Final reprieve for Bhullar
Devendar Pal Singh Bhullar - convicted of killing nine persons and wounding 17 others in a car bomb attack in Delhi in 1993
Condemned to death thrice in the past, he has now obtained a final reprieve from the Supreme Court.
His death sentence stands commuted to life on two grounds —
- that there was an unexplained delay of eight years in disposing of his mercy petition, and
- that he suffers from mental illness
In the article author says that the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional power and duty and exercised the sovereign power of clemency, which it never possessed and thus infringed on the separation of powers as stated in the constitution.
The case in question is Shatrughan Chauhan & Anr. vs Union Of India & Ors.
The Supreme Court has the appellate power to reduce a death penalty in regular appeals. However, it has no powers to exercise the remission or commutation while exercising the judicial review of clemency power. But in the case it commuted a sentence of death to life for 15 persons on the singular ground of delay.
The errors in the Shatrughan Chauhan decision brought forward the case of three convicts — Murugan, Perarivalan and Santhan — in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case before the consideration of the Supreme Court. These commutations were ordered on the same grounds as Shatrughan Chauhan & Anr. vs Union Of India & Ors. After commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment for these convicts, the court rendered an unsolicited legal opinion that was neither pleaded nor argued by the petitioners (para 31 of the judgment).
The judgment erroneously declared the power of the State government under the Criminal Procedure Code, to exercise remission of “life sentence” to “no sentence,” and enabled the release of the convicts.
Tamil Nadu government took political advantage of the “Tamil sentiments” in view of the coming election, exercised the remission power purely for political consideration, and demanded that the Centre act within 72 hours.
Some important gyaan given in the article apart from this:
1. In 1973, a Bench comprising 13 Supreme Court judges ruled by a majority that Article 368 of the Constitution “does not enable Parliament to alter the basic structure or framework of the Constitution.” The Court ruled what has come to be known as “the basic structure” doctrine — a judicial principle that the Indian Constitution has certain “basic features” that cannot be altered or destroyed through amendments by Parliament. Paramount among these are the fundamental rights guarenteed by the Constitution.
2. The principal of the basic structure of the Constitution is enshrined in Article 79 (3) of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
Shooting the messenger to kill the message
The article is about the safety of journalists in Pakistan.
Since 1992, 54 journalists have been killed in Pakistan. This year the country shares the number one position with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Mexico and Ukraine for the maximum number of deaths of journalists.
While the government is planning to set up a media commission and repeatedly talks of the safety of journalists, mere assurances cannot set things right. Mr. Sharif’s commitment to make Pakistan a secure place for the media is a welcome move. In a democracy, a free media must be guaranteed and the right of journalists to report critically has to be respected. They cannot be subjected to intimidation, torture or be murdered for doing their job.
Second sunrise of Indian jihad
The article is about the speculation that has arised from the arrests of key operatives of Indian Mujaheddin (IM).
Speculation - IM is disintegrating and a new army is rising — an army born in Indian towns and cities scarred by communal warfare and hardened in the battlefields of Pakistan’s north-west.
The author has given various cases to prove this speculation.
Communal warfare - Babri Masjid demolition, Gujarat riots of 2002
New jihadist cells have sprung up within India. The recruits include young people, their minds fired by Internet Islamism, as well as veterans once linked to the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
It has long been evident that the gathering storm of violent Islamism in Pakistan would lash India, too. In 2010, al-Qaeda released a posthumous audio message from Egyptian jihadi Said al-Masri, claiming responsibility for the bombing of the German Bakery in Pune. This showed that al-Qaeda had developed links with jihadi groups acting against India did not surprise anyone.
Some extra gyaan from article:
How IM was founded
Founded in April 1977, SIMI, the fountainhead of the modern Indian jihadist movement, was itself driven by the forces of communal violence. From the outset, scholar Yoginder Sikand has said “that Islam alone was the solution to the problems of not just the Muslims of India, but of all Indians and, indeed, of the whole world.” It drew thousands disillusioned with traditional politics, Dr. Sikand has recorded, providing supporters “a sense of power and agency which they were denied in their actual lives.”
