Junior Digest

New Delhi, July 20,2023: Making a strong remark over the incident in Manipur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that it “brings shame to humanity” and what has happened to daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven and the “guilty will not be spared.”

Addressing the media, before the Monsoon Session of Parliament on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The whole country is being insulted, and 140 crore countrymen are feeling ashamed. I assure the countrymen that no culprit will be spared. What has happened to these daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven.”

PM Modi also advised the Members of Parliament to make the best use of this session.

“All the political parties and all the MPs should make the best use of this session. This session holds much significance because the bills introduced in this session are directly connected to the public interest,” he said.

“Discussion plays a significant role, the sharper the discussion, the better the decisions, which will give far-reaching results in the public interest,” the PM said.

“The Data Protection Bill, introduced at a time when our youth is leading the digital world, gives a new sense of faith to people and raises the stature of India before the world,” he added.

The Prime Minister said, the bills being brought in this session are directly related to the public.

“Our young generation, which is leading in a way with the digital world, at that time the Data Protection Bill is going to give a new confidence to every citizen of the country and enhance India’s prestige in the world,” he added.

In this Parliament session, the Union government is likely to discuss a total of 31 bills, including those that were already introduced in the lower house.

The data protection bill is anticipated for discussion, which the Centre has been keen to address.

Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, the government convened an all-party meeting Wednesday and sought cooperation from all political parties for the smooth functioning of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Briefing the media after the meeting, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister said the government is ready to discuss all issues following the rules and regulations and with the permission of the Speaker.

He appealed to the opposition parties for their cooperation. The Monsoon session of Parliament will take place from today (Thursday) to August 11.

During the meeting, several opposition leaders raised their demand to discuss the Manipur violence in Parliament.

The meeting was attended by Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Piyush Goyal, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, Prof Ramgopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, M. Thambi Durai of the AIADMK, and Lalan Singh of JDU, among others.

On the first day of the monsoon session of Parliament beginning on Thursday, various bills are listed in today’s business of both houses.

In the Lok Sabha, the National Nursing and Midwifery Commission Bill, 2023, and The National Dental Commission Bill, 2023, are listed for introduction, while The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2022, will be taken up for consideration and passing.

In the Rajya Sabha, the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2023, is listed for introduction, while the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Third Amendment) Bill, 2022, and The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2022, are listed for consideration and passing in today’s business.

Moscow,July 14,2023:Russian politicians have adopted a bill outlawing gender-reassignment procedures amid the Kremlin’s push to protect what it views as the country’s “traditional values”.
The toughened version of the bill was passed unanimously on Friday in its third and final reading in Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma.
The bill bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.
The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies.
In its second reading on Thursday, clauses were added that annul marriages in which one person has “changed gender” and bar transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The bill must be passed by the Federation Council, Russia’s Kremlin-controlled upper chamber that generally rubber-stamps legislation that the Duma has approved, before being signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It has rattled the country’s transgender community and has drawn criticism not only from LGBTQ rights advocates but from medical personnel as well.

Lyubov Vinogradova, executive director of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, called the bill “misanthropic” in a phone interview with The Associated Press before the final reading.

Gender-affirming procedures “shouldn’t be banned entirely, because there are people for whom it is the only way to “to exist normally and find peace with themselves”, Vinogradova said.

Lawmakers portray the measure as protecting Russia from “the Western anti-family ideology,” with some describing gender transitioning as “pure satanism”.
Chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said in a statement on social media: “This decision will protect our citizens and our children.”

He pointed to what he described as a growing trend of gender reassignment in the United States, and claimed this was leading to the “degeneration” of the country.

“This is unacceptable for us,” he added, explaining why the proposed ban had won the backing of the lower house.

The crackdown on LGBTQ people started a decade ago when Putin first proclaimed a focus on “traditional family values”, a move ardently supported – and fueled, to a certain extent – by the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors.

In 2020, Putin pushed through a constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage.

Yan Dvorkin, a 32-year-old psychologist who leads a Russian NGO helping transgender people called “Centre T”, told the AFP news agency prior to Friday’s vote he was concerned about a possible rise in suicides as a result of the bill.
He also said the ban on hormone reassignment therapy – also to be made illegal under the rules – risks “creating a black market in hormones”.

