Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
A day after the Bombay High Court discharged former Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba and four others in a case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) over alleged Maoist links, the Supreme Court suspended the HC judgement till further orders.
While Saibaba’s counsel, Senior Advocate R Basant, asked the court to grant house arrest in view of his medical condition, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Maharashtra government, opposed the plea.
This request for house arrest is coming frequently from Naxals, from Urban Naxals. All these offences can be committed
Citing absence of valid sanction under the UAPA and declaring the trial proceedings in a Gadchiroli court “null and void”, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC had discharged Saibaba and four others— a sixth accused died in August this year. The Maharashtra government had moved the SC, challenging the HC order.
Having heard learned counsel for the respective parties… we are of the opinion that this is a fit case to exercise powers under Section 390 CrPC and to suspend the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court,” the SC bench said, staying the release of all the accused. Section 390 CrPC deals with the arrest of accused in appeal from acquittal.
The SC said the HC had not gone into the merits of the case, or the trial court judgement convicting them, or “the seriousness and gravity of the offences for which the accused were convicted”.
The HC did not look into the merits, but found a shortcut,” the bench said, adding that “the offences are very serious, against the sovereignty and integrity of the country”.
The bench also agreed with Mehta’s submission that the HC did not pass an acquittal order but a discharge order, and no finding of the trial court was reversed. Justice Trivedi said it is a settled law that an acquittal order cannot be passed by an appellate court without reversing the findings of the trial court’s conviction order.
The bench said it “is prima facie of the opinion that a detailed scrutiny is required so far as the impugned judgment and order passed by the HC is concerned” and added that several important questions of law need to be considered.
Listing these questions, the bench said it would examine “whether considering Section 465 CrPC… after the conclusion of the trial and conviction of the accused on merits and appreciation of evidence, the appellate court is justified in discharging the accused… on the ground of irregular sanction, if any”.
Section 465 CrPC states that a trial court order shall not be reversed on account of irregularity in any sanction for prosecution, unless, in the opinion of that court, it had resulted in a failure of justice.
The court will look into whether “in a case where the learned trial court has convicted the accused on merits on appreciation of the evidences on record and thereafter having found the accused guilty for the offences for which they are tried… the appellate court is justified in discharging the accused on the ground of want of sanction and/ or irregular sanction, more particularly when the objection with respect to no sanction was not specifically raised by an appropriate application during the trial, and trial was permitted to be proceeded further and thereafter the trial court has convicted the accused on appreciation of evidences on record?”
Express Network
Is Dravidian a purely Tamil identity? In TN churn, Governor now chucks a pebble (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
With assertive BJP Hindu nationalism on one side and the DMK’s linguistic/regional politics on the other, the controversy over the ‘Dravidian’ identity of Tamil Nadu continues. A few days ago, Governor R N Ravi, who has done his bit to keep the fires burning, added a new dimension to it, raising the question ‘Who is a Dravidian?’.
Speaking at the inaugural of a two-day programme on ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat — Connecting India’ series on October 10, the Tamil Nadu Governor said the Dravidian identity had been adopted as a purely Tamil identity because of “politics of division”.
With enough tension between its government and Ravi, the DMK immediately shot back, with party leaders calling him “an RSS man occupying space at the Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan”.
As much a claimant of Dravidian politics as the DMK, the AIADMK – which is riding on BJP shoulders now in the state – sprang to Ravi’s defence. The Governor was right, AIADMK leaders said, and the Dravidian concept was actually a geographical construct, covering the five southern states.
In his address at the Raj Bhavan, Ravi said that “one must understand Bharat” to understand the nation in totality, and referred to India’s thousands of years of civilisation and pride.
He blamed Britain for dividing India along political lines, and said that while Dravidian originally meant the southern states, “today it’s a Tamil identity”.
The origin of ‘Dravidian’ or ‘Dravidar’ can be broken down into two aspects, spatial and linguistic, says a history and archeology professor who has done extensive studies on Tamil Nadu’s ancient past, and who doesn’t want to be quoted to avoid being drawn into the political row.
The word Dravida is not originally Tamil but derived from Prakrit, the ancient language of India that was later refined to Sanskrit, which in turn became the language of the upper castes and the palace.
Several studies and books, including Dravidian Theories by R SwaminathaAiyar, which talk about the origin of the word ‘Dravidar’ talk about how it is a distortion of the word ‘Tamila’, after becoming gradually ‘Damila,’ Damela’ and ‘Dameda’.
Incidentally, while all the earliest inscriptions from Afghanistan to Bangladesh to Sri Lanka and India are in Prakrit, Tamil Nadu remains an exception — not a single Prakrit inscription has been found in the state. On the contrary, Prakrit inscriptions from the 3rd Century BC can be found in Karnataka and Andhra regions.
At the same time, the earliest evidence of Tamil language goes back to 600 BC, while the earliest evidence for Telugu and Kannada languages is only from the 6th Century AD.
Linguistically, this manifests in the fact that many special letters available in Tamil are not present in other languages or offshoots of Sanskrit, and correspondingly, many letters like ‘ga’ present in Sanskrit do not exist in Tamil.
The professor quoted above says there are signs that people lived near the Chennai region as far back as about 15 lakh years ago.
