📰 India chases away Pakistan copter breaching airspace
It was carrying PoK Prime Minister for a condolence meeting
•The Army on Sunday said the troops manning the Line of Control (LoC) in the Pir Panjal Valley’s Poonch district opened fire at a Pakistani helicopter, which was carrying Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, after it violated the airspace agreement signed by the two countries.
•“The air violation was noted around 12.10 p.m. and committed by a Pakistani helicopter in the Poonch sector. It was a white helicopter and was flying very high. The air sentries at the forward location engaged it with small arms,” said the Jammu-based defence spokesman Lt. Col. Devendra Anand.
‘PM is safe’
•An aide of Mr. Haider was quoted by Pakistani media as saying that he was flying to Haveli on that side of the LoC for a condolence meeting at the house of PoK Minister Choudhary Aziz on his brother’s demise.
•Mr. Aziz hails from an area close to the LoC.
•“The bullets did not hit the helicopter and the PM is safe,” the official told local media.
•However, the incident was not confirmed by Pakistani High Commission officials.
•Sources said the Pakistani military helicopter flew for nearly five minutes within 250 m of the LoC and hovered over the Gulpur sector before turning back.
•“If it had been a green helicopter, the response would have been different,” said an Army official posted in Poonch.
•A video shot on a mobile phone, which went viral on social media, shows a white helicopter flying near a mountain ridge and being fired upon by the troops from the Indian side of the LoC. The Army has not confirmed the authenticity of the video.
1 km limit
•Helicopters are barred from coming within 1 km on both the sides of the LoC as per the agreement.
•The incident comes a day after Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fire on the LoC in north Kashmir's Kupwara district.
•“Infiltration attempt by militants and ceasefire violation by the Pakistan Army in the Tangdhar sector was reported on Saturday evening. Our forces retaliated strongly and foiled the infiltration bid under covering fire by Pakistan Army. No damage, injury or casualty on our side,” said the Srinagar-based Army spokesman Rajesh Kalia.
•Meanwhile, Northern Army Commander Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh arrived in the Kashmir Valley on Sunday and reviewed the security situation in the wake of recent counter-terrorist operations, “which led to elimination of many militants.”
📰 Supreme Court: a crusade for women’s rights
Supreme Court’s challenge to patriarchy has been on-going across Benches, CJIs
•The past two years have seen the Supreme Court progressively question patriarchy in religion to ensure emancipation for women, and set the course for the future. But majority decisions in the court continue to take cover behind legal technicalities when it comes to politically-charged cases like the Ayodhya dispute and the arrest of five activists in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case.
•The court has not shied away from confronting age-old personal law practices, usages and customs which were considered taboo.
Gender bias
•Chief Justice Dipak Misra belled the proverbial cat when he wrote in his main opinion that “historically, women have been treated unequally”. No philosophy has so far convinced the large population of this country to open up and accept women as equal partners journey of spirituality, the Chief Justice wrote in the Sabarimala case.
•In Sabarimala, the court held that the ban on women, based on their menstrual status, considering them as “polluted” and a distraction for worshippers vowed to celibacy, is a “form of untouchability”. In no uncertain terms, the court told the world that India still practices untouchability 63 years after the social evil was abolished under the Untouchability (Offences) Act in 1955.
•The fact that the court, despite the changes in Chief Justices, has remained steadfast in its objective to realise the equal status of women in religion was witnessed in October 2016 when a Bench led by then Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur drew a parallel between the restriction on women worshipping in Sabarimala temple and Mumbai’s famed Haji Ali Dargah. Chief Justice Thakur had observed that ‘exclusion’ is practised by both Hindus and Muslims and the “problem needs to be addressed'”.
•Hardly a week later, the Dargah Trust conceded before the court that it has resolved to allow women to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the dargah “at par with men”.
•“Is that not what Your Lordships wanted? Is this not progressive?” senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, for the Trust, asked the Thakur Bench.
•The Khehar Court on August 22, 2017 declared the triple talaq unconstitutional and anti-Quran. Justice Kurian Joseph, on the Constitution Bench, held that “Islam cannot be anti-Quran... Triple talaq is against the basic tenets of the Holy Quran, and consequently, it violates Shariat”.
•Over the past year, the Misra Court has intervened with the Parsi elders to allow Goolrokh Gupta, a Parsi woman, who married outside her faith, to pray at the Tower of Silence for her departed father. It has also referred to a Constitution Bench the question whether the practice of female circumcisionor khafz, prevalent in the Dawoodi Bohra sect, amounts to “female genital mutilation” and is a violation of women’s right to life and dignity.
