1. All-India NRC by 2024, All Illegals Will be Expelled Before Polls: Shah
Setting a deadline for completing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country by 2024, Union Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah on Monday, 2 December, declared at poll rallies in Jharkhand that “each and every infiltrator will be expelled before the next general elections”.
Addressing rallies at Chakradharpur and Baharagora, Shah trained his guns on ex-Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who was also in the state on Monday to campaign for his party. “Rahul baba says, ‘Don’t expel them. Where will they go, what will they eat?’ I want to ask him, are these immigrants his cousins? Let Rahul baba say whatever he wants to, I assure you the BJP government led by Narendra Modi will implement NRC across India and all infiltrators will be thrown out before we come to you to seek votes the next time,” he said, referring to the next LS polls.
(Source: The Times of India)
2. First Ayodhya Review Plea Asks for Masjid to be Rebuilt
Complete justice can be done in the Ayodhya case only by ordering the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government to rebuild the Babri Masjid, argued a review petition filed on Monday, 2 December, by a prominent Muslim body — the first challenge to the apex court’s verdict in November that paved the way for a Ram temple to come at the site.
The petition, filed by the general secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (JUH), Maulana Syed Ashhad Rashidi,claimed that though the top court acknowledged several illegalities committed by the Hindu parties, particularly damaging the domes of the Babri Masjid in 1934, desecrating the 16th-century mosque in 1949, and finally demolishing it in 1992, it condoned those illegal acts by awarding the disputed site to the very party that based its claims on those illegal acts.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
3. We Don't Have 'Jijas' in Our Party, Just Workers: Sitharaman
Announcing that 11 crore toilets have been built across the country in last five years under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, 2 December, said that those who benefited from this scheme are not brother-in-laws.
“Who are those 11 crore people who got toilets in their houses? Are they someone's 'damaad or jija?' We don't have jijas in our party, we only have karyakartas,” she said, indirectly referring to Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra.
Sitharaman further said that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is open to both criticism and inputs. Citing Home Minister Amit Shah's discussion with an industrialist about the economic condition, she informed that Shah responded with a clear attitude that this government is open to hear criticism.
(Source: DNA)
4. PM Modi Had Offered Cabinet Post to Supriya Sule But I Refused: Sharad Pawar
NCP chief Sharad Pawar Monday, 2 December, claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had offered to make his daughter Supriya Sule a minister in the Union cabinet but he had refused.
In an interview with a Marathi TV channel, Pawar, while rejecting reports that the Modi government had offered to make him the President, said, “But there surely was an offer to make Supriya (Sule) a minister in the Modi-led cabinet.” Sule is a Lok Sabha member from Pune’s Baramati.
Pawar’s revelation comes in the wake of his party’s decision to ally with Shiv Sena, which ditched ally BJP for rejecting its demand for rotational chief ministership, and forming a government in Maharashtra.
(Source: The Indian Express)
5. Devendra Fadnavis Made CM to Transfer Funds to Centre, Alleges Hegde
Just when it looked like the month-long political crisis in Maharashtra was a closed chapter, Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anantkumar Hegde dropped a bombshell on Monday, 3 December, claiming that Devendra Fadnavis was made chief minister for the second time only to prevent Rs 40,000 crore in central funds that were meant for development from falling into the hands of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress.
Hegde claimed that Fadnavis — in a bid to prevent the ‘misuse’ of the funds — had transferred the amount to the Centre just 15 hours after becoming chief minister despite lacking a majority.
(Source: Deccan Chronicle)
6. Security Breach at Priyanka Gandhi’s Residence Post-SPG Cover Withdrawal
In a security breach, seven unknown persons in a car drove up to the porch of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s Lodhi Estate home, got off and walked up to her to ask for photographs, sources said on Monday, 2 December.
The Congress general secretary’s office has taken up the issue of the security breach that occurred on 26 November with the Central Reserve Police Force, they said.
The car drove right up to the porch near the garden at her home with three men, three women and a girl coming out of the vehicle, sources said.
They walked up to Priyanka Gandhi and asked for photos to be taken with her.
(Source: The Tribune)
7. ‘GDP Not Bible or Ramayana’: BJP Parliamentarian
BJP parliamentarian Nishikant Dubey on Monday, 2 December, told the Lok Sabha that it was not right to treat the gross domestic product (GDP) as “a Bible, Ramayana or Mahabharata”.
Nishikant quoted Simon Kuznets, the Nobel-winning economist who had set the standard for assessing national income, as saying so.
Although it could not be established whether Kuznets’s choice of words was as hallowed as that of Dubey, the economist had indeed written that “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income”.
(Source: The Telegraph)
8.Activist Moves SC for Women’s Safety at Sabarimala
Activist Bindu Ammini on Monday, 2 December, moved the Supreme Court seeking safe passage and protection for women of all age groups going to the Sabarimala temple.
Ammini in her petition has contended that the top court while referring the issue of the entry of women in the Sabarimala temple to a larger seven-judge bench had not put on hold the operation of 2018 judgment by which women of all age groups were permitted to enter the temple.
(Source: The Asian Age)
9. Outraged by Hyd Rape, MPs Call for Lynchings, Castrations
With House members suggesting swift death penalty to rape convicts, their public lynching or surgical and physical castration to fasttrack courts and overhaul of the entire criminal justice system, outrage over the Hyderabad rape-murder case boiled over in Parliament on Monday, 2 December.
Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu suggested a rethink on the practice of allowing convicts in such heinous crimes to go in for mercy appeals because the death sentences of convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya case, which saw major protests and tougher legislation, were still to be carried out.
“What happens even after punishment is given (to convicts). We all are witness... appeal, mercy (petition)... can anybody think of having mercy on such people? This kind of violation of dignity of women cannot go on unchallenged,” Naidu said.
(Source: The Times of India)
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