July 16,2023: Scorching weather is gripping three continents, whipping up wildfires and threatening to topple temperature records.

Predictions of historic heat hung over swathes of Asia, Europe and the United States on Sunday.
In Japan, authorities issued heatstroke alerts to tens of millions of people in 20 of its 47 prefectures as near-record high temperatures scorched large areas and torrential rain pummelled other regions.
National broadcaster NHK warned the heat was life-threatening, with the capital and other places recording temperatures of nearly 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Japan’s highest temperature ever – a record 41.1C (106F), in Kumagaya city, Saitama in 2018 – could be beaten, according to the country’s meteorological agency.
Some places experienced their highest temperatures in more than four decades on Sunday, including Hirono town in Fukushima prefecture, which hit 37.3C (99.1F).

The United States National Weather Service reported that a powerful heatwave stretching from California to Texas was expected to peak during an “extremely hot and dangerous weekend”.
California’s Death Valley, often among the hottest places on Earth, is also likely to register new peaks on Sunday, with the mercury possibly surpassing 54C (129F).
Southern California is fighting numerous wildfires, including one in Riverside County that has burned more than 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) and prompted evacuation orders.
Further north, the Canadian government said wildfires had burned a record-breaking 10 million hectares (25 million acres) this year, with more damage expected as the summer drags on.
Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, told Al Jazeera the current conditions in the northern hemisphere are related and were predicted.

Historic highs forecast
In Europe, Italians were warned to prepare for “the most intense heatwave of the summer and also one of the most intense of all time”.

Predictions of historic high temperatures in the coming days led the health ministry to sound a red alert for 16 cities including Rome, Bologna and Florence.

Temperatures are likely to hit 40C (104F) in Rome by Monday and 42C-43C (108-109F) on Tuesday, smashing the record of 40.5C (105F) set in August 2007.
Sicily and Sardinia could wilt under temperatures as high as 48C (118F), the European Space Agency warned – “potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe”.

The Acropolis in Athens, one of Greece’s top tourist attractions, closed for a third day running Sunday during the hottest hours.

In Romania, temperatures are expected to reach 39C (102F) on Monday across most of the country.

Little reprieve is forecast for Spain, where the meteorological agency warned of a new heatwave Monday through Wednesday taking temperatures above 40C (104F) in the Canary Islands and the southern Andalusia region.

On La Palma island, which endured a volcanic eruption in 2021, a fire burned 5,000 hectares (12,360 acres) this weekend, forcing the evacuation of 4,000 people.
wildfire, Torrential rains, floods

Despite the heat, parts of Asia have also been battered by torrential rain.

In South Korea, rescuers on Sunday battled to reach people trapped in a flooded tunnel, after heavy rains for the last four days triggered floods and landslides that killed at least 37 people and left nine missing.

The country is at the peak of its summer monsoon season, with more rain forecast through Wednesday.

In northern Japan on Sunday, a man was found dead in a flooded car, a week after seven people were killed in similar weather in the country’s southwest.

In northern India, relentless monsoon rains have reportedly killed at least 90 people, following burning heat.

Major flooding and landslides are common during India’s monsoons, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.

China on Sunday issued several temperature alerts, warning of 40-45C (104-113F) in the partly desert region of Xinjiang, and 39C (102F) in the southern Guangxi region.

It can be difficult to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, but many scientists agree that global warming – linked to dependence on fossil fuels – is behind the intensification of heatwaves.

The EU’s climate monitoring service said the world saw its hottest June on record last month.

July 19,2023: South Africa, the host of this year’s BRICS Summit, has said that the Russian President Vladimir Putin, will not be attending this year’s meeting.

The South African Presidency highlighted that decision was a “mutual agreement” between both the countries.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March and as an ICC member, South Africa was obliged to arrest the Russian President if he showed up for the summit.

On Tuesday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa asked permission from the ICC not to arrest Putin, because to do so would amount to a declaration of war.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, that everyone understood – without having it explained to them – what an attempt to infringe on Putin’s rights would mean, if the arrest were to take place.

