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At a time when three state governments have moved the Supreme Court against their Governors for keeping Bills pending, a three-Judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Monday said Governors “must act” before the matter reaches the court.
Calling for some “soul-searching” by the Governors as well as Chief Ministers, the Bench said Governors “cannot be oblivious to the fact that they are not elected representatives of the people”.
“Why do parties have to come to the SC? The Governors must act before it comes to the SC… Only after they come to the SC, the Governors start acting. This has to stop,” the Bench, which included Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.
While the Bench was hearing a plea filed by the Punjab government, which said that Governor Banwarilal Purohit had kept seven Bills pending, the Kerala and Tamil Nadu governments have also filed similar pleas.
Fixing the next hearing for November 10, the court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for Purohit, to apprise it of “the action taken by the Governor” by then.
Govt & Politics
Standing panel adopts reports on criminal laws (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs, which looked into the three Bills that seek to replace the Indian Penal Code, CrPC and the Evidence Act, adopted its draft reports Monday even as the opposition members in the panel submitted multiple dissent notes. The report is learnt to have suggested many changes in the Bills.
Some of the members, including former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, sought some more time for submitting dissent notes.
Opposition sources said Chidambaram and TMC members Derek O’ Brien and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar would submit detailed dissent notes.
Several members, including Congress’s Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Digvijaya Singh and DMK’s N R Elango, have already submitted dissent notes. Sources said all the 10 opposition members in the panel would submit separate dissent notes. It is learnt Chidambaram spoke at length in the meeting Monday offering several suggestions.
Some among the Opposition members believe that the usage of Hindi in the Bills goes against the spirit of the Constitution. The committee, however, has stuck to the Hindi names given to the bills.
Express Network
India Bhutan to broaden partnership on energy, health, space technology (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Bhutan agreed to extend the existing energy partnership to non-hydro renewables such as solar as well as green initiatives for hydrogen, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirming India's abiding commitment to its unique ties of friendship and cooperation with the neighbouring country.
Bhutan King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who is on a visit to India, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
A joint statement issued during the Bhutan King's visit said that the two leaders held discussions on the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation and regional and global issues of mutual interest.
The Bhutan King, who is accompanied by senior officials, is on an official visit to India from November 3 to 10. Before coming to New Delhi, the Bhutan King visited Assam. He will later travel to Maharashtra.
The Bhutan King commended the "excellent organization of the recently concluded G20 Summit hosted by India", and forging consensus for constructive decisions and outcomes contained in the Delhi Declaration.
He particularly appreciated India's efforts in effectively integrating the interest and priorities of the countries in the Global South in the G20 deliberations and outcome documents.
Editorial
Old issues, new questions (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Assembly elections to be held in Mizoram today have garnered much attention. Perhaps the fact that they will soon be followed by Assembly elections in four other states and the general elections next year has given more attention to the campaigns in Mizoram as they provide an opportunity to gauge the political mood of the country.
Whether Mizoram, along with the rest of the Northeast, will fall under the sway of the BJP is also something that is being keenly watched.
While the BJP is not likely to perform well in the election, whether it will be able to determine the course of the politics in the state after the elections is the point over which the three main contenders — the incumbent Mizo National Front (MNF), the INC and the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) — are positioning themselves.
The recent turn of events in Manipur have made the people wary of the BJP — something that was, perhaps, not the case earlier.
Thus, the MNF, although it was part of the North-East Democratic Alliance, is busy trying to justify its earlier associations with the BJP.
The fact that these elections are three-cornered has made it a campaign like no other (although the AAP has also fielded candidates, it is not expected to make much headway).
Informal opinion polls suggest that people are tired of the earlier two-party contests and the alternating of power every two terms.
The ZPM offers an alternative with more academics than any other party as candidates, not yet tarnished or tested by corruption. The question, of course, in people’s minds is whether it will bow down to the BJP, given that Mizoram, like most states in the Northeast, is dependent on the Centre for funding.
Ideas Page
Hindi against Hindi (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
A language — any — is all about words and there is something magical in the live, ephemeral, polyvalent, dynamic quality of words. Bhartrihari, the great philosopher of language, articulates that magic.
It is dhwani, sound, he says, which infuses, arbitrarily, meanings into a word. Yes, meanings into a word. No word has a fixed meaning. Its meanings keep changing. And, yet, each word is unique. As Bhartrihari puts it, there are no synonyms.
