Constitutional Authorities vs Constitution
In his column in The Indian Express, veteran Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram writes about recent controversies sparked by three Constitutional authorities – Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, and Law Minister Kiren Rijiju – on the powers of the Judiciary and the Executive.
He writes, "I believe that Mr Dhankhar, Mr Birla and Mr Rijiju have read the history of the period from 1967 to 1977. Mr Dhankhar is conflating two separate issues. Whether Parliament can amend every and any provision of the Constitution and whether that is beyond the pale of judicial review is one issue. Whether the judgment of the Supreme Court striking down the 99th Constitution Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act was correct is a different issue."
"Unfortunately, the debate sparked by Mr Dhankar has spawned many questions that are critical to the idea of India as a federal, democratic republic. Mr Rijiju has made confusion worse confounded by wading into the debate with a demand for a seat for the Government in the Collegium system that he wishes to abolish! The alarm bells have begun to ring that a sinister plan is in the making to ‘overhaul’ the Constitution."P Chidambaram in The Indian Express
The Real Reason
Upala Sen asks in her column in The Telegraph, "What is more shocking — New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's resignation announcement, or that most politicians just won’t quit?"
"Ardern said something about not being able to lead a country on anything less than a “full tank, plus, a bit in reserve”. Now that is a sentiment that would be difficult to fathom in many parts. Xi Jinping is to remain President for life. And as Zelensky puts it, the war in Ukraine is for “one person to remain in power until the end of his life”. Trump wants to run for President in 2024. Closer home, check that list of long, longer and longest-serving chief ministers, prime ministers and parliamentarians. Clearly, different tanks, differently powered."Upala Sen in The Telegraph
Bad Times Ahead
Tavleen Singh, in her column in The Indian Express, shares her learnings from the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.
Singh writes, "The message of this year’s World Economic Forum’s annual meeting is that times are bad and there are more bad times ahead. When the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, was asked if he had ever lived through a worse time for the world, he replied that he had not."
"It shames me that India has not denounced Putin more strongly but clearly our Prime Minister understands well that most Indians do not know where Ukraine is or care. Those who do, appear to believe it is in India’s ‘national interest’ to stay on the fence so that we can continue to buy cheap Russian oil and second-rate Russian arms. But is it really in India’s interest to not take a stand?"Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express
The Curious Case of Jack Ma
Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy, in her column in The Indian Express, writes about the disappearance of Jack Ma, a former English teacher, contemporary tech mogul, and China’s richest man.
"A billionaire many times over, Ma was held up as a visionary, an example of a rags-to-riches story which proved that the past 30 years of economic reforms in China were a success. By the evening of November 2, 2020, Ma had all but disappeared," Guruswamy writes.
"In capitalist societies, billionaires and rulers have symbiotic relationships. Each needs the other. While the former has vast riches, the latter has enormous power. Each sustains the other. What distinguishes various societies that subscribe to capitalism is the shades of the rule of law that regulators abide by. Independent regulators are essential for sustainable growth, even for billionaires, while pliable regulators can be used by rulers to bring down even the wealthiest of this group."Menaka Guruswamy in The Indian Express
Mutating Virus
Political researcher Asim Ali, in his piece for The Telegraph, writes about the "slippery form" of love jihad and how its ever-changing meaning and definition makes the "conspiracy theory more effective."
He writes, "In the Hindutva as well as the mainstream media discourse, love jihad seems to be any instance of a Hindu woman and a Muslim man entangled in a story of a doomed romance. “When a Muslim man kills a Hindu girl, we will analyse it from the point of criminality and also from the point of love jihad,” the Assam chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, has stated explicitly. But it can also be love jihad when the romance is not quite doomed, such as the marriage of Kareena Kapoor (who ended up on the cover of a Durga Vahini magazine as the face of love jihad) to Saif Ali Khan."
