Archives for 2018

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday attacked the Congress for amending the Constitution in 1951 to restrict Syama Prasad Mookerjee from advocating ‘Akhand Bharat’ whereas currently it finds calls for ‘tukde tukde’ a “legitimate free speech”.

“The first amendment to the Constitution in 1951 and the 16th amendment in 1963 imposed further conditions on the Right to Free Speech,” Jaitley said in a Facebook post on the 117th birth anniversary of Mookerjee, founder of Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the predecessor of BJP.

Jaitley said then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was against idea of ‘Akhand Bharat’ (Greater or Undivided India) as he thought it would lead to wars. With no scope to contain Mookerjee from advocating the casue, Nehru went ahead with the first amendment of the Constitution.

“The restriction (brought by the first amendment) is very broadly worded. It empowers the State to prohibit free speech if it adversely impacts ‘friendly relations with foreign states’. The State can even make the exercise of speech in this regard as a penal offence,” Jaitley said.

Mookerjee was one of the key advocates of a united India which he referred to as ‘Akhand Bharat’.

Two days before the “Nehru-Liaquat Pact” was to be signed in April 1950, Mookerjee, who was Industry Minister in the First Cabinet as a Hindu Mahasabha representative, resigned from the Cabinet in protest and took strong public position against the “Nehru-Liaquat Pact”, Jaitley noted.

“Nehru over-reacted to Mookerjee’s criticism. He interpreted the very idea of ‘Akhand Bharat’ as an invitation to conflict since the country could not be reunited other than by war,” the BJP leader said.

Mookerjee, on the contrary, claimed that Pakistan wanted a war and was already at war with India having captured part of its legitimate territory of Jammu and Kashmir and, therefore, to suggest that his speeches on ‘Akhand Bharat’ would lead to a war was not acceptable.

“The paradox in our jurisprudential evolution is that we have applied a different yardstick to those who want to dismember India and commit an offence of sedition. This debate recently came into forefront during the ‘tukde tukde’ agitation at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.”

Jaitley said a 1962 judgement of the Supreme Court in Kedarnath Singh’s case was repeatedly cited in which the court interpreted Article 124(A) of the IPC to mean that utterances would be punishable only if it intended to incite violence and a speech per se advocating disintegration would not be sedition unless the element of violence was apparent.

“In the past 70 years, this country has witnessed a change in the situation where Nehru amended the Constitution so that a demand for ‘Akhand Bharat’ could incite a war and therefore should be prohibited. On the contrary, we all were told that to advocate a breakup of the country without inciting violence is legitimate free speech,” Jaitley said.

In an alleged case of VIP hooliganism, two traffic policemen were at the receiving end of a local politician of leading political party. The video of the verbal duel between the politician and the traffic cop went viral on Thursday.

The incident allegedly took place near Bengaluru University on Wednesday noon. When Deccan Chronicle approached the cop on duty, he said on condition of anonymity, “I along with my ASI was on duty when two bike-borne men violating traffic zipped-past us. The duo wasn’t wearing helmet. As I ran to catch him, a car stopped next to me. The man sitting in the front seat of the car began shouting at us. He said, ‘Why are you running in the middle of the road and causing traffic jam? You people don’t know how to perform duty?”

He further said, “When I explained to him that we were trying to catching the violators, the man called us names.”

According to the video, the politician was heard allegedly saying, “Do you know who I am? You are a loafer. I will punch your face,” The politician was seen flashing his party’s card to browbeat the cop. When Deccan Chronicle tried contacting the local politician involved in the verbal-duel, there was no response.

The traffic police constable told this newspaper that he duly informed his higher-up in this regard. However, no complaint has been registered in this connection.

Five youth were swept away at the famed Juhu Beach on Thursday evening and while one was rescued from the waters, the four are still missing, an official said.

According to the BMC Disaster Control, the incident occurred around 5.30 p.m. when the five youth had gone for a swim in the rough and swirling waters of the Arabian Sea.

However, they were reportedly swept away in the depth by the huge waves witnessed at that time even as the lifeguards posted on the beach jumped in the water and saved one.

