Editorial

Rumblings in Supreme Court

THE press conference by four senior judges of the Supreme Court on January 12 was truly unprecedented in the judicial history of India. Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, the four senior most judges after the chief justice and who constitute the five-member collegium took this extraordinary step to complain about the way in which the chief justice was dealing with the administrative matters relating to the allocation of cases and the constitution of the benches.

Netanyahu Not Welcome

THE prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting India from January 14. His official visit is not something which is to be welcomed. The coalition headed by Netanyahu is the most right-wing government that Israel has had. It consists of ultraright Jewish parties who openly advocate expulsion of the Palestinian people from the occupied territories and treating the Arabs within the borders of Israel as second-class citizens.

End Mandatory Aadhar

THE Tribune newspaper published an investigative report on January 4 about how its reporter could get access to details of more than one billion Aadhar numbers.  The reporter paid Rs 500 through Paytm to a vendor after which a gateway was created with a login ID and password which enabled her to get any name, address, photo, phone number and email-id of a person registered with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Resolve for 2018

LOOKING back at the year 2017 that has just ended, there is an important aspect of the national situation that must be noted. The year unfolded with the forces of reaction on the ascendant. But by the last quarter of the year, the forces of resistance against the right wing offensive had begun to assert themselves and make their presence felt.

Red Star over Nepal

THE big victory for the alliance of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) in the federal and provincial elections is a politically significant development for Nepal.  It will have its repercussions in South Asia too. 

Turmoil over Jerusalem

PRESIDENT Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has met with universal opposition and concern. All the major European allies of the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom have spoken out. All Arab countries have opposed the step. In the United Nations Security Council, all the fourteen members apart from the US, deplored the decision. The only State to hail the move is naturally, Israel, because its illegal occupation of East Jerusalem has been legitimised by the United States.

Curb Crimes against Women

THE latest report of the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals a steady increase in crimes against women and an alarming rise in sexual assaults on children. In 2016, 3.4 lakh cases of crimes against women were registered. This is a 2.9 per cent increase over the previous year. Of these 32 per cent concerned domestic violence, 25 per cent sexual harassment and 11.5 per cent rape. Statistics relating to crimes against women are always an underestimate as many cases go unreported, or, FIRs are not registered. Hence these figures can indicate only broad trends.

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