"The elusiveness of the meaning of love jihad does not make it, as some critics suggest, a less politically explosive device. A concept, which itself cannot be defined yet can hold together a richness of symbolic associations, is uniquely powerful because it can open the door to a universe of inter-networked meaning."Asim Ali in The Telegraph
Pride and Prejudice
In his column for The Indian Express, senior lawyer and academic Faizan Mustafa analyses the debate between the Supreme Court Collegium and the government over the elevation of senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal as judge of the Delhi High Court.
He writes, "The Collegium has not spoken on this subject in the last two years but for a few strong oral observations on the delay in clearing the recommendations of the Collegium. In the last few weeks, the Union law minister and Vice-President of India had been questioning the collegium system. It seems, in response, the Collegium has deliberately picked up an issue on which the liberal and libertarian sections of the society would stand by it."
While reiterating its recommendation, the SC Collegium on Thursday, 19 January, made public both its reasons for reiteration and the government’s objections – Kirpal’s openness about his sexual orientation and his “foreign-national” partner.
"Many critics of the collegium system may support the SC Collegium on this issue. But the government can go to the masses and claim it is committed to majoritarian morality but the Collegium is encouraging western and alien values and if the government is not allowed a say in the choice of judges, it could lead to the moral degradation of the whole society. In its response to the Navtej Singh Johar judgment, the RSS rejected same-sex marriages as against Indian traditions and cultures. Muslim and Christian clergy are on the same page with the RSS on this issue."Faizan Mustafa in The Indian Express
The Spark Lit by MeToo is Hard to Extinguish
In a column in The Indian Express, Pooja Pillai writes about how the resignation of the Wrestling Federation of India's chief is a 'victory' for the MeToo movement in the country.
"Would such a thing have been possible before 2018, in the pre-MeToo days? Over the last few days, a long-ago case that has come up, again and again, is the tragic case of a once-promising young athlete from Haryana named Ruchika Girhotra. In 1990, Girhotra, an up-and-coming tennis player, accused former Haryana Director General of Police S P S Rathore, who was the president of the state’s tennis association, of sexually assaulting her. Over the next two years, Rathore, arguably aided by the government of the day, made life miserable for the young girl and her family and Girhotra finally committed suicide in 1993. Rathore was finally convicted by a CBI Special Court only in 2009. The conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2016, which reduced the sentence of 18 months to the six months he had already been in custody, due to his “advanced age”. In the intervening years, not only was Rathore protected by the governments of the day, but also received promotions."Pooja Pillai in The Indian Express
A G20 to Amplify South Asia's Voice
"As the only G20 member from South Asia and when multilateralism itself is experiencing a crisis, India’s G20 leadership is an ideal opportunity for New Delhi to build an effective platform," Sayed Munir Khasru, chairman of The Institute for Policy, Advocacy, and Governance (IPAG), writes in his column in The Hindu.
He highlights how "India has a unique opportunity to lead from the front of one of the most influential global platforms."
"India has identified several priorities, i.e. green development, climate finance and LiFE (lifestyle for environment); accelerated, inclusive and resilient growth; accelerating progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); technological transformation and digital public infrastructure; multilateral reforms; and women-led development. Given that the priorities are global, the motto “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, or “One Earth, One Family, One Future”, underscores how interconnected our world is."Sayed Munir Khasru in The Hindu
ASER Survey Points to Arduous Path Ahead
In his column for The Tribune, Uday Bhaskar, the Director of the Society for Policy Studies reflects on the findings of the 2022 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER).
He writes, "The quantitative bullet points of the report are encouraging and a praiseworthy strand is the fact that almost 98.4 per cent of students in the age bracket of 6-14 years are now enrolled in schools in rural India. The trend is positive and shows that there has been a steady improvement in enrolment from 96.6 per cent in 2010 to 96.7 per cent in 2014 and 97.2 per cent in 2018 to 98.4 per cent in 2022."
"However, it is the qualitative aspect of ASER-2022 that is a cause for deep concern in relation to young India and the findings are incongruous for a nation that has, in a heady mix of emotive nationalism and misplaced certitude, now cast itself as a ‘vishwaguru’ (world teacher)."Uday Bhaskar in The Tribune
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