Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” is moving well on the path of success, said Union Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, and added that cinema is playing a major role in driving the change.

Expressing his views on the Modi’s call for a clean India in 2014 at the trailer launch of Nila Madhab Panda’s film “Halkaa” here, Puri said: “I felt privileged to have got an opportunity, along with Durga Shankar and other colleagues, to watch ‘Halkaa’ two months ago.

“Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is succeeding , nd it will succeed because of directors and producers like Nila Madhab and Roshni Nadar, who have captured the essence of the message and put it out through a medium which is very strong.”

“Halkaa” is a take on a slum child’s heroism, aspirations and dreams. The child protagonist, Pichku, fights for the basic problem that he faces everyday: defecating in the open amongst others. It is his dream to make a toilet of his own where he can enjoy his privacy and do the deed in peace.

It features Ranvir Shorey, Paoli Dam and child actor Tathastu. The film is in sync with Swachh Bharat Mission and supported by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Puri said the film can contribute to the goal of achieving an open defecation-free India and accelerate the pace of achieving Swachh Bharat mission through its powerful messaging.

Panda hopes the film “in some way helps the country to become 100 per cent open defecation-free”.

Talking about how he got associated with the project, he said: “We are delighted to be partnering with this film. It is simple stories like this that leave a lasting impact and we believe Pichku’s journey of building his own toilet needs to be seen by everyone out there. He is our hero in the truest sense of the word.”

Earlier this year, the film bagged the Grand Prix for Best Film at the Kinolub Festival for Children and Youth in Poland. It also won the Grand Prix De Montreal at the 21st Montreal International Children’s Film Festival where it had its world premiere in March.

The film is presented by Shiv Nadar Foundation and produced by Roshni Nadar Malhotra in association with Akshay Parija and Panda.

The film will release on September 7.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the challenge to Article 35A in the absence of a judge of a three-judge bench that was hearing the case and directed the next hearing on August 27.

It also said that on its next hearing it will decide whether the matter should be referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

As some lawyers insisted on the hearing, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said as the matter was being heard by a three-judge bench also comprising of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, and since the later was not available, it could not be heard.

“Article 35A is in vogue for the last 60 years and we will only see whether it is violative of the basic structure of the constitution,” said Chief Justice Misra as he refused the plea for an early hearing.

The Jammu and Kashmir government has already sought adjournment citing panchayat and urban bodies election scheduled in September.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the court that with elections to 6,000 Panchayats to be held in September, “it was not an opportune time to hold the hearing”.

Venugopal also told the court that the interlocutors were also talking to the state government.

As the court directed the listing of the matter from the week starting August 27, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Jammu and Kashmir said: “We reserve the right to seek adjournment on the grounds cited in the letter to the court.”

The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that mere backwardness of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes was enough to grant them reservations in promotions and that there was no need for the government to back their inadequate representation with quantifiable data.

The contention came during a hearing by a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Deepak Misra on a government plea seeking a re-look by a seven-judge constitution bench at a 2006 judgment that barred reservations in promotions.

The top court in 2006 had said, ” … The state will have to show in each case the existence of the compelling reasons, namely, backwardness, the inadequacy of representation and overall administrative efficiency before making provision for reservation” in promotions.

The 2006 judgment is also known as Nagaraj judgment.

Pointing to the social oppression that Scheduled Caste people suffer at the hands of dominant castes, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said: “They are not even allowed to ride horses” during their family functions.

The court directed the listing of the matter on August 16.

Three High Court judges were on Saturday appointed to the Supreme Court, including K.M. Joseph, the Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court, ending a standoff between Centre and the judiciary.

The President signed the warrants of appointment of Justice Joseph, Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Orissa High Court Chief Justice Vineet Saran.

“In exercise of the power conferred by the clause (2) of the article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint Justice K.M. Joseph, Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, to be a Judge of the Supreme Court of India with effect from the date he assumes charge of his office,” said the notification of Justice Joseph.

The total number of judges in the apex court would now be 25, against the sanctioned strength of 31.

With the appointment of Justice Banerjee, the top court would have three female judges.

The top court collegium had reiterated its January 10 recommendation saying it had noted that there was nothing adverse regarding suitability of Justice Joseph in the two communications sent by Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad while returning the recommendation for reconsideration.

Recommending Justice Joseph’s elevation to the top court, the collegium said: “The collegium considers that at present Justice K.M. Joseph is more deserving and suitable in all respects than other Chief Justices and senior puisne Judges of High Courts for being appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court.”