Language is our heritage, and like any heritage we keep inventing and reinventing it.
Hindi is my heritage. It is my mother-tongue and richly eclectic. Through it, I imbibe variegated cultures, philosophies, histories, religions, endless ways of seeing, being, expressing and questioning.
It connects me to myself and shapes my past, present and future, in a dynamic and not static way. My home and my hearth. And, in a metaphorical twist, I may say my Om and my Earth!
World
Blinken ends Middle East visit with little success in war efforts (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
US SECRETARY of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a grueling Middle East diplomatic tour in Turkey after only limited success in efforts to forge a regional consensus on how best to ease civilian suffering in Gaza as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas.
In the Turkish capital, Ankara, Blinken met with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan following a frantic weekend of travel that took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq, to build support for the Biden administration's proposal for "humanitarian pauses" to Israel's relentless military campaign in Gaza.
China Australia agree to cooperate, welcome change in icy relations (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
President Xi Jinping said stable ties between China and Australia served each other's interests and both should expand their cooperation, sending a clear signal that Beijing was ready to move on from recent tensions.
China and Australia should promote the development of their strategic partnership as they build up mutual understanding and trust, Xi told Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the first Australian leader to visit Beijing since 2016, at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of the Chinese capital.
A strong relationship "will be beneficial into the future," Albanese told Xi in their second face-to-face talks in a year, a meeting that lasted more than an hour.
For decades, China and Australia built a relationship on trade, with Beijing becoming Canberra's biggest commercial partner with purchases of Australian food and natural resources.
But ties soured after Australia in 2017 accused China of meddling in its politics. The following year, Australia banned equipment from Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co for its 5G network out of national security fears.
Economy
Fitch hikes India’s medium term GDP growth estimate by 70bps to 6.2% (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s annual average growth of potential Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to be 6.2 per cent during 2019-2027, 0.7 percentage points higher than the 5.7 per cent estimate for 2013-2022, primarily due to improved employment rate and better working-age population forecast, Fitch Ratings said in its latest report.
This comes amid a downward revision by Fitch of the medium-term growth potential for 10 emerging economies driven by a cut in China’s growth outlook.
In India’s case, potential growth has increased by 0.7 percentage points to 6.2 per cent given an improvement in the employment rate and a modest increase in the working-age population forecast, the report said, adding that India’s labour productivity forecast is also higher.
Explained
Odd even’s health impact: What studies, doctors say (Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
While there is some evidence that an odd-even vehicle policy reduces pollutant levels, experts say the available data lacks consistency, and the reduction achieved may not be sufficient to address health-related impacts.
“It is not even a band-aid,” said Dr Sagnik Dey, professor and coordinator, Centre of Excellence for Research in Clean Air at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi.
Explaining why odd-even is not a long-term solution, Dr Dey said: “With several exceptions, odd-even doesn’t really cut the number of vehicles plying on the roads by 50%.
More importantly, the reduction in emissions doesn’t always mean a reduction in the pollutant concentration in the air, as that depends on meteorological factors like wind speed.
The evidence so far shows an uneven impact — while some areas have seen reductions, others have not, or the reduction has been only for a few hours.”
Dr Dey added that there is no study to show whether this small reduction in air pollution levels impacts people’s health.
Dr Karan Madan, additional professor of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at AIIMS, Delhi, agreed: “When the PM2.5 levels are over 500, a 20% decrease would mean a drop to only 400. That is still very harmful.”
Long-term exposure to pollution is associated with increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes. It is known to increase the risk of chronic lung diseases, cancers, lower immunity, and also leads to depression.
A national security strategy for India: What it should be guided by (Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
A long wait is said to be coming to an end as the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) sets about drafting India’s first written National Security Strategy (NSS), according to a report published on November 4.
India has never had such a document — and the debate on whether one is needed is of fairly recent origin, spanning the last two decades or so.
Vice Admiral Biswajit Dasgupta (Retd) PVSM AVSM, a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, explains:
In other words, does the public need to know how the Indian government plans to handle national security in all its dimensions? Of course, they must know.
It is basic to their existence and well-being as a body of people that is called the nation. In the absence of a publicly articulated National Security Strategy, there would be a lack of cohesion and common understanding, and diverse interpretations of what may be in the interest of national security.