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Ram Sevak Sharma is an adventurer. Somebody illegal alien hacked into his bank a/c and deposited Re 1 there. A direct to bank a/c beneficiary, redeemer of government scheme, Ram Sevak is proof that Modi’s Jan Dhan Yojana is working. It’s another matter that the miser hacker could do with some money transfer himself. Anybody with just Re 1 to part is in serious financial crap.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

After reserving judgment in Section 377 case, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has embarked on the contentious case of challenging the prohibition of the entry of women (from 10 years to 50 years) into the famous Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, Kerala [Indian Young Lawyers Association v State of Kerala, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 373 of 2006]. The petition is filed by Indian Young Lawyers Association and other groups who are challenging restrictions based on menstruation on women’s freedoms and access to public spaces, including Sabarimala temple on the basis that such religious practices violate the constitutional guarantees of equality, and non-discrimination. The matter came to be heard by the Constitution Bench, after a reference by the three judge bench in October, 2017, wherein the questions for reference, amongst others, were, “Whether the exclusionary practice which is based upon a biological factor exclusive to the female gender amounts to discrimination and thereby violates the very core of Articles 14, 15 and 17 and not protected by ‘morality’ as used in Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution?”

Newspaper headlines over the last few days have highlighted three facts which point to the current abysmal state of the Indian economy. The first relates to inflation, where the June 2018 wholesale price index was 5.77 percent above that of June last year; this is the highest inflation rate witnessed since December 2013. The second is a burgeoning trade deficit: the trade deficit in June, at $ 16.6 billion, was again the highest for any month in the last five years. The third relates to the industrial stagnation that has set in: the growth in factory output in May (the latest month for which we have data), measured by the Index of Industrial Production, was a mere 3.2 percent over May 2017, which is the lowest growth rate in seven months, exceeding only the 1.8 percent rate witnessed in October 2017.

The BJP intends to bring a law which will equate stone-pelting with lynching. Although the original idea about a fresh look at mob violence only concerned lynching, the government appears to be thinking of widening its ambit. Hence, a ministerial reference to the stone-pelters in case anyone dies as a result of their lawless acts.

Names of 40 lakh of 3.29 crore applicants are missing from the Supreme Court-mandated draft of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC). The draft was released Monday morning, the first update since 1951. Illegal migration from Bangladesh has been a steady flow. Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat warned of the security risks nearly a year ago.

After the April 2 showdown the dalit community is gearing up for a major face-off with the Narendra Modi government on August 9. The intensity and character of dalit assertion could be gauged from the fact that even the dalit faces of NDA and the Modi government have started cautioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

LUCKNOW: Apprehending tough challenge from a united opposition in UP, PM Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah have increased the frequency of their visits to this state. The leadership seems to have realised that Modi needs to spend more time in UP to reach out to the masses, without which it would be difficult for the party to retain the 73 Lok Sabha seats, including two of ally Apna Dal, won in 2014.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee is in the capital for three days to hold series of consultations about the formation of a united opposition front to oust the BJP from power in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At the Martyr’s Day rally of Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on July 21, Mamata gave a call for the unity of all opposition parties against the BJP for the coming Lok Sabha elections and announced the holding of a mega rally in Kolkata at Brigade Parade Ground on January 19 next year for the ouster of the Modi government. She said that she would be inviting all the anti-BJP parties including the Congress and the CPI(M) at this rally to facilitate the process of solid opposition unity against the saffron forces.

To be honest, the government’s newly announced task force, set up under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary P.K. Sinha to identify various items and policy interventions to reduce dependence on import, should have come much earlier. Since 2015, the economy has been constantly under the pressure of import of luxuries, manufactured goods and assorted junkies. The situation worsened since the middle of last year after oil prices started moving up. India could do little with the surging oil import bill. India’s domestic oil production can barely meet 20 per cent of its annual demand.