The government had, however, sent the files back to the collegium to reconsider Joseph’s name, invoking the principle of seniority, saying that he stood at number 42 in the seniority of High Court Judges and that there were 11 Chief Justices of High Courts senior to him.

The government had also flagged the issue of non-representation of judges from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes in the apex court.

However, the general perception was that Justice Joseph had earned the displeasure of the central government after a bench headed by him ruled against the imposition of President’s rule in Uttarakhand.

The Rajya Sabha on Thursday congratulated the members who were conferred with the best parliamentarian awards by President Ram Nath Kovind.

Soon after the house met for the day, Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu said it was indeed a matter of great prestige for this house that Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and former member Nazma Heptulla along with three Lok Sabha members have been conferred with the best parliamentarian awards.

“He has been a great source of support for me along with Leader of the House Arun Jaitley,” he said praising the administrative acumen, deep insight and effective oratory of Azad and Heptulla.

Speaking on the achievements of Azad and Heptulla, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel also praised both the leaders and recalled their contributions.

“As a Leader of Opposition Azad has established himself as an ideal parliamentarian. As Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, he ruled effectively,” he said.

The entire house joined hands with Naidu in congratulating the award winners.

Aimed to motivate elected representatives to work better, President Ram Nath Kovind had on Wednesday presented the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award for the years 2013-2017.

While the 2017 Outstanding Parliamentary award went to Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader in the Lok Sabha Bhartruhari Mahtab, Trinamool Congress member of lower House Dinesh Trivedi took away the award for 2016.

Azad received the award for 2015. For the year 2013 and 2014, Kovind conferred the award upon former Rajya Sabha member Najma Heptulla and Lok Sabha Member Hukumdev Narayan Yadav respectively.

A Delhi Court allowed Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, accused of abetment to suicide of his wife Sunanda Pushkar, to visit foreign countries.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal at the Patiala House Courts granted the permission to Tharoor, asking him to furnish a fixed deposit receipt (FDR) of Rs two lakh which would be refunded after his return.

Tharoor’s counsel and senior advocate Vikash Pahwa had moved the application seeking permission for eight visits to five different countries including the US, Canada and Germany, till December.

The court has directed Tharoor to provide the tavel details to the investigating officer. It also asked the accused not to tamper with the evidence or influence the witnesses in the case.

On June 5, the court took cognizance of the charge sheet filed by the police.

Pushkar, 51, died under mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in south Delhi on January 17, 2014, days after she alleged that Tharoor was having an affair with a Pakistani journalist.

On May 14, police charge-sheeted Tharoor under sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code, pertaining to abetment to suicide and cruelty to wife, which entails a jail term of up to 10 years.

The Goa government is persuading the Centre to accord special status to the state, on the lines of Mizoram, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, Law and Judiciary Ministry Francis D’Souza told the state Legislative Assembly on Monday.

“The State is making necessary efforts in the matter with the Central government,” D’Souza said in a written reply tabled during the ongoing monsoon session of the assembly.

Spelling out the efforts, D’Souza said: “The resolution passed in the Goa Legislative Assembly has been forwarded to the Union Government for granting special status to Goa on the lines of Special Status granted to the State of Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand under Article 371 or any other provision of the Constitution of India”.

In his response to a question from Congress legislator Jennifer Monserrate, he said: “through the special status tag, the government would be able to regularize the ownership and transfer of land, in order to conserve the limited resources available for development and to ensure that the State preserves its unique identity”.

For the last few years, the demand for special status for Goa has been doing the rounds in the political and social circles in the State, which has been facing challenges stemming from rapid in-migration, shrinking land resources and a resultant dilution of identity.

The Pakistan Army has been accused of trying to manipulate elections to the National Assembly and four provincial Assemblies, to be held on Wednesday, to script a result that would help it continue to dominate the country’s politics. The scale of manipulation is shocking, not the act itself. After all, Pakistan has had three long spells of direct Army rule. Even during periods of civilian rule, the generals have kept politicians on a tight leash.

The history of democracy in Pakistan raises the question: why is it vulnerable to Army rule, directly or indirectly, in sharp contrast to India? To analyze why democracy’s fate has been so different in India and Pakistan, In interview spoke with Pakistani-American historian Ayesha Jalal, who is a professor of history at Tufts University.

Jalal’s credentials to compare the different trajectories the two democracies have taken are impeccable, having spent much of her life studying this subject. It is evident from her works such as The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defence and Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective. Her famous The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan deepened and complicated our understanding of Partition.