They most certainly spoke a language. There is a lot of evidence that Tamil, Kannada, Tulu, and Telugu all split off from a single language before 1000 BC. We don’t know when it happened, though,” says the expert, while warning against concluding that Kannada and Telugu came much after Tamil, as evidence regarding it may have simply not been found yet.
India ranked 107 on hungerindex;govtsays bid to taint country’simage(Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India has slipped six places and ranked 107, out of 121 countries, in 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI), released on Saturday, a report that the Centre called “misinformation”, and part of a “consistent effort’’ to “taint India’s image”.
Since 2000, India has made substantial progress, but there are still areas of concern, particularly regarding child nutrition,” the report stated. “India’s GHI score has decreased from a score of 38.8 points (in 2000) — considered alarming — to a 2022 GHI score of 29.1, considered serious. India’s proportion of undernourished in the population is considered to be at medium level, and its under-five child mortality rate is considered low.
With a score of 29.1, the GHI finds the level of hunger in India “serious’’. The index says child wasting — or the share of children under 5 years who have low weight for their height, indicating undernourishment — in country is 19.3%, the highest in the world.
Reacting to the report, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development stated: “A consistent effort is yet again visible to taint India’s image as a nation that does not fulfil the food security and nutritional requirements of its population. Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of annually released Global Hunger Index.
The Global Hunger Report 2022 released by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, NGOs from Ireland and Germany respectively, has ranked India at 107 among 121 countries…”
Calling the report “disconnected from reality”, the ministry said it chooses to “deliberately ignore efforts made by the government to ensure food security” during the pandemic. It claimed the Centre is running “largest food security programme in the world”.
According to the report, barring Afghanistan, India’s neighbours such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have got higher ranking in GHI.
The report noted that while child stunting has seen a “significant decrease” — from 54.2% in 1998-1999 to 35.5% in 2019-2021 — it is still “considered very high”. At 19.3%, according to latest data, “India has the highest child wasting rate of all countries covered in GHI. This rate is higher than it was in 1998-1999, when it was 17.1%.”
Although India’s score has improved from 2000 (38.8) and 2007 (36.3), it slipped since 2014, when India scored the lowest at 28.2, and was recorded at 29.1 this year.
Incidentally, the GHI methodology was changed in 2015 “to include data on child stunting/wasting, and to standardise the values”, and “since 2015, almost all countries have had much higher GHI scores”, the report mentioned.
According to the report, child wasting increased from 17.1% in 2000 to 20% in 2007; it dropped to 15.1% in 2014 and then increased to 19.3% in 2022.
Jaishankar discusses bilateral ties,Ukraine with Egyptian counterpart(Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his Egyptian counterpart SamehShoukry and the two leaders discussed a range of issues including the Ukraine conflict and the Indo-Pacific and exchanged views on boosting bilateral ties and how to create a more resilient global economy.
Jaishankar is in Egypt on a two-day visit at the invitation of his Egyptian counterpart Shoukry.A warm and productive meeting with FM SamehShoukry of Egypt. Reflected our deep-rooted ties as we mark 75 years of diplomatic relations this year, he said in a tweet.
As states active in shaping global debates, discussed developments in our regions and exchanged views on the Ukraine conflict and Indo-Pacific. A polarised world needs independent thinking and voices of reason, he said in another tweet.
Jaishankar said India and Egypt's cooperation in multilateral forums remains robust and welcomed Egyptian participation in G20 next year and in BRICS New Development Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
Our political cooperation has historically been strong. We have a number of institutions. Some of them have been meeting regularly, and some of them are due to meet.
We hope to do a meeting of our counterterrorism working group as well. But overall, we've always had good political understanding and certainly today's meeting and discussions I think have enhanced it, Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the press conference with his Egyptian counterpart.
He said the two countries in recent times have stepped up their defence and security cooperation and there have been discussions on how to collaborate more closely on the defence side, especially in defence production.
Trade and commerce have again seen a very big increase. Last year was our highest-ever trade - in excess of 7.2 billion dollars. It was a big jump.
Today, we reviewed that. We agreed that there were possibilities for still further growth. That both of us must work to address Market Access issues that we might have respectively, Jaishankar said.
Investment has also been very positive. Indian companies today have a recorded investment of more than 3 billion dollars and we have again close to about a billion dollars in the pipeline.
And we see a lot of new possibilities. I shared with the Minister some of what we are picking up from industry, new possibilities here, particularly in renewable energy. So, we are again very optimistic on that score, he said.
The two ministers also discussed ways to increase air connectivity and tourism.Jaishankar said India and Egypt are both civilisation states and share a tradition of thinking beyond their narrow national interests.
Economy
FM urges World Bank to avoidunidimensional view of subsidies (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has urged the World Bank to avoid a “unidimensional” view of the subsidies provided by the Indian government and asserted that it is important to differentiate between “distortive subsidies” and “targeted support” to the vulnerable households.
Speaking at an intervention of the World Bank Development Committee’s meeting on Friday, Sitharaman said that subsidies have made a definitive contribution in improving India’s performance on several key parameters of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
We urge the Bank to avoid a unidimensional view of subsidies. It is important to differentiate between distortive subsidies and targeted support to the vulnerable households.