Teli caste) itself proves the deep-seeded casteist mindset of the party.
It is being alleged that with an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress President Rahul Gandhi has finally taken a call to again play the upper caste card by appointing veteran party leader Madan Mohan Jha, a Brahmin, as the new Pradesh Congress Committee chief in Bihar. To woo the forward caste vote bank in the state, the party has named Akhilesh Prasad Singh, a Bhumihar, as the chief of the campaign committee for 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Many terror launch pads across the LoC, which had been destroyed during the September 2016 surgical strikes, have been reactivated by Pakistan based Islamic terrorist groups. According to reports, roughly 250 terrorists have been trained and waiting to infiltrate into India from 27 different launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Reports say that at least eight of the 27 launch pads have been set up and activated by terrorists in the approximately month-long period when the newly appointed PM of Pakistan, Imran Khan has been pontificating about peaceful relationships with India. Media reports citing top intelligence sources have stated that among the launch pads are the ones in Lipa valley.
News of Pakistan and its supported terror groups reactivating the launch pads had come just before the commencement of the Amarnath Yatras this year. Intelligence sources had warned of several terrorist groups training and gathering terrorists in PoK for infiltration into India to target the yatris. Terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen were reportedly stationed along the LoC. Several of them were reportedly trained by Pakistan’s BAT forces.
Terrorist activities across the LoC had been reportedly on the rise after stringent actions from Indian security forces resulted in deaths of several high profile terrorists in Kashmir. After the URI attacks in 2016, the Indian Army had conducted surgical strikes and had destroyed several launch pads in the area. However, reports state that of the 27 launch pads now considered operational in PoK, LeT controls the ones at Lipa valley, Chakhoti, Bararkot, Shardi and Jura areas while Hizbul mujahideen has the launch pads in Forward Kathua areas in the PoK.
A report in Times of India states that while the other surgical strike location of Bhimber has not been reactivated, LeT has now 25-30 terrorists stationed at the launch pads in Chananian, Mandaukali and Nukot. These camps are reportedly right opposite to India’s Nowgam sector, which falls between Uri and Kupwara.
The launch pads have been established at geographically important locations where terrorists get ground support from their over ground workers in Handwara and Hafrooda. They use the forests as natural cover and attempt to move into south Kashmir. Intelligence sources have been cited as saying that the recent surge in terror activities in Gurez, Jajarkotli, Sopore, Bandipora is because the terrorists are seeking to destabilise the state ahead of the panchayat and municipal elections.
Since the last surgical strikes, Indian security forces have been undertaking an ‘operation all out’ stand in dealing with terrorism in the valley. The cordon search activities have been renewed and in 2017 and 2018, hundreds of terrorists have been killed. The Indian army has also foiled several infiltration attempts in recent months. Recently, Lance Naik Sandeep Singh, who was a part of the 4 para special forces that carried out the surgical strikes was martyred in an anti-infiltration operation.
In a landmark judgement, a five-judge bench of Supreme Court of India has declared section 497 of the Indian Penal Code unconstitutional, calling it “manifestly arbitrary”.
The section reads as follows:
Adultery.—Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case, the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.
Section 497 is widely considered a lopsided law, as it is gender biased. Under this law, on one hand, only married men can be prosecuted for adultery, not a married woman. On the other hand, this section applies only if a man has sex with a married woman without the consent of that woman’s husband. This implies that the husband has ownership over his woman who can permit her to have a physical relationship with another man.
The SC judgement says that Section 497 IPC affects the right to life of a woman under Article 21 of the constitution of India. Court has noted that adultery can be ground for divorce but it can’t be a criminal offence. Delivering the verdict, the court said that Adultery dents the individuality of women, and husband is not the master of his wife. Court also noted that adultery is not a criminal offence in many countries, and many countries have abolished laws which made it a crime.
Reading out the judgment, Chief Justice Misra said, “Any provision of law affecting individual dignity and equality of women invites the wrath of not constitution. It’s time to say that the husband is not the master of the wife. Legal sovereignty of one sex over other sex is wrong”.