Ever since President Pervez Musharraf resigned in 2008, the Pakistan Army has refrained from ruling directly, preferring to control politics from behind the scene. Is this change in strategy a consequence of the 2010 amendment of the Constitution, which made abrogation, subversion or suspension of the Constitution high treason and denied the judiciary the right to decide on it?
Constitutional provisions have not deterred the Pakistan Army from intervening in the past. It remains the final arbiter in Pakistan’s destiny, whether or not it wields power directly. In recent decades, partly because of the uneven results of military rule and also deepening polarisation, the Army high command has preferred to influence decision-making from outside the established political system instead of assuming state power. Dekhiye [look], when you come to power directly, you are also responsible. What could be better than to have all the powers and no responsibility?

Pakistan is polarised between whom?
Political polarisation is not just between political parties, it also involves elements the Army has used, over the years, to support its regional policies with other neighbours. We know that in this election, there are several religious extremist groups whose members are contesting. [For instance, the Milli Muslim League, which is the political party of the extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Tehreek Labaik Ya Rasool Allah party.] Who is behind their mainstreaming [into politics]?

So the 2010 amendment is a weak weapon in the arsenal of the political class in its long battle for supremacy with the Army.
Power in Pakistan does not flow from any constitutional amendment but from the actual functioning balance between elected and non-elected institutions. The amendment of 2010 represents an aspiration that is still to be actualised. The Army’s domination of other institutions in Pakistan is relational.

What do you mean by relational?
What is power? It is relative to other people’s power. The Pakistan Army’s strength lies in the weakness of other institutions. The story of Pakistan and the dominance of the military should also explain why other institutions are weak.

Why, unlike in India, has the Army come to play such an important role in Pakistan?
The reasons are historical and structural. When Pakistan was created, it got a financial structure that was 17.5% of undivided India, and a military that was one-third of undivided India. [In other words, the areas that made up Pakistan contributed just 17.5% of India’s tax revenue before 1947 and inherited about one-third of undivided India’s military.] Pakistan could never square that [gap].

On top of it, with Kashmir and all the problems with India, the Army emerged dominant because it was able to hook up with the international capitalist system, America in particular. They also got on to various security alliances [formed because of Cold War politics post-World War II] that tipped the balance against politicians.

In a certain sense then, the Army’s domination is a Partition legacy.
It is the structural reality of Partition. I have always maintained that Pakistan is on a fault line. And that fault line is its inability to match its financial resources with its defence requirements. That has worked in favour of the military, which has taken the dominant share [of the financial resources] and is the dominant entity. It has been calling the shots right through [in the decades after Partition].

What about other institutions asserting themselves against the military – for instance, the judiciary?
From the Tamizuddin case of the 1950s, the judiciary has been complicitous. [In 1955, the Federal Court of Pakistan, subsequently renamed the Supreme Court, invoked the doctrine of necessity to uphold the governor general’s dismissal of the First Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The dismissal was challenged by Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan, president of the dismissed Assembly.]

The difference between India and Pakistan is that India inherited a pre-existing Centre [meaning a federal judiciary, bureaucracy, among others] while Pakistan had to create one. Pakistan was a state that was not supposed to survive. The real history is that it did manage to survive. Military dominance is the price Pakistan has paid for its survival.

The two institutions that have always been weak – Pakistan has a rubber-stamping Parliament – are the judiciary and the media. Relatively speaking, in comparison, both have always been supine. I am not being starry-eyed about the Indian judiciary, but it certainly has enjoyed far greater clout than the Pakistani judiciary. There is no comparison between the election commissions of India and Pakistan [which, too, has been accused of assisting the Army in its political design]. You cannot blame the Election Commission of Pakistan because that is the power they have.

Why do you say the media has been supine? Many Pakistani journalists have been very courageous, testified by the fact that the Army has gone after them.
What I meant is that the media has been supine over historical periods. In this particular instance – the crackdown on any media house that is advancing a narrative different from that of channels run by the military is being questioned – yes, I have never seen a situation like this. So, something interesting is going on. I really feel we need to see how far this succeeds on election night. [Election results, at least from the cities, will start coming in on Wednesday night itself.]

There is a view in India that [Muhammad Ali] Jinnah’s two-nation theory is the reason why the Army has come to play a dominant role in Pakistan.
That is a fallacy of Indians. Please do not get me started on India. You do not want to face your own history and you do not want to understand Pakistan. I do not think there is anything intrinsic to the two-nation theory that explains the development of Pakistan post-1947.

What about post-1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh? Analysts say there was an attempt to Islamise Pakistan’s society and the Army to give them an Islamic identity.
That was because of global reasons. Here I am referring to the global assertion of Islam after 1973. Nothing in Pakistan ever happens without an international or regional aspect to it. These things are not happening because of the two-nation theory or anything intrinsic to Pakistan as Indians would like to think.