WASHINGTON, July 18,2023: Scientists for the past 15 years have been looking for evidence of a type of star only hypothesized but never observed – one powered not by the fusion of atoms like the sun and other ordinary stars but by mysterious stuff called dark matter.

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s ability to peer back to the dawn of the universe, the first good candidates to be “dark stars” have been identified.

The three objects spotted by Webb, which was launched in 2021 and began collecting data last year, were initially identified last December as some of the universe’s earliest-known galaxies but, according to researchers, instead might actually be humongous dark stars.

Dark matter, invisible material whose presence is known mainly based on its gravitational effects at a galactic scale, would be a small but crucial ingredient in dark stars. These stars are described as made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium – the two elements present during the universe’s infancy – with 0.1% of their mass in the form of dark matter. But self-annihilating dark matter would be their engine.

Dark matter is invisible to us – it does not produce or directly interact with light – but is thought to account for about 85% of the universe’s matter, with the remaining 15% comprising normal matter like stars, planets, gas, dust and Earthly stuff like pizza and people.

Dark stars would be able to achieve a mass at least a million times greater than the sun and a luminosity at least a billion times greater, with a diameter roughly ten times the distance between Earth and the sun.

“They’re big puffy beasts,” said Katherine Freese, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin and senior author of the research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“They are made of atomic matter and powered by the little bit of dark matter that’s inside them,” Freese added.

Unlike ordinary stars, they would be able to gain mass by accumulating gas falling into them in space.

“They can continue to accrete the surrounding gas almost indefinitely, reaching supermassive status,” said Colgate University astrophysicist and study lead author Cosmin Ilie.

They would not have been as hot as the universe’s first generation of ordinary stars. It was the nuclear fusion occurring in the cores of those stars that spawned elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.

The three objects pegged as potential dark stars date to early in the universe’s history – one from 330 million years after the Big Bang event that got the cosmos going 13.8 billion years ago, and the others from 370 million years and 400 million years after the Big Bang.

Based on the Webb data, these objects could be either early galaxies or dark stars, Freese said.

“One supermassive dark star is as bright as an entire galaxy, so it could be one or the other,” Freese added.

While there is not enough data to make a definitive judgment about these three, Freese said, Webb may be able to obtain fuller data on other similarly primordial objects that could provide “smoking gun” evidence of a dark star.

Conditions in the early universe may have been conducive to formation of dark stars, with high dark matter densities at the locations of star-forming clouds of hydrogen and helium. Such conditions are highly unlikely today.

Freese and two colleagues first proposed the existence of dark stars in 2008, basing the name on the 1960s Grateful Dead song “Dark Star.”

“It would be really super exciting to find a new type of star with a new kind of heat source,” Freese said. “It might lead to the first dark matter particles being detected. And then you can learn about the properties of dark matter particles by studying a variety of dark stars of different masses.”

New Delhi, July 14,2023: The Congress on Friday launched a scathing attack at the BJP-led government over electoral bonds, calling it a scheme of the ruling dispensation that converts “black money into white”.

The statement of the Congress came days after the Association for Democratic Reforms report, which claimed that the BJP received electoral bonds worth Rs 5,271.9751 crore from FY 2016–17 to FY 2021–22. The amount received by the ruling party is over 52 per cent of its total donations.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, Congress Media and Publicity Department chairman Pawan Khera said, “BJP unleashed the electoral bonds scheme to legitimise its loot through ‘crony capitalism’. Destroying democracy, discarding transparency, and demolishing electoral practises is the sole objective of the (Narendra) Modi government.”

New Delhi, July 19,2023: In a major relief to social activist, Teesta Setalvad, the Supreme Court in its order on Wednesday granted regular bail to her in a case of forging documents and tutoring witnesses in cases relating to post-Godhra riots cases.
The Apex Court said since the chargesheet has been filed against Teesta and her custodial interrogation completed, she should be granted bail.
The Apex Court also made scathing remarks against the Gujarat HC for rejecting her bail plea and said she would be treated as on continuous bail since September 2, 2022, but told her not to influence any witness. “If she influences, prosecution can move SC directly for cancellation of bail,” the SC said.
“No custodial interrogation is needed on this case to present,” the Bench said, and granted regular bail to social activist Teesta.