The court noted that the adultery law applies only if a man has relation outside marriage with another married woman, it does not apply if the relationship with an unmarried woman. The court asked why the sanctity of a marriage is not affected if an unmarried is involved, calling it arbitrary.
The judgement says that adultery is a matter of privacy and it is not a criminal offence. Court has said that section 497 of IPC violates Articles 14 and 15 of the constitution and therefore this law is unconstitutional. According to the court, section 497 deprives a woman of agency and autonomy and dignity, and the law is actually a codified rule of patriarchy, which denied married women autonomy.
Along with Section 497, the apex court has also struck down the section 198(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which dealt with adultery.
Court has clarified that adultery will be a valid ground for divorce. And if an aggrieved spouse commits suicide as a result of adultery, the adulterous partner will be prosecuted for abetment of suicide under Section 306 of the IPC.
Continuing with the hearings regarding the Ram Janmabhoomi case, the Supreme Court will today decide whether the 1994 judgement on the Ismail Farooqui case that gave a verdict that mosques are not an essential part of Islam needs to be revisited and should be heard by a larger bench. According to reports, a three-judge bench comprising of Justice Deepak Mishra, justice Ashok Bhushan and justice Abdul Nazeer will decide today on revisiting the case.
According to reports, On March 24, 2018, the three-judge bench had declared that before settling the 70-year-old dispute between Hindu and Muslim organisations over the Ayodhya land, it will first decide whether the 1994 judgement needs to be revisited.
The Supreme Court had in its 1994 verdict, stated that a mosque is not integral to Namaz. Here are the key points of the verdict. It was ruled by a 5-judge bench
A mosque is not an integral part of Islam as namaz can be offered anywhere, even in the open.
The acquisition of a mosque by the government is not prohibited under the constitution.
As India is a secular nation, the status and immunity of a mosque from an acquisition is not different from the same of places of worship of other religions and is not depended upon the status and immunity of a mosque in an Islamic country.
A temple, a church or a mosque is basically an immovable property and a property is liable for acquisition.
After the Allahabad High Court had ruled in 2010 that the disputed land in Ayodhya be divided into 3 parts, Ramlala Virajman ( Lord Ram of Ayodhya), the Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Waqf Board, the Muslim groups had moved to the SC challenging the 1994 verdict staking claim over the land. They had demanded that the case should be re-examined by a larger bench as it relates to land belonging to a mosque and thus pertains to religious freedom under the constitution.
Senior advocate Rajiv Dhawan, representing one of the litigants from the Muslim side, had argued for the reopening of the 1994 case and had also pleaded that the entire Ayodhya dispute case should be referred to a constitution bench. He had pleaded, ” A mosque is forever, it does not lose its significance and remains a place of worship even after it is demolished.”
The lawyers representing the Hindus had argued against the revisiting of the 1994 judgement. Responding to the arguments, the three-judge bench had stated that they will first decide whether the 1994 judgement needs to be revisited before proceeding with the Ayodhya case. The bench had asserted that the Ayodhya case is a mere ‘land dispute’. The bench had also dismissed the Sunni Waqf board’s demand that the Ayodhya dispute case be heard by a five-member bench and not three.
Today, if the three-judge bench decided in favour of revisiting the 1994 case of Ismail Farooqui versus the Union of India, the case will be reopened and a seven-member bench will hear again whether a mosque is an integral part of offering Namaz or not.
Whatever may be the verdict today, it is now evident that the Ram Mandir issue is unlikely to reach its final verdict before the 2019 general elections.
The United Nations has awarded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emanuel Macron with 2018 ‘Champions of the Earth Awards’ on Wednesday. PM Narendra Modi was bestowed with this honour for his “unprecedented pledge to eliminate all single-use plastic in India by 2022.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, along with Narendra Modi was also awarded in ‘Policy Leadership Category’ for their “pioneering work in championing” the International Solar Alliance and “new areas of levels of cooperation on environmental action”, the UN Environment Programme said.
Addition to this, the Cochin International Airport has also been bestowed with ‘Entrepreneurial Vision’ award for its leadership in the use of sustainable energy. “Cochin is showing the world that our ever-expanding network of global movement doesn’t have to harm the environment. As the pace of society continues to increase, the world’s first fully solar-powered airport is proof positive that green business is good business,” the UNEP statement said.
