Polity: Judiciary👩🏻‍⚖️:

  • Government rejected some of the judge names given by collegium system citing 1) candidate was a gay, and may not give impartial judgement in LGBT related matters 2) candidate’s ‘partner’ was a “foreign-national” who was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi 3) candidate was sharing Anti-Modi posts on social media. Now SC released these objections to public. Government is not happy about washing of this dirty laundry in public.
  • Polity: Judiciary👩🏻‍⚖️: SUPREME Court held that a chargesheet is not a “public document”. It can be given free access in RTI, else it will violate the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, and compromise the rights of the accused, the victim, and investigating agencies. Term chargesheet is defined in Indian Penal Code (IPC) and CrPC. But, term ‘FIR’ or First Information Report is not defined in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or CrPC.

Polity: rights issue

  • 2016 Dhaka terrorist attack – 2 girls killed. Their mothers want to prevent director Hansal Mehta’s upcoming movie Faraaz. Claiming a breach of their right to privacy protected under Article 21 of the Constitution, the women said the film may depict their daughters in “a bad light”. Delhi High Court Tuesday asked both parties — the makers of the film and the mothers of two girls killed in the attack — to consider resolving their issues. 🤔Mothers argued their “right to be left alone” supersedes the right of the filmmakers to commercially exploit the incident at the expense of the fundamental rights of the mothers. But court noted, “ Right to Privacy is essentially a right in persona and is not inheritable by the mothers/ legal heirs of the deceased persons.
  • Polity: Rights issue- Journalists right to keep source hidden: In India, there is no statutory exemption for journalists to keep their sources hidden from investigating agencies. The right to freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution, but there is no specific legislation protecting journalists from being asked to disclose their sources. The Law Commission of India recommended amending the Indian Evidence Act in 1983 to recognize journalistic privilege, but it has yet to be implemented. In Sweden, a journalist who reveals a source without consent may be prosecuted at the request of the source.
  • Polity: rights issue- Kerala Colleges to provide menstrual leave to all its female students after a representation made by the students’ union.
“HAKKU PATRA” land ownership titles in Karnataka. Prime Minister Modi distributed land deeds to Banjaras, a Scheduled Caste group in Karnataka. HAKKU PATRA will make it easy for them them to apply for a bank loan, as well as to buy or sell land.
  • Polity: rights issues / land reforms: “HAKKU PATRA” land ownership titles in Karnataka. Prime Minister Modi distributed land deeds to Banjaras, a Scheduled Caste group in Karnataka. HAKKU PATRA will make it easy for them them to apply for a bank loan, as well as to buy or sell land.
  • Polity: Rights issues / reservation: Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC)-2011: Union’s stand is that the data was “inaccurate and unreliable”. 2021: So, SC had rejected a plea by the Maharashtra government for a direction to the Centre to reveal the OBC data collected from SECC-2011.
  • Polity: Rights issues / reservation: Supreme Court allows caste census in Bihar. PIL rejected. PIL said that census falls in the Union list and only Parliament can legislate on it, and Bihar State Government had no power to make any laws regarding it. But SC said this is required otherwise how can state government fix the reservation quota? Previously Madras HC had pointed to an increase in the population of SCs, STs and OBCs since the last caste census in 1931, and said the percentage of reservation fixed on the basis of the 1931 data had to be proportionately increased by conducting a fresh caste-wise census.

Regionalism, Secularism

  • Polity: national language / inclusive growth: Staff Selection Commission (SSC) will hold the multi-tasking (non-technical) staff examination-2022 in 13 regional languages in addition to Hindi and English viz. The 13 languages are Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Konkani, Manipuri (also Meiti), Marathi, Odia and Punjabi. The SSC conducts recruitment processes for all Group B (non-gazetted) and Group C (non-technical) posts in various Central ministries/departments.
  • Polity: Secularism: ODISHA GOVERNOR Ganeshi Lal has supported the entry of foreign nationals inside the world famous Jagannath Temple in Puri. The Temple is one of the four dhams (char dham) where Lord Jagannath, a form of Lord Vishnu, is worshipped along with his elder brother Lord Balabhadra and sister Devi Subhadra.

Polity: Social Media:

  • BBC’s DOCUMENTARY ON 2002 GUJARAT RIOTS – blocked by Government of India. Under the IT Rules, 2021, the I&B Ministry has powers to issue content takedown notices to social media intermediaries like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in emergency situations “for which no delay is acceptable”.
  • Polity: social media: Big Tech needs to pay news publishers for content says Government.
  • Polity: Social Media: GOVERNMENT has made it mandatory for social media influencers to disclose their ‘material’ interest such as gifts, hotel accommodation, equity, discounts and awards while endorsing products and services.