The Supreme Court in its order Wednesday also quashed the Gujarat High Court’s order which rejected her regular bail and asked her to surrender immediately.
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice B R Gavai passed the order and directed that she directed to be remain in bail.

The Supreme Court passed the order after Teesta moved the SC, against Gujarat High Court order which rejected her regular bail on July first week and asked her to surrender immediately.

Bengaluru (Karnataka)], July 18,2023: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said that the next meeting of the like-minded parties to take forward the agenda of opposition unity against the BJP will be held in Mumbai and an 11-member coordination committee will be formed.

Kharge said the next meeting will discuss details like seat sharing. The opposition parties are seeking to put up a common front to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“The next opposition meeting will be held in Mumbai; the date will be announced soon. An 11-member coordination committee will be set up. Names of committee members will be announced in Mumbai,” Mallikarjun Kharge said after second meeting of opposition parties here.

Kharge also announced the new name for the opposition alliance – India National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, or I.N.D.I.A.

Sriharikota (AP), July 14,2023: India’s heavy lift launch vehicle LVM3-M4 on Friday successfully launched third Lunar exploratory mission Chandrayaan-3 in the intended orbit. After a 25.5 hour countdown, the 43.5 m tall launch vehicle, with a lift off mass of 642 tonnes, took off from the Second Launch Pad at 2.35 p.m from the SHAR Range.
Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, where the ISRO engineers and scientists celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft.

Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control centre and waved the national flag as they watched the craft rise into the sky.

“Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards the moon,” ISRO Director S P Somanath said shortly after the launch.
Only three other space agencies – the United States, the former Soviet Union and China – have touched down a lander on the moon’s surface.

None has landed near the lunar south pole.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently visiting France, tweeted that the mission was carrying the “hopes and dreams of our nation”.
The third Chandrayaan includes a two-metre-tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the lunar south pole, where it is expected to remain functional for two weeks running a series of experiments.

Chennai, July 17,2023: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully performed the second Orbit raising manoeuvre of third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3, which was launched from the spaceport of Sriharikota on Friday.
After the first orbit raising manoeuvre (Earthbound firing-1), was performed by the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru, the second orbit-raising manoeuvre (Earth- bound apogee firing) was performed successfully on Monday.
The spacecraft is now in 41762 km x 173 km orbit.The next firing is planned for tomorrow between 2 pm and 3 pm.
ISRO said the spacecraft’s health is normal. In a mission update, ISRO said “the second orbit-raising maneuver
(Earth-bound apogee firing) is performed successfully.” “The spacecraft is now in 41603 km x 226 km orbit. The next firing is planned for tomorrow between 2 and 3 pm IST”, ISRO said.

The Space agency will be performing two more firing till July 31 after which the trans lunar insertion is planned on August 1.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was successfully launched by ISRO’s heaviest launch vehicle LVM3-M4 and after a flight duration of about 16 minutes, it was precisely placed in an elliptic parking orbit of 36,500 km x 170 km.
ISRO is planning the technically challenging soft landing of the Chandryaaan-3 spacecraft in the lunar surface at 5.47 p.m. on August 23, ISRO Chairman S.Somanath said after the launch at Sriharikota.
The Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous lander module (LM), propulsion module (PM), and a rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for future inter-planetary missions.
The success of Chandrayaan-3 will make it the surface mission closest to the lunar south pole to date, a region of the moon that has been found to be geologically unique and host to spots in permanent shadow.
A perfect soft landing on the Moon’s surface will make India the fourth country to accomplish this feat, thereby joining a select group of spacefaring nations.
Only USA, the then Soviet Union and China have achieved this feat. India too nearly achieved in its maiden attempt when it launched Chandryaan-2 in July 2019, before the lander crash landed very close to the landing spot, making the mission about 99.99 per cent success.