•However, in the court’s decisions in three cases — Aadhaar, Ayodhya and activists’ arrests — the dissenting opinions of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and S. Abdul Nazeer resonate while the opinions of the majority on the Bench led by Chief Justice Misra feel prosaic.
Fighting shy on politics
•In the case regarding the arrested activists, the majority opinion shared between Chief Justice Misra and Justice Khanwilkar retains the probe with the Maharashtra Police. The two judges do not address Justice Chandrachud’s conclusion that investigation should go to a SIT as there is “prejudice” on the side of the police.
•In the Ayodhya case, Justice Nazeer points out the question in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui verdict, whether ‘offering prayers in a mosque is an essential part of Islam or not’, greatly influenced the Allahabad High Court’s judgment to divide the Ayodhya land in September 2010.
•The majority opinion of Chief Justice Misra and Justice Bhushan rests comfortably on the conclusion that the observation was confined to the facts of the Faruqui case.
•In the majority opinion in the Aadhaar case, the lead opinion by Justice A.K. Sikri holds the right to provide dignity to the poor outweighs the right to privacy. The lead opinion strives for balance even as Justice Chandrachud, in his minority opinion, argues that it is not necessary to sacrifice privacy for dignity.
📰 An ongoing quest for equality
The Supreme Court will soon have the opportunity to consider the differing opinions in the Sabarimala verdict
•On September 28, the Supreme Court delivered a 4:1 verdict, in Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, throwing open the doors of the Sabarimala temple to women of all ages. At stake were several thorny questions. How deep must the judiciary’s inquiry go in deciding whether to intervene in matters of religion? Should the court disturb ethical choices made by a community of believers? How must the integrity behind these practices be judged? Are religious exercises susceptible to conventional constitutional standards of justice and equality?
•As the four opinions delivered by the court show us, these questions are open to diverse interpretations. While the majority agreed that women of all ages should be allowed to freely access the Sabarimala temple, each of the court’s judgments, including Justice Indu Malhotra’s dissenting opinion, speaks to a different, and constitutionally plausible, vision.
•How the court chooses to take forward the ideas professed here will prove hugely telling. Will judges continue to don ecclesiastical robes in testing what manners of religious practices deserve constitutional protection? Or will the court steer itself towards a more radical, yet constitutionally consistent, path, by predicating its analysis on equal concern, by breaking, as Justice D.Y. Chandrachud wrote in his concurring opinion, the “shackles of social hierarchies”?
The scope of Article 26
•The respondents in Indian Young Lawyers Association, including a clutch of intervenors, justified the ban on entry of women chiefly at two levels. First, the temple, they argued, enjoyed denominational status under Article 26 of the Constitution, which allowed it to determine for itself the manner in which it managed its religious affairs. Second, prohibiting women of menstruating age from entering Sabarimala, they contended, is supported by the temple’s long-honoured custom: since Lord Ayyappan is a “Naishtika Brahmachari”, allowing women aged between 10 and 50 years to enter the temple, it was claimed, would affect the deity’s “celibacy”. What’s more, this custom, the Travancore Devaswom Board, which administers the temple, further asserted, was supported by Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1965, which states, “Women who are not by custom and usage allowed to enter a place of public worship shall not be entitled to enter or offer worship in any place of
public worship.”
•The first of these arguments was rejected outright by the court’s majority. Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, in his opinion written for himself and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, found no doctrinal or factual support for the temple’s claim for denominational status. Justices R.F. Nariman and Chandrachud concurred. The devotees of the Sabarimala temple, they found, were in no way distinct from the larger community of Hindu believers. Consequently, the court also repudiated the validity of Rule 3(b), which, it said, was, at its core, discriminatory towards women.
•Justice Malhotra dissented. Since no person actually offended by the rule had approached the court, the public interest petitions, she ruled, were not maintainable. Her concerns are undeniably valid and must animate future cases. Here, however, given that the challenges to the practice had been entertained as far back as in 2006, and given that specific questions of far-reaching importance were posed to the Constitution Bench by reference, the majority quite correctly chose to deliver a verdict on merits. In any event, Justice Malhotra also ruled that the Sabarimala temple constitutes a separate religious denomination, and, therefore, the temple’s administrators were at liberty to make customary exceptions in matters of religious practice. This freedom, in her opinion, extended power to the temple to proscribe women from entering its precincts.
Essential practices doctrine
•Yet, much as the differing views between the majority and the dissenting opinions on the maintainability of the petitions and the denominational status of the temple are stark, the real nub of the controversy is elsewhere. It lies in Justice Malhotra’s withering and principled critique of the essential practices doctrine, through which the court has virtually assumed theological prerogative.