Cochin International Airport Limited is also the first airport in the world to run its entire operations on solar energy. It is the fourth busiest airport in India in terms of international traffic in the country.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) established ‘Champions of the Earth’ awards in 2005 as an annual awards programme to recognize outstanding environmental leaders from the public and private sectors, and from civil society for their positive impact on the environment.
In 2018, this award has been awarded to six ‘outstanding environmental changemakers’ for their efforts and initiatives to tackle some of the most urgent environmental issues. The awards will be presented during the Champions of the Earth Gala in New York City, on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly.
A court in Dumka, Jharkhand on Wednesday, sentenced two Naxalites to death for killing a superintendent of police and five other policemen in Dumka district five years ago.
Ahead of the judgement, adequate security arrangements were made in the court. The duo was brought to the court amid tight security.
Additional session judge, Mohd Taufiqul Hassan had on 6th September convicted the two Maoists, namely, Sanatan Baski and Sukhlal Murmu alias Pravir Da and acquited five others due to lack of evidence. These two convicts were awarded capital punishment today.
Sukhlal Murmu alias Pravir Da is a resident of Badwadih village of Giridih district. While Sanatan Baski is a resident of Chirudih village in Dumka district.
Additional Public Prosecutor, Surendra Prasad Sinha, stated that the duo had killed the then Pakur Superintendent of Police Amarjeet Balihar and five other policemen in an onslaught near Kathikund while they were returning to Pakur after attending a meeting with the deputy inspector general of police Priya Dubey, in Dumka on 2nd July 2013.
Sinha added that Pravir Da, a member of the outfit’s Special Area Committee (Bihar and Jharkhand), is serving life term since August 9, 2016, in connection with another murder case.
In a similar case last year a court in Munger district of Bihar had awarded death sentence to five Maoists for an attack in which two Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed in 2014, retaliating to which the Maoist guerrillas at a “Jan Adalat” (kangaroo court) in Bihar had two days later pronounced death penalty for the Additional Sessions Judge, Jyoti Swarup Srivastava, who had awarded the death sentence to their five colleagues.
Prannoy Roy owned NDTV has withdrawn a defamation case it had filed against the activist, writer and academician Madhu Kishwar in 2014 for an article she wrote on her website Manushi.in alleging ‘unholy partnership between Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and directors of premier TV channel—NDTV’. The article accused former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram of being involved in ‘a Rs.-5,500 crore money laundering scam in collaboration with NDTV and consequent tax evasion of Rs. 3,500 crore.’.
The article further alleges that two 1999 batch IRS officers were paid bribes including an ‘all expense paid trip to Europe and Mauritius’. Kishwar had claimed of being in possession of evidence which contained a video-recording incriminating the above. The article was based on allegations based by income tax commissioner SK Srivastava, who NDTV had claimed was accused of harassing two women colleagues. The names of the 2 lady Income Tax officials are Sumana Sen and Ashima Neb. Sumana Sen’s husband Abhisar Sharma was employed with NDTV as a senior journalist, when Sen is alleged to have favoured NDTV in a Tax case, in exchange for a Rs 1 crore holiday.
Interestingly, in the tax assessment case of Abhisar Sharma, Rs 43 lacs was added to his Income in lieu of holiday expenses borne by NDTV, his employer. This all-expenses-paid holiday is said to be the bribe given to Abhisar Sharma and his wife (Sumana Sen, who was the Income Tax Officer looking into NDTV case). The effect of this addition of Rs 43 lacs is that it proves Sumana Sen and Husband received undue benefits from NDTV. Now Sumana Sen has approached Supreme court with a PIL that Sanjay Srivastava (Income Tax Officer who nailed NDTV) is harassing her and hence the order of adding Rs 43 lacs to her and her husband’s Income should be quashed. If this addition is quashed, Sumana can claim she was never bribed.
Today, NDTV has filed an urgent application in the Delhi High Court to withdraw the case against Kishwar to ‘concentrate on core areas of journalism and news telecast’.
Note: This story will be updated as and when more information is available.