Through Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO is crossing new frontiers by demonstrating soft landing on lunar surface by its lunar module and demonstrate roving on the lunar terrain.
It is expected to be supportive to ISRO’s future interplanetary missions.
ISRO said Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.

AUCKLAND,July 16,2023: Britain on Sunday formally signed the treaty to join a major trans-Pacific trade pact, becoming the first new country to take part since its inception in 2018 and opening the way for members to consider other applications including from China and Taiwan.

The signing was part of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) commission meeting being held in New Zealand.

Ministers from member countries will meet later on Sunday to discuss a range of topics, including how to move forward with new applications and a review of the agreement itself.

Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said at the signing that her country was delighted to become the first new member of the CPTPP.

“This is a modern and ambitious agreement and our membership in this exciting, brilliant and forward looking bloc is proof that the UK’s doors are open for business,” Badenoch said.

The British government still needs to ratify the agreement.

The CPTPP is a landmark trade pact agreed in 2018 between 11 countries including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Britain will become the 12th member of the pact that cuts trade barriers, as it looks to deepen ties in the Pacific after its exit from the European Union in 2020.

China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Ecuador have also applied to join the CPTPP.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the road to bringing Britain into the agreement had been long and at times challenging, but having major economies inside the partnership would bring the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific in a way that strengthened the rules-based trading system in the region.

New Delhi, July 20,2023: Supreme Court on Thursday took suo motu cognisance of the “deeply disturbing” viral video from Manipur, where two women are seen being molested and paraded naked.

“Use of women as an instrument of violence in a charged atmosphere is completely unacceptable”, a bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chadrachud, said, and granted one week time to the state and Central governments to give details about what steps have been taken.

The CJI said, “The government should really step in and take action. It’s simply unacceptable. It’s deeply disturbing. Grossest of constitutional and human rights violations.”

The CJI led bench, which was aghast, asked the Union and Manipur governments to inform by July 28, as to “what steps were taken to bring the perpetrators to book and what steps were taken to prevent such incidents in future.”

The CJI Dr Chadrachud, said, “The video may be from the month of May, but that does not make any difference”.

The CJI went on to observe that using women as an instrument in a communal clash situation to perpetrate gender violence is ‘very, very deeply concerning” to the Supreme Court.

Gurugram (Haryana) July 14,2023:: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday raised concern at the two-day G-20 Conference here regarding terrorists using the dark net to hide their identity and spread radical material, and find solutions by understanding pattern of these activities.
The minister also warned of cyber-attack threat which he said is hovering over all the major economies of the world and “many countries of the world have become victims of it”.
To create a “robust and efficient operational system”, Shah said, “Terrorists are using the dark net to hide their identity and spread radical material, and we have to understand the pattern of these activities running on the dark net and find solutions for the same.”
The Home Minister also specified the need to think coherently to crack down on the use of various virtual assets.
Speaking at the G20 Conference on Crime and Security in the age of the Non-Fungible Token (NFT), Artificial Intelligence (Al) and Metaverse’, Shah further said “The Metaverse, once a science fiction idea, has now stepped into the real world.”
He said the metaverse may create new opportunities for terrorist organizations primarily for propaganda, recruitment, and training.
“This will make it easier for terrorist organizations to select and target vulnerable people and prepare material according to their vulnerabilities.”
“The metaverse also creates opportunities for true imitation of a user’s identity, known as “deep-fakes”. Using better biometric information about individuals, criminals will be able to impersonate users and steal their identities,” Shah further said.
The minister also pointed out that incidents ranging from ransomware attacks, the sale of critical personal data, online harassment, and child abuse to fake news and misinformation campaigns with ‘toolkits’ are being carried out by cybercriminals.
At the same time, Shah said, there is also a growing tendency to strategically target critical information and financial systems.
“Such activities are a matter of national concern, as their activities have a direct impact on national security, law and order, and the economy. If such crimes and criminals have to be stopped, then we have to think and also act by rising above the conventional geographic boundaries,” said Shah.
“The targets in digital warfare are not our physical resources, but our ability to act online. Disruption of the online network even for 10 minutes can be fatal.”
Noting that all the governments of the world are promoting digital means in governance and public welfare today, Shah said it is necessary in this direction that citizens have faith in digital platforms.
Insecurity in the digital space also raises questions about the “legitimacy and sovereignty” of the nation-state, Shah said while advising “Our internet vision should neither be one of excessive freedom threatening the very existence of our nations nor one of isolationist structures such as digital firewalls.”
Stating on cyber-attack threat hovering over all the major economies of the world, Shah cited World Bank estimate that “cyber-attacks could have caused losses of around $5.2 trillion to the world during the years 2019-2023.”
He also said the use of cryptocurrency by malicious threat actors further complicates its detection and prevention.
“The government of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi has worked towards outlining a uniform cyber strategy, real-time reporting of cyber-crimes, capacity building of LEAs, designing analytical tools and setting up a national network of forensic laboratories, ensuring cyber hygiene, and spreading cyber awareness to every citizen. The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) has been implemented in all the police stations of the country,” Shah said.
He also said the Government of India has established the Indian Cyber-Crime Coordination Center (I4C) to ensure a comprehensive response against cybercrime.