•Ordinarily, in determining whether a purportedly religious command is constitutionally protected, the courts have sought to test whether such a belief is essential to that religion. Here, for instance, CJI Misra found that the practice of excluding women aged between 10 and 50 years from the Sabarimala temple is dispensable, in that the “nature” of the Hindu religion would not be “fundamentally altered” by allowing women to enter the temple. Although an examination of this kind is strongly backed by precedent, Justice Malhotra was especially critical of the approach. In her belief, the power of judicial review ought not to accord to courts the authority to judge the rationality of a matter of faith. “The issue of what constitutes an essential religious practice,” she wrote, “is for the religious community to decide.”
•In this, the value in her opinion can scarcely be doubted. After all, the essential practices doctrine has allowed the Supreme Court to arrogate to itself the powers of a religious pontiff. But, equally, as Justice Malhotra notes, there may well be practices that are so pernicious and oppressive which might well demand the court’s interference. These, in her words, would include a “social evil, like Sati”. Ultimately, therefore, the dissenting opinion begs a question. It leaves us wondering how far the right to freedom of religion can really extend. And to what extent a group’s collective liberty can trump an individual’s equal right to freedom of religion. Would, for example, denial to women of the right to serve as priests, or to be ordained as bishops, be considered oppressive?
•Here, Justice Chandrachud’s judgment offers an appealing way forward. The assumption by the court of a religious mantle, he admitted, has led to a muddling in the court’s jurisprudence, and, as a result, significant constitutional concerns have been skirted. What needs answering, in his belief, is whether the Constitution “ascribes to religion and to religious denominations the authority to enforce practices which exclude a group of citizens”. The court, therefore, he has suggested, must look beyond the essential practices doctrine and examine claims by applying a principle of “anti-exclusion”. Or, in other words, “where a religious practice causes the exclusion of individuals in a manner which impairs their dignity or hampers their access to basic goods, the freedom of religion must give way to the over-arching values of a liberal Constitution.”
A way forward
•Ultimately, therefore, for Justice Chandrachud, the Constitution must be seen as a document that seeks to bring about a transformed society. When a religious practice goes so far as to deny women equal status in society, when notions of purity and pollution are employed to perpetuate discrimination, the Constitution ought to mandate a shattering of the conventional divides between the private and the public.
•The real test, in Justice Chandrachud’s opinion, is to assess whether an exclusion founded on religious belief, essential or otherwise, encroaches on a person’s basic right to dignity. Or in other words, discrimination couched as plurality cannot be allowed to undermine the Constitution’s basic “quest for equality”.
•The Supreme Court will soon have the opportunity to consider, once again, the differing visions offered in Indian Young Lawyers Association. For instance, when it hears arguments on the correctness of its 1962 judgment striking down the Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act of 1949, which recognised the Dai-al-Mutlaq’s powers to excommunicate persons from membership of the Dawoodi Bohra community, the court might well want to refer the case to a bench of seven judges or more and re-examine altogether the continuing validity of the essential practices doctrine. When it does so, it might also want to heed Justice Chandrachud’s words that “the Constitution exists not only to disenable entrenched structures of discrimination and prejudice, but to empower those who traditionally have been deprived of an equal citizenship.”
📰 In Parliament’s court
It is time for legislation to thoroughly clean up electoral politics
•While the issue of candidates facing criminal charges getting elected to Parliament and State legislative Assemblies is often raised, initiatives to minimise the problem, if not eliminate it completely, have been rather slow. One had hoped that the judiciary would show the way forward with regard to preventing such candidates from contesting elections, but in a recent judgment, the Supreme Court has left it to Parliament to legislate on the subject.
•The expectation was not unreasonable, as some important changes in the electoral laws — making it mandatory for candidates to submit an affidavit with full disclosure of criminal cases, if any, and details of their asset and income — were made mandatory by the judiciary. The most recent change, i.e. providing an option to voters to exercise None of the Above (NOTA) in case they do not want to vote for any of the candidate contesting an election, was also introduced by the judiciary in 2003 on the basis of the PIL filed by People’s Union for Civil Liberties.
•The court mentioned that it was not within its powers to disqualify politicians facing criminal cases from contesting election, but recommended that Parliament enact a strong law. However, the court made it mandatory for political parties and candidates themselves to make public disclosure through print and electronic media.
•But there is serious doubt whether this judgment would in any way help in making our politics cleaner than before. The chances of Parliament acting fast on this issue are dim. The reasons are simple and obvious. No political party is free of this problem. The use of muscle power along with money power is a weapon used by all political parties to maximise electoral gains. In such a scenario, any move to ban candidates with a criminal record from contesting elections would mean political parties inflicting self-harm.
