Animal rights: Stating that animals have a right to be treated with compassion, respect and dignity, the Delhi High Court asked the Animal Welfare Boa
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Polity updates - 05th July
- Animal rights: Stating that animals have a right to be treated with compassion, respect and dignity, the Delhi High Court asked the Animal Welfare Board of India to designate areas in consultation with Resident Welfare Associations, where dogs can be fed in the national capital. The court said that it is the moral responsibility of every citizen to protect animals. The court also directed the board to ensure that every RWA in Delhi constitutes an Animal Welfare Committee.
- Students with a disconnect: In the academic year that began and ended with schools closed due to Covid-19, only 22% of schools in India had Internet facilities, according to data released by the Education Ministry. Among government schools, less than 12% had access to the net in 2019-20, while less than 30% had functional computer facilities. In Assam (13%), Madhya Pradesh (13%), Bihar (14%), West Bengal (14%), Tripura (15%) and Uttar Pradesh (18%), less than one in five schools had working computers. Government schools are way on the wrong side of the digital divide, with less than 5% of UP’s having the facility. Just three states — Kerala (88%), Delhi (86%) and Gujarat (71%) — have Internet in more than half their schools.
- States' power to add new communities to OBC lists: The Supreme Court has dismissed the Union government’s review plea against its verdict on the power of state governments to add new communities to the list of ‘backward classes’ entitled to reservation. A five-judge bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said, “We have gone through the review petition filed against the judgment dated May 5, in Writ Petition. The grounds taken do not fall within the limited ground on which review petition can be considered.” The issue at hand is Maharashtra’s decision to provide reservation for Marathas, invalidated by the court, on the grounds that the 102nd amendment to the Constitution, introduced by Narendra Modi in 2018, had taken away this power from the states. The Modi government argued that this was not the case but must now live with the reality that its poor drafting is to blame for the undoing of Maratha reservation – an initiative the erstwhile BJP-led government of Devendra Fadnavis had taken in 2018.
- Tushar Mehta in a controversy: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was in the eye of a storm following reports that BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari – a defector from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) – might have met him. Any meeting would be highly inappropriate given that Mehta represents the CBI, which is probing cases where Adhikari’s name has also figured. Mehta issued a statement acknowledging that Adhikari came to his office but said he was given a cup of tea and sent off without a meeting. But the very fact that Adhikari – now the BJP’s top man in Bengal – tried to meet Mehta gave opponents the ammunition to strike.
- Army finds better situation at LoC now: Nearly four months after India and Pakistan agreed to “strictly observe all agreements on ceasefire” along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, Army Chief General MM Naravane has confirmed there had been a marked change since the ceasefire agreement ― there had been no infiltration from across the LoC and all the parameters of violence in Kashmir had dropped. On China, the Army chief said the developments along our northern borders during the past year are a stark reminder that in order to preserve our territorial integrity, the armed forces must continually prepare and adapt to the exigencies of modern wars. He also said that there was an environment of trust between the two sides due to talks at military and diplomatic level.
- Demands from Leh and Kargil: When Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories on August 5, 2019, Ladakh was seen welcoming the reorganisation. But various demands and concerns have been raised from its two districts, Leh and Kargil, over the last two years. (i) Kargil - Of Ladakh’s two districts, the August 2019 changes were immediately opposed by the people of Kargil. The people of Kargil see themselves as a minority in Buddhist majority Ladakh. So, the leaders of the majority Shia population in Kargil demanded that the district should remain part of J&K. They also demanded that special status be restored, to safeguard the rights of Kargil people over their land and employment opportunities. (ii) Leh believed that it was being marginalised in the larger state of J&K, so a UT for Ladakh had been a long-standing demand in Buddhist majority Leh. But what Leh leaders did not bargain for was the complete loss of legislative powers. Earlier, Leh and Kargil each sent four representatives to the J&K legislature. After the changes, they were down to one legislator - their sole MP, and with all powers vested in the UT bureaucracy. Unlike the UT of J&K, Ladakh was a UT without an assembly. So, the Ladakh districts fear that alienation of land, loss of identity, culture, language, and change in demography would follow their political disempowerment. Leh and Kargil have separate Autonomous Hill Development Councils (AHDCs), set up under the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils Act, 1997. However, the AHDCs have no legislative powers.
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