New Delhi, July 15,2023: Congress leader and disqualified Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP), Rahul Gandhi Knocked the doors of the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat High Court’s order dismissing his plea for stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case over ‘Modi surname’ remark.

Rahul had moved the Top Court, seeking a stay on Gujarat HC’s verdict dismissing his appeal of stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case over ‘Modi surname.’

Gujarat High Court’s Single-judge Justice Hemant M Prachchhak, which had reserved the judgement on May 02, had pronounced the verdict on July 07.

Justice Prachchhak while pronouncing the verdict had on July 07 said that at least 10 criminal cases pending against him (Rahul Gandhi). Even after the present case, some more cases have also been filed against him. One such is filed by grandson of Veer Savarkar. In anyway, conviction would not result in any injustice. The conviction is just and proper. There is no need to interfere with the said order. Therefore, the application (filed by) is dismissed.

The Gujarat HC had passed the verdict after hearing in deatil the arguments and submissions from Rahul, and the complainant, Purnesh Modi.

“Nobody can suggest that my case falls in moral turpitude or serious category. In fact, my case is a bailable one and it is not against the society at large,” Dr Singhvi had told the Gujarat High Court Judge, Justice Prachchhak.

Dr Sighvi had said that the court has been harsh and handed down the maximum punishment for the first time to the alleged offender (Rahul). Had there been even a day less sentence, disqualification would not have come. So please consider all these.

July 17,2023: Powerful solar flare activity is forecast for Monday which may interfere with short-wave communications, Russian scientists said after three flares were observed on the sun on Sunday.

The Fedorov Institute of Applied Geophysics in Moscow said class X flares were possible, including proton flares, and short-wave radio conditions were expected to deteriorate.

X-class flares are the largest explosions in the solar systems and can create long-lasting radiation storms. Proton flares are a storm of solar energetic particles, composed chiefly of proton.

Solar flares happen when the powerful magnetic fields in and around the sun reconnect. They can affect Earth’s magnetic field with the potential to damage satellites and communications equipment, according to NASA.

In 2022, a geomagnetic storm triggered by a large burst of radiation from the sun knocked out 40 then newly launched SpaceX satellites.

Three solar flares were observed on Sunday, the Fedorov Institute said, with one lasting 14 minutes, accompanied by disruption in radio communication.

New Delhi, July 14,2023: Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Maharashtra assembly speaker and sought reply on a petition filed by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) MLA, Sunil Prabhu against the delay by him in deciding the disqualification petitions against CM Eknath Shinde & MLAs supporting him.

A bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chadrachud, issued notice to notice to the Maharashtra assembly speaker and sought reply on a petition filed by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) MLA, Sunil Prabhu.

Senior lawyer, Devadatt Kamat, appearing for Mr Prabhu, said that the state Speaker has been sitting over and was not taking a decision appropriately in this matter.

“Issue notice, returnable in two weeks,” the CJI, Dr Chandrachud, said, and fixed the matter for further hearing after two weeks, when the State Assembly Speaker completed filing the reply on Prabhu’s petition.