Yes, after the loss of East Pakistan, because of the global reality, there was a greater emphasis on Islam. That was where the money was, that was where petro-dollars were. Pakistan is a very pragmatic country; it has a very pragmatic Army. And that is what they did [emphasise on Islam].

How can Pakistan resolve the structural problem of Army dominance?
The structural problem could have been sorted out had there been a fair playing field. If the powers that be will not allow that, there is, well, the question why they [the Army high command] are so overwrought, so nervous at this moment. There seems to be a pushback and there are means available, through social media, through technology, by which people are challenging the authoritarian strains of the deep state. That is the problem of the Army today.

It does not mean Pakistan has overcome the structural problem. The Army will get its way. But the big question is: can it succeed in completely getting its way? History shows that it is not possible.

By returning to Pakistan, do you think former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Nawaz Sharif has taken a defining step in the civilian-military relationship?
Yes, but I also fear that Nawaz Sharif thinks he can simply assert his constitutional right to be supreme. But these things are not just on paper. In India, too, it is a product of a functioning reality. It is not just about the Constitution. The fact is that you all [Indians] managed to work out an arrangement, thanks to the Congress party.

Politicians in Pakistan will have to strengthen institutions instead of simply asserting their constitutional rights to shape the destiny of the country. This can only happen when they start to deliver on their promises to the electorate and create the space to assert themselves vis-à-vis the Army in substance rather than form.

Sharif’s problem was that his hands were tied on the foreign affairs front because the Army calls the shots, but he thought he should be calling the shots because he is the prime minister and a leader. He ran around with them and he is paying for that.

Given that foreign policy is such an issue with the Army, why don’t politicians work out a compromise on it?
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf [led by former cricketer Imran Khan] will have to make a compromise; everyone has to make a compromise. You can see it in all the narratives. Sharif perhaps took on the Army prematurely.

So what should he have done before taking them on?
It is all incremental. The Army is not going to hand over (its powers and its control over foreign policy] just because you won an election. You have to create credibility with the people, only then will the Army be on the back foot. The only way this is going to happen is over several election cycles. This election cycle, in the view of many experts, has been a huge disappointment because of the kind of manipulation that has been witnessed.

Are you saying the confrontation between the Army and Sharif was avoidable?
My point is that any sensible politician has to govern effectively so that he has the support base to be able to create a space for himself and his party. You simply cannot assert it as a right only because it is written in the Constitution.

So, what you are saying is that Sharif and other politicians did not deliver, and the Army did not think twice about asserting its supremacy?
The test for the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) is July 25 and we will find out whether its work has counted or not. As far as I am concerned, who will form the government in Punjab is the main question.

I understand that as far as the federal government goes, whether by hook or by crook, they [the Army] will get a coalition government led by the Tehreek-e-Insaf. I can assure you that the real battle in the heart of Pakistan is Punjab. That said, there is also a fear that the election and its results will be manipulated. Let us see what happens.

“As far as the federal government goes, whether by hook or by crook, they [the Army] will get a coalition government led by [Imran Khan’s] Tehreek-e-Insaf.”
“As far as the federal government goes, whether by hook or by crook, they [the Army] will get a coalition government led by [Imran Khan’s] Tehreek-e-Insaf.”
You earlier spoke of the Army creating a political front. Did the Army have to mainstream these extremist religious elements?
Well, they served the Army’s purpose and the Army now wants to bring them into normal life. I guess this [getting them into politics] is one way of mainstreaming them. But there are those who wonder who is mainstreaming whom. This development has alarmed vocal sections of civil society and it does not bode well for the future with people fearing the impact of the militants on mainstream politics rather than welcoming the mainstreaming of militants.

Historically, religious parties never got much electoral traction.
Other than under Musharraf, who delimited constituencies and unfairly gave them the opportunity to form a government. [In the 2002 elections, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an umbrella group of religious parties, had won 63 seats]. But, historically, yes, even the most Right-Wing person voted for a party like the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf now.

But given the alleged manipulation, could this trend not change?
If you are talking about election projections, even if the new groups [extremist groups] that have been mainstreamed pick up 25 seats to 30 seats, it is still a lot of seats in what is likely to be a fragmented National Assembly [Pakistan’s equivalent of India’s Lok Sabha].

From the perspective of power being relational, would you say the Army as an institution has remained strong?
Yes, the Army is the strongest institution. It calls the shots. It is a reality.

