SC on ‘atrocities’ by police
- Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said he was in favour of forming standing committees headed by the Chief Justices of the High Courts to investigate complaints received from the common man of “atrocities” committed by the bureaucracy, especially police officers.
- The CJI’s oral observation comes even as some police officers are in the spotlight for committing serious crimes
THE HINDU
SC on farmer protest
- The Supreme Court on Friday accused farmers of “strangulating the city [New Delhi]” with their protest against the farm laws.
- A Bench, led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, was hearing a petition filed by Kisan Mahapanchayat, a farmers’ body, for a direction to the Delhi Police to permit them to go on satyagraha at Jantar Mantar.
- “You have been strangulating the entire city and blocking highways… Now you want to enter the city and protest here?” Justice Khanwilkar lashed out.
- The Bench asked why the farmers’ organisations continued with protests even after the laws were under challenge or sub judice in the Supreme Court.
- ‘Let law take its course’ “Are you then protesting against the judiciary?
- Once you have approached the court, let the law take its own course… Instead, you continue with the protests and block the national highways… You have to trust us,” Justice Khanwilkar said.
- Justice Khanwilkar asked the farmers whether they had taken the permission of citizens who lived near the protest sites on the national highways and public roads.
- “There is a right to protest, but there is a right to use public roads and free movement,”
- “You are even obstructing defence personnel’s movement. You block trains and then say you are protesting peacefully. There is no point in continuing to protest once you have come to the court,” he stated
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Gandhian thought on political maturity
- Accordingly, what distinguishes Gandhi from all politicians in today’s world is not only his simplicity and honesty — which have become rare characteristics for many men and women who pretend to represent our wills and wishes around the globe — but also his belief in the moral growth of humanity.
- In a world such as ours which suffers from an immaturity of politics and politicians, either in tyrannical situations such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, etc. or in democracies such as the United States, Spain, Poland, India, etc. reading Gandhi as a lesson of political maturity is an ethical imperative.
- As such, and not strangely, Gandhi believed in no divorce between politics and ethics.
- For Gandhi, politics was essentially an ethical mode of conduct.
- prescribing “patience” as a means to understand and approach the other.
- The dialogical nature of Gandhi’s culture of patience finds its roots in the idea of epistemic humility as a necessary methodology in approaching and understanding other cultures and religions.
- As such, the entire Gandhian thought in the realm of religion and politics revolves around this concept of epistemic humility.
- The recognised neither the infallible authority of prophetic texts nor the sanctity of religious traditions.
- At the same time, he was the foremost critic of the epistemological arrogance of modern rationality and its authoritarian practices in terms of colonial thinking and imperialist domination.
- It is on account of his overriding concern for the self-respect of individuals and nations that Gandhi joined the two notions of truth and non-violence to that of the term Swaraj.
- Gandhi believed that all individuals irrespective of their religion, race and culture had the right to self-governance.
- Accordingly, what we can call the Gandhian moment of Swaraj was actually for him a constant experimentation with modes of cross-cultural and inter-faith understanding and dialogueIn other words, the capacity to engage constructively with conflicting values was an essential component of Gandhi’s practical wisdom and empathetic pluralism.
- As a matter of fact, Swaraj as a space of self-realisation was where the ethical and the political joined in the Gandhian political philosophy
- In this sense, Gandhi did not consider freedom as a mere political act, but he defined it primarily as an ethical enterprise.
- during his lifetime was an attempt to bring into the open his own journey of intellectual and political maturity. He, therefore, used the concept of maturity not only in the social context, but also as an expression of character building which he distinguished from literary training.
- As he asserted, “Literary training by itself adds not an inch to one’s moral height and character building is independent of literary training.”
- Therefore, according to Gandhi, character-building was an art of developing a sense of autonomy and having authority over one’s self.
- In other words, maturity for Gandhi was a state of mind and a mode of being, where one had the capacity to form one’s life in a social sphere.
- It was on the basis of this act of maturity that Gandhi established his political anthropology and pedagogical premises. He believed that an autonomy formed by a mature judgment prepared a life according to morality
- As he argued, “Where there is egotism, we shall find incivility and arrogance.
- Where it is absent, we shall find a sense of self-respect together with civility…
- He who holds his self-respect dear acts towards everyone in a spirit of friendship, for he values others’ self-respect as much as he values his own.
- He sees himself in all and everyone else in himself, puts himself in line with others.
- The egotist keeps aloof from others and, believing himself superior to the rest of the world, he takes [it] upon himself to judge everyone and in the result enables the world to have the measure of his smallness.
Opening of schools
- While remote, online learning is the only resort to connect students with teachers.
- It is a pale substitute for in-person learning. Many children have been excluded from online classes, due to the digital divide.
- There is also grave concern over the learning outcome for children who can connect.
- Eight out of 10 parents of students aged between five to 13 years are of the opinion that their children were learning less or significantly less remotely compared to when in school.
- More than nine of every 10 children in Classes 2 to 6 have lost at least one specific ability in language from the previous year. Across India, States have started reopening schools as COVID-19 cases plateau
- The novel coronavirus pandemic has paved the way for a blended teaching-learning approach combining online and offline lessons.
- Despite doubts, there is no better alternative to the safe reopening of schools.
- The longer children are out of schools, the more difficult it would be for them to return and learn.
THE HINDU
Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)
- Prime Minister has announced the second phase of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), with a fresh promise to make India’s cities clean.
- For all the attention it has received, the goal of scientific waste management and full sanitation that Mahatma Gandhi emphasised even a century ago remains largely aspirational today, and the recent lament of Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal on dirty, dysfunctional cities drives home the point.
- That urban India, i is unable to match cities in Vietnam that has a comparable per capita income is a telling commentary on a lack of urban management capacities in spite of the Swachh Bharat programme enjoying tremendous support.
- SBM-U 2.0, with a ₹41-lakh crore outlay, aims to focus on garbage-free cities and urban grey and black water management in places not covered by AMRUT
- It is a long road to Open Defecation Free plus (ODF+) status for urban India, since that requires no recorded case of open defecation and for all public toilets to be maintained and functioning.
- Equally, the high ambition of achieving 100% tap water supply in about 4,700 urban local bodies and sewerage and septage in 500 AMRUT cities depends crucially on making at least good public rental housing accessible to millions of people
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Seedcopter
- A city-based technology start-up has come up with the innovative idea of an aerial seeding campaign as a solution for the reforestation challenge.
- Marut Drones, is now using them for greening large swathes of denuded forest lands through its “Hara Bhara” initiative.
- ‘seedcopter’— a drone with seed balls — on Friday, kicking off the.
- The first payload of 1.5 lakh seed balls was delivered in the KBR National Park in the city.
- “Loss of vegetation occurs in vast tracts of forest areas every year due to fire and other causes
- The seed balls contain a variety of seeds rolled within a ball of clay, together with organic manure and fertilizer.
- The balls, after being dispersed in a barren area, are expected to dissolve when it rains, and result in germination of the seeds.
THE HINDU
Indo-U.S. Industrial Security Joint Working Group
- India and the United States have agreed in principle to establish a Indo-U.S. Industrial Security Joint Working Group,
- “This group will meet periodically to align the policies and procedures expeditiously that will allow the defence industries to collaborate on cutting edge defence technologies,”
- This was agreed during the Industrial Security Agreement summit held between the two sides from September 27 to October 1 in New Delhi.
- The summit was organised to develop protocol for exchanging classified information between the defence industries of both the nations
THE HINDU