Prabhu had recently moved the Supreme Court seeking direction to the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly to expeditiously decide the disqualification petitions against the rebel MLAs led by Eknath Shinde.

July 18,2023:Former Kerala chief minister and Congress Working Committee member Oommen Chandy died in a hospital in Bengaluru on Tuesday morning. He was 79.

The Kerala Government has declared a two-day mourning and public holiday in the state Tuesday.
The mortal remains of Chandy will be flown to Thiruvananthapuram, where his body will be kept at the Congress State Committee office and later at the Darbar hall of the Secretariat for people to pay their homage. His funeral will be held on Thursday at Puthuppally in Kottayam.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said Chandy was a capable administrator and one closely involved in people’s lives.
One of the popular political leaders in Kerala and a crowd puller, Chandy served as the state’s chief minister from 2011 to 2016, and from 2004 to 2006. He had also served as the Opposition leader in the Kerala Assembly from 2006 to 2011.

Chandy, known as a mass leader who loved to live among the people, was the longest-serving legislator in the Kerala Assembly. He had represented the Puthuppally Assembly constituency from 1970 successively until his death, a rare feat in state politics. In the Assembly election held in 1970, Chandy was elected from Puthuppally at the age of 27.

When Chandy won the Assembly elections of 2021, it was his 12th consecutive win from the same seat. Chandy had also served four Congress cabinets, under the veteran leaders K Karunakaran and A K Antony, handling the portfolios of labour, finance, and home.
Chandy, the mainstay of Congress politics in Central Kerala, was born on October 31, 1943, in Puthuppally, which later emerged as his political fiefdom. He was initiated into politics through the Kerala Students Union, the students’ wing of Congress. A graduate in law, Chandy went on to become a prominent leader of Youth Congress in Kerala and rose as its state president in 1969.

During his second stint as the Kerala chief minister, Chandy had launched a mass contact programme to meet people and hear their grievances and ensure relief to them. His programme was widely lauded as a unique democratic experiment in which the chief minister of a state met thousands of people directly without any intermediaries. The programme received the United Nations Global Award for Public Service in 2013.

Oommen Chandy is survived by his wife Mariamma and children Maria Oommen, Chandy Oommen, and Achu Oommen.

July 16,2023:Highly respected veteran British film critic Derek Malcolm died of heart and lung failure at his home in Deal, south-eastern England, his wife Sarah Gristwood announced on Sunday.

Malcolm served as the chief movie critic for The Guardian newspaper for more than 25 years, and was a familiar face at film festivals around the world throughout that time.

Before he settled down at the movies, he tried his hand at being a National Hunt jockey and then working as an actor. He joined The Guardian in the early 1970s and stayed there as its chief movie critic until 1999, moving to the London Evening Standard paper in the same role.

He also published a personal memoir in 2003, ‘Family Secrets,’ in which he recounted his dysfuctional family background, including the fact that his father shot dead his mother’s lover, an incident for which he was acquitted, and Malcolm’s parents stayed together afterwards.

At one time, he added to his work the artistic directorship of the London Film Festival. His 90th birthday was marked last year with a big celebration at the British Film Institute.

New Delhi , July 16,2023: As per Delhi Flood Control Department, the water level in Yamuna was recorded at 206.02 metres at 8 am on Sunday against 207.58 m yesterday morning.
The situation of waterlogging in several low lying areas of Delhi, including on roads from Kashmere Gate to Majnu Ka Tila, has improved today as the water level slowly recedes, it said.
According to the officials, the water level of Yamuna is likely to fall below the danger mark in the next few hours.
The Yamuna River in Delhi crossed the danger mark of 205.33 metres at 5 pm on July 10.
Notably, the Yamuna water level was recorded at 207.58 metres at 8 am on Saturday. At 9 pm on Friday, the water level of Yamuna was recorded at 208.07 metres.
However, Delhi Traffic Police has issued a traffic alert restricting movement on Bhairon marg due to waterlogging under Railway Bridge as water slowly recedes.
Meanwhile, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams carried out rescue operations in the low-lying areas near Pragati Maidan late on Saturday night as the Yamuna River continues to overflow, officials said, adding nearby areas and key roads remain affected due to waterlogging.
New Delhi Municipal Council’s (NDMC) workers conducted a special night drive to flush out water from Mathura Road, near the Supreme Court area as nearby areas and key roads remain inundated due to heavy rains on Saturday.