What data show
•Data from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) indicate that 179 out of the 543 elected Members of Parliament in the present Lok Sabha have some kind of criminal case pending against them. While it is true that some of these may be of a frivolous nature, it is also true that many of these cases concern allegations of their involvement in serious crimes. In the case of over 100 MPs, the cases were of a very serious nature such as crimes against women and kidnapping. There seems to be very little improvement in this regard in the last five years. In the previous Lok Sabha (2009), 163 had criminal cases pending against them, many of which were of a serious nature. The profile of members of the Upper House is no better; of 228 members of the Rajya Sabha for whom data could be analysed, 20 have cases of serious crimes pending against them.
•While political parties raise concern about candidates with a tainted background contesting elections and getting elected, none of them come forward to set an example for others when it is time to act. Among the Bharatiya Janata Party’s MPs (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), 107 (32%) have criminal cases pending against them. Of them, 64 (19%) have cases of serious crimes pending against them. The Congress is only a shade better than the BJP; 15 MPs (15%) have criminal cases pending against them, of whom eight (8%) have cases of serious criminal offences pending against them. There is hardly any difference between the national and regional parties in this regard. In the Shiv Sena, 18 MPs (86%) have criminal cases pending against them, of whom 10 (48%) are alleged to be involved in serious criminal cases. Of all MPs, six each of the Nationalist Congress Party (55%) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (67%) have serious criminal cases pending against them. Going by the ADR’s estimates, there are more than 1,500 MPs and MLAs in Parliament and State Assemblies with criminal cases pending against them.
•The issue is far more important and serious than the attention being paid to it by the policy makers. While the Election Commission has limited powers to legislate on such laws, it is only Parliament which can legislate to bring about the desired change. Public opinion too is not firm on this. For example, a survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, found that opinion was divided when people were asked whether they would be willing to vote for a honest candidate who may not get their work done, or a tainted candidate who could get their work done.
📰 S-400, Kamov on the agenda of Modi, Putin
₹39,000-crore deal for Triumf air defence systems ready for signing, say officials ahead of the Russian President’s visit
•Ahead of the bilateral summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week, discussions are “still under way” between the two sides to conclude a final deal for 200 Kamov-226T utility helicopters.
•“Having also received feedback from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of India, we responded to a Request For Proposal (RFP) sent by the MoD to the joint venture in August 2018. Negotiations are still under way,” Rosoboronexport said in an e-mail response to questions from The Hindu.
•Rosoboronexport said the timing of the signing of the contract depends on the “decisions and answers” of the Defence Ministry. A defence official said there were “still some procedures to be completed” before it can be signed.
•India and Russia have already concluded an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) for 200 helicopters estimated to cost over $1 billion. Under the deal, 60 helicopters will be imported from Russia and at least another 140 will be built in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with technology transfer. As part of this, a joint venture was set up in India which will build the helicopters.
S-400 systems
•However, the big focus during Mr. Putin’s visit on October 4-5 is the proposed ₹39,000-crore deal for five S-400 air defence systems as the prospect of U.S. sanctions looms large with U.S. officials warning against it. Officials said the process to conclude a deal is almost complete but remain tight-lipped if the deal would be signed during the summit.
•Several officials have stated on various occasions that India would go ahead with the deal and it was for the U.S. to find a way around the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) to avoid sanctions.
•India has decided to drop the offset clause for the deal though it was Russia which did not want offsets initially. “They [Russia] agreed for offsets later, but we decided not to include them as it would drive up the cost and delay deliveries,” a defence official said.
•In October 2016, the two countries concluded IGA for five S-400 systems and four stealth frigates after which the negotiations began to conclude a commercial contract.
Threat of sanctions
•With the friction in relations between the U.S. and Russia, the S-400 has become a major point of friction. Several countries, including some U.S. allies, have expressed interest or are acquiring the system and Washington has threatened them with sanctions. Early this month, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on some entities and individuals in China as it recently acquired Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 systems.
•In December last year, Turkey signed a deal to acquire these systems; in October last year Saudi Arabia signed a memo of intent to acquire the S-400 and talks are on to finalise the deal. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia has threatened Qatar with military action if it moves to acquire the same system. According to the portal military today, the S-400 has been exported to Algeria as well.
•The state-of-the-art S-400 Triumf (NATO name SA-21 Growler) is considered one of the most advanced long-range defence systems in the world. It has a range of 400 km and can hit targets at a height of up to 30 km. Its powerful radars can track hundreds of targets simultaneously and destroy a range of targets.
•Each system includes a command post, a 3D phased array acquisition radar, optional tracking radar and firing units. There are various kinds of missiles to choose from based on the mission requirements.
