| Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day's biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying safe. Rajasthan saga: Signs of compromise between rival Congress factions Ahead of the crucial Rajasthan Assembly session beginning on August 14, a compromise between the two rival factions in the ruling Congress may emerge, with both sides softening their stance on the rebellion staged by the now sacked Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot. The MLAs loyal to Pilot are reportedly willing to attend the session as Congress MLAs, though their voting would be as per Pilot's direction. Recent gestures from the Pilot camp have given indications of a possible compromise. Pilot, who was removed from the position of the Pradesh Congress Committee president, congratulated his successor, Govind Singh Dotasra, when he took charge on July 29, and hoped that he would give "full respect" to party workers without any pressure or bias. Gajendra Singh Shaktawat, one of the MLAs loyal to Pilot, told The Hindu from an undisclosed location in Haryana on Monday that the dissident legislators would come to Jaipur to attend the Assembly session. "We have never said that we have shifted away from the Congress. We will participate in the House proceedings as Congress MLAs," he said. Shaktawat, elected to the Assembly from Udaipur district's Vallabhnagar constituency, said the fight of the legislators supporting Pilot was that of "self-respect". Asked about a possible floor test in the Assembly, Shaktawat said any decision on voting in favour of the Gehlot government would be taken by Pilot. He rejected Gehlot's charge that the MLAs supporting Pilot were in touch with the BJP. "None of us has got in touch with any BJP leader, neither has anyone from the BJP come to meet us. We are staying in Haryana because the Covid-19 epidemic is spreading fast in Delhi," he said. Prashant Bhushan replies to SC contempt notice  Prashant Bhushan. File Expressing opinion or bona fide anguish, however outspoken, disagreeable or unpalatable, cannot constitute contempt amounting to scandalising the court, civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan has said in his reply to the contempt notice issued to him by the Supreme Court. Bhushan was responding to suo motu contempt action initiated against him on his tweets — one concerning a photograph of Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde on a motorcycle, and the other about the functioning of the Supreme Court in the past six years under four Chief Justices. "Chief Justice is not the court, and raising issues of concern regarding the manner in which a CJI conducts himself during 'court vacations', or raising issues of grave concern regarding the manner in which four CJIs have used, or failed to use, their powers as 'Master of the Roster' to allow the spread of authoritarianism, majoritarianism, stifling of dissent, widespread political incarceration, and so on, cannot and does not amount to 'scandalising or lowering the authority of the court,'" Bhushan contended. Court cannot fall prey to 'easy irritability', say past judgments Staying on the topic of contempt of court, our legal correspondent, in an analysis piece today notes that past verdicts caution judges against falling prey to "easy irritability". The Supreme Court has held that contempt arises only when an attack is calculated to obstruct or destroy the judicial process. A seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in a suo motu contempt case against former Madras High Court judge, C.S. Karnan, said contempt does not exist to protect individual judges. Judges are supposed to be men of fortitude, able to thrive in a hardy climate. Another verdict, half-a-century older, says ordinary rules of slander and libel apply for a personal attack upon a judge, which is unconnected with his or her office. "The dogs may bark, the caravan will pass. The court will not be prompted to act as a result of an easy irritability," the court advised in its Mulgaokar judgment reported in 1978. Tamil Nadu will continue with two-language policy: CM  Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami. File photo Observing that the three-language formula in the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is "painful and saddening", Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Eddapadi K Palaniswamy has vowed not to implement the new policy. Stating that the Centre should reconsider the three-language policy, Palaniswamy said there will not be any deviation from the two-language policy in Tamil Nadu, which has been followed for several decades. "Tamil Nadu will never allow the Centre's three-language policy. The state will continue with its dual language policy (of Tamil and English)," he said. Though it is true that the three-language policy leaves it to the states to decide on what the 'third' language would be, political parties in Tamil Nadu look at this as a tacit attempt by the Centre to impose Hindi. While Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has said more than once that the Centre will not impose any language on any state, DMK leader MK Stalin has called on the AIADMK to reject the NEP. Meeting to review progress of Corps Commander talks A day after the fifth round of Corps Commander talks between India and China, the high-powered China Study Group (CSG) is expected to meet today and discuss the outcome of the talks meant to take forward the stalled process of disengagement on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Details on the outcome of the latest round of talks, which took place on Sunday, are expected on Wednesday, after the government takes stock of the developments. The stand-off in Eastern Ladakh has been on for almost three months now. The disengagement has not moved beyond the incomplete first phase despite four rounds of talks and both sides having worked out the details. India has consistently demanded status quo ante of pre-May positions along the LAC. Uma Bharti opts out of Ram temple ceremony  Former Union Minister and BJP Leader Uma Bharti. File Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti on Monday said that she did not wish to be present at the foundation laying programme of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya scheduled for August 5, as she was concerned about the spread of Covid-19. In a series of tweets in Hindi, Bharti said she had written to the Prime Minister's Office and to the senior officials of the Ram Janmbhoomi trust in Ayodhya requesting them to remove her name from the list of guests who would be present at the foundation laying programme, which would be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Meanwhile, IT and Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said he has gone into self-isolation for a few days as per protocol, since he had met Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday evening. Prasad, who is also the Law Minister, tweeted on Monday that he has isolated himself at home for a few days, as per protocol. Meanwhile in Karnataka… On the same note, officials in Karnataka are now trying to figure out how chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa came to test positive for the coronavirus (which he did on Sunday). Hint: he attended four public events in the span of a week. "In hindsight, the public engagements of the chief minister over the past one week were definitely ill-advised. But given that we had unlocked the economy, he was keen to be seen in public to give out a message of confidence to the people to resume work taking all precautions," said one of his close associates. (Did taking part in four public events in a week prove risky for CM Yediyurappa?) Centre issues guidelines for gyms, yoga institutes  A scene at a gymnasium in Salem. Photo used for representation purpose only. File The Union Health Ministry has issued guidelines for the opening of gyms and yoga institutes, while specifying that all such institutions in containment zones would remain closed. The Ministry has said that visitors to gyms and yoga institutes should maintain a minimum distance of six feet from others. While use of face covers/masks is mandatory at all times within the premises, during yoga exercise or exercising in gyms, a visor may be used to avoid any difficulty in breathing during intense exercise. "Guidelines for practitioners (Yoga guideline for Covid-19) issued by the Ministry of Ayush may be followed. Group fitness rooms and classes are to follow staggering class session times and allow a minimum of 15-30 minutes between classes to avoid overlap between members arriving and leaving," it noted. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 18,47,139 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 38,874. India on Monday recorded 52,972 new cases. The Drug Controller General of India on Sunday granted permission to the Serum Insitute of India in Pune to conduct phase-2 and phase-3 human clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca. In Brief: Congress MP Karti Chidambaram today announced that he has tested positive for the coronavirus and is in home quarantine. Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor wondered why Union Home Minister Amit Shah opted for a private medical facility for treatment of the coronavirus disease instead of going to the state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
Post a Comment