LONDON,July 19,2023:India’s Tata Group will build an electric vehicle battery plant in Britain to supply its Jaguar Land Rover factories, delivering a major boost for a car industry in need of domestic battery production to help secure its future.

Under the plan, announced by the government and Tata on Wednesday, the company will build its first gigafactory outside of India in Britain with an investment of 4 billion pounds ($5.2 billion), creating up to 4,000 jobs and producing an initial output of 40 gigawatt hours.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has declined to say how much financial support it promised in order to secure the investment and fend off Spain, which had also lobbied to win the project. The BBC said the government would provide subsidies worth hundreds of millions of pounds to Tata.

Britain has lagged European rivals in building electric vehicle (EV) battery gigafactories, with more than 30 planned or under construction across the European Union. Britain currently has one small Nissan plant and another in the works.

“Tata Group’s multi-billion-pound investment in a new battery factory in the UK is testament to the strength of our car manufacturing industry and its skilled workers,” Sunak said in the statement.

The new plant is expected to be built in Somerset, south-west England, while Jaguar Land Rover’s UK factories are based near Birmingham, central England.

Production at the factory, which is set to supply JLR’s future battery electric models, including the Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar brands, is due to start in 2026, the government said.

Domestic production is vital for automakers which rely on heavy batteries being built near their car plants.

With an initial output of 40 gigawatt hours, Britain said the factory would provide almost half of the battery production needed by 2030. The Faraday Institution has projected UK battery demand to reach over 100 GWh a year by that time.

“With this strategic investment, the Tata Group further strengthens its commitment to the UK,” Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said in the statement.

Gandhinagar (Gujarat) , July 18,2023: Stating that the costs of delays in reaching an agreement on debt restructuring acutely impact borrower countries, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva called for a process that is “speedier and more effective”.
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva made the remarks Tuesday at the third meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
She termed the recent agreement on Zambia’s debt restructuring as a significant milestone for the G20 Common Framework.
Debt restructuring is a process used by companies, individuals, and even countries to avoid the risk of defaulting on loans.
“While this progress is important and welcome, the debt restructuring process still needs to be speedier and more effective. The costs of delays in reaching an agreement on needed debt treatments are borne acutely by borrower countries and their people, who are least able to bear this burden,” the IMF chief said.
On June 22, Zambia announced that it had reached an agreement on a comprehensive debt treatment with its Official Creditors under the G20 Common Framework, taking the country a step towards restoring Zambia’s long-term debt sustainability.
In her initial remarks speaking about the global economic outlook, IMF chief Georgieva said it has shown some resilience.
“Despite successive shocks in recent years and the rapid rise in interest rates, global growth—although anaemic by historical standards—remains firmly in positive territory, supported by strong labour markets and robust demand for services.”
That said, she said, activity, however, is slowing, especially in the manufacturing sector.
Looking further ahead, medium-term growth prospects, according to her, remain weak.
“Divergences in economic fortunes across countries are a persistent concern: some pockets of the global economy are doing well; others are weakening but still growing; and vulnerable countries are falling further behind.”
On inflation, she said there is some encouraging news — the trend is finally downwards.
“The top priority is to durably bring inflation down. While there is progress, the job is not yet done—monetary policy must stay the course. A premature celebration can reverse the hard-won gains made so far in the disinflation process. Rather, if we stay the course, we can enjoy price stability as a foundation for growth and prosperity,” she added.
The two-day-long Third G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBGs) meeting under the Indian G20 Presidency is underway in Gandhinagar, Gujarat and will conclude today.
Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, jointly chaired the meeting.
The 3rd G20 FMCBG meeting saw the participation of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the G20 members, guest countries, and heads of International Organisations.
The meeting largely delved into five thematic sessions, covering Global Economy and Global Health, Sustainable Finance and Infrastructure, International Financial Architecture, International Taxation, and Financial Sector and Financial Inclusion.