📰 Social media giants to help EC clean up poll campaign
Will not allow fake news and targeted voter messaging
•Internet major Google and social media giants Twitter and Facebook have assured the Election Commission that they will not allow their platforms to be used for anything which affects the sanctity of polls during the campaign period, Chief Election Commissioner O.P. Rawat has said.
•He said this was tested during the Karnataka elections. “A small pilot was there. That was the beginning. Now we will have a bigger pilot before the Lok Sabha elections in the four States of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram,” the CEC said.
•Assembly polls are due in the four States later this year. Mr. Rawat said a committee under Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha had called regional and local heads of Google, Facebook and Twitter and had asked them what they can do to prevent the adverse impact of fake news and targeted communication to voters.
•“They have all committed that they will not allow anything affecting the level playing field on their platforms... during the last 48 hours before the close of poll,” he said.
📰 The road to e-vehicles
Electric vehicles will reduce fuel bills and are an integral component of the smart cities project
•Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das recently announced that his government has introduced electric vehicles for official use. While 20 vehicles have been acquired for the first phase, another 30 are expected to be added to the fleet in the coming weeks. It has also been reported that 12 charging stations have been set up in Ranchi so far, and several more are slated to come up.
•In the current scenario of soaring fuel prices and the spectre of climate change looming large over the planet, it is a welcome development that a State government is taking the lead in switching to e-vehicles. Not only does this reduce the burden of fuel bills on the exchequer, it is also in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strong pitch in favour of electric vehicles at the recently held Global Mobility Summit in New Delhi. “Clean mobility powered by clean energy is our most powerful weapon in our fight against climate change,” Mr. Modi had said as he batted for investments in electric vehicles and charging stations.
•In this context, it is well known that government officials are tremendous guzzlers of fossil fuel. If ministers and politicians are taken as a single category of consumers, their per capita and per kilometre consumption of fossil fuel is likely to be many times higher than that of most ordinary users, given their penchant for moving around accompanied by lengthy convoys of gas-guzzling escort vehicles.
•One might expect that in a real democracy, public servants, with some exceptions, would typically use public transport, which also happens to be another thrust area identified by the Prime Minister as integral to the future of mobility in India. But if this is too unrealistic an expectation, the least they could do is to exchange their petroleum-based vehicles for electric ones.
•If other States and the Centre were to follow the example set by Jharkhand, it would have two positive spin-offs: first, it would encourage the spread of a transportation infrastructure specific to e-vehicles; and second, it would spur the early adoption of e-vehicles by first-time buyers, generating consumer momentum for India’s stated goal of ensuring that by 2030, all public transport and 30% of private vehicles are electric. This is not far-fetched as quite a few countries, such as Norway and France, already have a substantial percentage of their vehicles running on either electricity or alternate fuels.
•Electric vehicles are also an integral component of smart cities, as they are an automatic assumption in frameworks of smart transportation. Meanwhile, the government needs to speed up the formulation of rules for e-vehicles as a category, and come up with an India-specific road map for a transition that needs to be smooth if only because it is inevitable.
📰 In a first, South African lion cubs conceived artificially
The breakthrough came after 18 months of trials at the University of Pretoria
•Watching the two little lion cubs play with each other at a conservation centre outside of South Africa’s capital Pretoria, it’s hard to see anything out of the ordinary.
•But these cubs are unique.
•“These are the first ever lion cubs to be born by means of artificial insemination — the first such pair anywhere in the world,” announced the University of Pretoria, whose scientists are researching the reproductive system of female African lions.
•The two cubs, a male and female, born on August 25 are healthy and normal, said Andre Ganswindt, the director of the University of Pretoria’s mammal research institute.
•His team’s breakthrough came after 18 months of intensive trials. “We collected sperm from a healthy lion,” Mr. Ganswindt said.
•Then when the lioness’ hormone levels were found to be viable, she was inseminated artificially.
•“And uckily it was successful,” said Mr. Ganswindt, adding that “there were several attempts, but surprisingly it didn’t take too much effort”.
•He said the breakthrough could be repeated, with scientists hoping the technique can be used to save other endangered big cats.
•Lions are extinct in 26 African countries and numbers in the wild have plummeted 43% over the last two decades, with roughly only 20,000 left, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which lists the African lion as vulnerable.
•“If we are not doing something about it, they will face extinction,” he said.
•Andre Mentz, a prominent lion breeder in South Africa’s Free State province, described the birth of the cubs as “very revolutionary”.
•But animal welfare organisations are less enthused. “The captive lion breeding industry is exploitative and profit-driven,” said Mark Jones of the Born Free Foundation.