Identified as Wasim S. Khan, 22, he told the Juhu Police that four other teenaged friends were still missing after they went in the sea near the Godrej Bungalow area.

The BMC has mobilized help from the Fire Brigade, the Indian Navy and other agencies to start a hunt for them even as the darkness complicated the rescue efforts.

The missing teenagers are identified as Fardeen Saudagar, Sohail S. Khan, Nazir Gazi and Faisal Sheikh, all aged 17, and residents of DN Nagar in Andheri west.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday “strongly” condemned the terror attack in Afghanistan’s Jalalabad city that killed at least 19, including many Sikhs on Sunday, and offered India’s assistance to Kabul.

“We strongly condemn the terror attacks in Afghanistan yesterday. They are an attack on Afghanistan’s multicultural fabric. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I pray that the injured recover soon.

“India stands ready to assist the Afghanistan government in this sad hour,” Modi said on Twitter.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also expressed her “heartfelt condolences” to the families of the victims and that the government was with “with them in this hour of tragedy”.

She later met a delegation of representatives of SGPC, Sikh community from Afghanistan and relatives of the victims.

“Condemning the suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed 13 members from the Afghan Sikh community, EAM @SushmaSwaraj expressed sincere condolences during her meeting with a delegation of representatives of SGPC, Sikh community from Afghanistan and relatives of the victims,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a tweet.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in Jalalabad, where President Ashraf Ghani was to hold a meeting with provincial officials. A Sikh candidate for the upcoming October parliamentary polls was among those killed.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi once caused a stir by claiming over 70 per cent Punjab’s youth were addicted to drugs. The party, which returned to power in March last year, had used every political trick to highlight the rampant drug abuse in the state during the campaign for the assembly polls. The issue has now returned to haunt its leaders.

With over 30 deaths linked to drug abuse being reported in June from different parts of Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is facing an onslaught from the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for his government’s failure to curb the menace.

Before coming to power, Amarinder Singh had, in December 2015, publicly taken a religious pledge by holding a copy of the “Gutka Sahib”, a Sikh holy book, and saying that if he came to power, he would wipe out the scourge of drugs from Punjab within four weeks.

His Congress government is now over 15 months old, and has clearly failed to contain the drug menace.

Faced with criticism and pressure from the opposition, Amarinder hurriedly called a special meeting of his cabinet on Monday to address the issue.

However, other than making statements and claims, and passing the buck to the central government by suggesting stronger laws against drug peddlers and smugglers, the Amarinder government has failed to do enough to contain the drug problem, say opposition leaders.

Be it heroin or “Chitta” (a white powder drug), other lifestyle chemical drugs and opium, the supply chain has not been broken in Punjab despite the Amarinder government’s claim that there has been a crackdown on those dealing in drugs.

The Chief Minister has, however, gone on record to claim that thousands of people linked to the drugs trade had been arrested.

“The intensive action plan unfolded and executed by us during the last over a year has resulted in arrest of 18,977 drug peddlers and treatment of more than two lakh drug victims,” Amarinder said this week.

In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday, the Chief Minister pointed out that the existing Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, provides for death penalty for certain offences if these are committed for a second time.

“This means that a person can indulge in these nefarious activities and get away at least once, causing substantial damage to the youth and the society,” Amarinder pointed out, adding that a harsher penalty for first-time offenders in drugs could be a deterrent to those indulging in this illegal activity.

For the past over two decades, the unholy nexus of the drug peddlers and smugglers with police officials and politicians has been alleged but it has not been broken.

The Congress and AAP leaders used to accuse an Akali Dal minister of being involved in the drugs racket. The drug trade in Punjab has also been linked to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and other countries.

Leader of Opposition and AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira is not impressed by the statements being issued by the Amarinder government.

“The government is not doing anything concrete at the ground level. None of the so-called big fish in the drug trade have been arrested so far,” Khaira pointed out.

The government started on a positive note last year by setting up a Special Task Force (STF) to deal with the drugs menace.

A year down the line, the STF finds its wings clipped and its chief, senior police officer Harpreet Singh Sidhu, is not being allowed to use his powers to get to the bottom of the drug trade.