From December 1992, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI’s language became increasingly aggressive. In a statement in 1996, it declared that since democracy and secularism had failed to protect Muslims, the sole option was to struggle for the caliphate. Soon after, it put up posters calling on Muslims to follow the path of Mahmood Ghaznavi, the 11th century warlord. In 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, SIMI activists organised demonstrations hailing Osama bin-Laden as a “true mujahid.”
Early in the summer of 2004, a group of young men fed up with SIMI’s inability to act on its own talk gathered in the small coastal town of Bhatkal in Mangalore — and founded what we now call the Indian Mujahideen.
Gyaan
This article can be used in answers to show how communal acts are detrimental for India and how terror outfits of India are gettin linked to internation terror outfits like Al- Qaeda.
President gives away Padma awards
Eminent scientist R A Mashelkar was on Monday conferred the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award, while acclaimed artiste Kamal Haasan and ace shuttler P Gopichand were among the 12 personalities conferred the Padma Bhushan by President Pranab Mukherjee here.
Award winning actor Vidya Balan, coach of Indian women kabaddi team Sunil Dabas, sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik and activist Jawahar Lal Kaul were among the 53 personalities conferred the Padma Shri award at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhawan’s Durbar Hall.
Mashelkar (71) is well known globally for his path breaking research in polymer science and engineering.
He has chaired 12 high powered national level committees to look into diverse issues of higher education, national auto fuel policy and measures to deal with the menace of spurious drugs.
Anumolu Ramakrishna, who pioneered the use of precast concrete technology, was conferred the Padma Bhushan posthumously. He passed away last year at the age of 73.
Japan’s whaling not for scientific research, rules ICJ
The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday asked Japan to stop its whaling programme in the Antarctic.
Japan catches about 1,000 whales each year in the region for what it calls scientific research, BBC reported.
Australia in May 2010 filed a case with the ICJ, arguing that Japan’s programme — under which it kills whales — is actually commercial whaling in disguise.
The court’s decision is considered legally binding, and Japan earlier did say it would abide by the court’s ruling, the report said.
UK plans new law against child cruelty
Britain is planning to make emotional cruelty towards children a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison as part of a new so-called ‘Cinderella Law’.
Parents found guilty under the law could face up to 10 years in prison, the maximum term in child neglect cases.
It follows a campaign for a “Cinderella Law” by the charity Action for Children.
Warming worsens hunger problems: U.N.
Global warming makes feeding the world harder and more expensive, a United Nations scientific panel said.
A warmer world will push food prices higher, trigger “hotspots of hunger” among the world’s poorest people, and put the crunch on Western delights like fine wine and robust coffee, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in a 32-volume report issued on Monday.
Whaling is the hunting of whales primarily for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC.Various coastal communities have long histories of subsistence whaling and harvesting beached whales. Industrial whaling emerged with organized fleets in the 17th century; competitive national whaling industries in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the introduction of factory ships along with the concept of whale harvesting in the first half of the 20th century.
ReplyDelete As technology increased and demand for the resources remained, catches far exceeded the sustainable limit for whale stocks. In the late 1930s, more than 50,000 whales were killed annually and by the middle of the century whale stocks were not being replenished. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling so that stocks might recover.
While the moratorium has been successful in averting the extinction of whale species due to overhunting, contemporary whaling is subject to intense debate. Pro-whaling countries, notably Japan, wish to lift the ban on stocks that they claim have recovered sufficiently to sustain limited hunting. Anti-whaling countries and environmental groups say whale species remain vulnerable and that whaling is immoral, unsustainable, and should remain banned permanently.
Key elements of the debate over whaling include sustainability, ownership, national sovereignty, suffering during hunting, health risks, the value of 'lethal sampling' to establish catch quotas, the value of controlling whales' impact on fish stocks and the rapidly approaching extinction of a few whale species.
At the 2010 meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco, representatives of the 88 member states discussed whether or not to lift the 24-year ban on commercial whaling. Japan, Norway and Iceland have urged the organisation to lift the ban. A coalition of anti-whaling nations has offered a compromise plan that would allow these countries to continue whaling, but with smaller catches and under close supervision. Their plan would also completely ban whaling in the Southern Ocean.More than 200 scientists and experts have opposed the compromise proposal for lifting the ban, and have also opposed allowing whaling in the Southern Ocean, which was declared a whale sanctuary in 1994.Opponents of the compromise plan want to see an end to all commercial whaling, but are willing to allow subsistence-level catches by indigenous peoples.