Does it also function better than other institutions?
It is one thing to call the shots on foreign policy and defence, but running Pakistan is another ball game. There are many complexities here. You cannot always deliver. It is true of India as well. The difference between India and Pakistan is the structural balance between elected and non-elected institutions.

You do not have, because of your size, the problem that Pakistan has – even a child here knows what it takes to carry out a coup d’etat. Try to get an Indian to explain how [a coup can be organised in India and he will tell me that] many commanders will need to be complicitous to carry out a coup, which will not succeed because of India’s size. But we in Pakistan know how to carry out a coup.

Yes, the Army is an efficient institution when it functions efficiently within its orbit. But when it comes to governing the country, it does not govern at every level. It has its own interests. It is possible to hide these interests and ignore the reality or the problems of governance. That is what I meant when I said that it is about having all the power without any responsibility. Who wants to give up on that? It is a lovely way to be.

Would you call this election a decisive moment, in the sense of striking a new balance in the civil-military relationship?
There is much at stake in these elections and as the dominant power in the equation, the Pakistan Army is deeply concerned with the kind of political denouement that will emerge. The age-old civil-military is playing itself out with increasing intensity today because of Sharif’s willingness to take on the all-powerful establishment that had been curbing his ability to operate on the foreign policy front among other things.

But it is not a decisive moment in civil-military relations because this election is a manipulated election – unfortunately, that is indeed the perception. I am still prepared to see the results. But if these are manipulated, then the credibility of the elections… there are already questions about it. But after the elections, I do think there will be some key matters to be sorted out. It is an interesting time. This is the time to be in Pakistan.

The Justice M.B. Shah Commission’s estimate of Goa’s mining scam being a whopping Rs 35,000 crore is based on a wrong survey and its real extent is unlikely to be more than Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Wednesday.

“The Shah Commission report is based on survey carried out by hand-held gadgets… They did not do a proper survey. They should have done a proper survey,” Parrikar told the assembly during Question Hour in reply to a question by former Chief Minister and Congress legislator Luizinho Faleiro.

Parrikar, who holds the mines portfolio, said the Commission had estimated that lease boundaries had been shifted by mining companies and an additional 580 odd hectares of land was appropriated by them.

But a detailed survey conducted by the state government has revealed that only around 10 hectares of land had been encroached upon by the mining companies, he added.

“The Shah Commission survey is wrong,” Parrikar said, adding that the total value of the ore extracted does not represent a loss to the state government, thus lowering the actual loss estimated by the Commission.

“Value of the ore is not loss to the government. The loss to the government is of the royalty (on ore extracted),” Parrikar said.

He also said that the component of revenues earned by the mining sector in Goa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was only five per cent in 2018, in comparision to 2012, when it used to be 17 to 18 per cent.

Mining was stopped in Goa by a series of bans by the state and central governments, as well as by the Supreme Court in 2012.

Goa’s GDP is approximately Rs 70,000 crore.

Parrikar also said that early resumption of mining in Goa, which was banned in February, was one of the top priority of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in the coastal state.

The mining issue has been hanging fire in Goa, every since the apex court banned extraction and transportation of iron ore from 88 mining leases from March, while also directing the state to re-issue mining leases.

The is the second time is less than a decade that all mining in the state has come to a standstill.

The 2012 ban was later lifted by the apex court in 2014, but the court was forced to impose the fresh restrictions while slighting the state government for messing up with the lease renewal processes.

The government’s steps towards bringing transparency in governance through Aadhaar have resulted in an increase in IT security spending by Indian organizations, says a report on Tuesday by French group Thales, which caters to both the defense and civil sectors.

A striking 93 percent of Indian respondents plan on increasing IT security spending this year, the highest among all countries surveyed and well above the global average of 78 percent, according to the India edition of the “2018 Thales Data Threat Report”.

According to the report, digital transformation across the globe has led to the growth of new business models that are focused on driving growth and profitability for organizations including Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Blockchain.

Indians recognize encryption with Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) capabilities as the top security tool for securing sensitive data in Cloud environments and continue to spend their resources on the same technology, the findings showed.

Around 52 percent of Indian respondents reported a data breach last year, way above the global average of 36 percent, the study showed.

“This year’s India Data Threat Report 2018 emphasizes the need for change in security strategies to prevent the continuous increase in data breaches and also highlights privacy and data protection practices,” said Emmanuel de Roquefeuil, VP and Country Director, Thales in India.

The findings are based on inputs from 1,200 IT security managers in eight countries, including India, and across four major vertical markets.

Present in India since 1953, Thales has offices in several cities including in New Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Mumbai.