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Is there politics behind the Triple Talaq Bill, which the Modi government is keen to push through in the ensuing Monsoon session? Will it be passed or sent to the select committee for further scrutiny or will it be buried? The Lok Sabha passed the Bill in December 2017, where the BJP has majority but it is difficult to get it through in Rajya Sabha where NDA does not have the numbers. While the measure was allowed to sail though in Lok Sabha, the Congress led opposition now wants the bill to be sent to select committee. The government obviously fears that if it went to the select committee it would undergo changes but there is clearly an absence of a reach-out in building a consensus.

The ambitious reform agenda under implementation since 2014 in India, if carried forward without modification, may push the country into great trouble. The country is going to be the world’s most populous country within ten years, and by 2050 even China’s population will be only around 65 per cent of the population of India. Demand for food is to rise sharply putting great pressure on agriculture and food supply of the country. This stark reality cannot be allowed to terrorize the people of the country, but it should not be allowed to veil under the deceptive data of ‘fastest growing economy’, ‘doubling the farmers income’, et al.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in election mode. A picture doing the rounds on Monday, July 16, 2018, tells it all. To sense what Modi is thinking and is up to, look at the Opposition. The picture shows a galaxy of out-of-power politicians lined up on stage with right hands held high. The camera focuses on Rahul and Sonia Gandhi but there is also Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav; Ajit Singh, C Babu Naidu, Sitaram Yechuri and other opposition stalwarts nobody will fail to miss in a crowd!

Looking “sophisticated” and “polished” doesn’t mean zilch to the lynch mob. And if you distribute candies and toffees to children you’re bound to be a child-lifter, get your skull cracked. This much was proven last Friday after a mob gathered by Whatsapp beat to death one young man and left two others injured in Bidar, Karnataka.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress in Kerala has scored a self-goal, to put it in the prevailing mood of football fever. The reference is to the move by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s (KPCC) ‘Vichar Vibhag’ to celebrate the ‘Ramayana month’ to ‘liberate Ramayana from the clutches of Hindu nationalists’.

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

The much awaited hearings in the constitutional challenge to Section 377, IPC began last week before the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, presided by Chief Justice Dipak Mishra, and Justice Rohington Nariman, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justice Indu Malhotra. The Petitioners include five accomplished gay and lesbian persons, a gay hotel entrepreneur (Keshav Suri), 20 IIT students (both ex-students and current ones), a gay man who was arrested under Section 377 in 2001, and a group of activists who have been working on health and HIV issues of gay men for almost 20 years (Arif Jafar, and Humsafar Trust). Besides, interventions have been filed by a group of mental health professionals, academicians, Naz Foundation and Voices against 377, who were all parties in the curative petitions before.

The monsoon session of Parliament beginning July 18 is set to witness fierce battle between the NDA government led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a number of key policies including labour issues, especially the centre’s bid for privatization of the public sector companies including the banks. The coming election battle has surcharged the atmosphere and in all probability, the opposition led by the Congress, will make the normal functioning of the Parliament difficult due to their strong opposition to some of the bills to be put for discussions in the two houses.

The population count is around 1.3 billion. The national GDP is close to $2.6 trillion. India, the world’s sixth largest economy, is growing at well over seven percent. Big spenders number nearly 250 million. The domestic air traffic growth, last year, was close to 20 per cent, a global record. Almost all popular foreign-bound airlines from India fly nearly packed-to-capacity, daily. India's passenger car sales rose 30 percent in June. The country's top six carmakers, which account for 90 percent of the passenger vehicle market, saw a cumulative sales growth of 43 percent. The real-estate business is booming. Mumbai and Kolkata have attracted President Donald Trump’s son to set up iconic 'Trump Tower' there. Rich Indian kin are buying overseas properties and migrating to richer countries in hoards. Many have bank deposits in 30-odd safe havens — from Switzerland to Panama and Cayman Islands.

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday but the verdict was passed at the get together of some senior BJP leaders at the residence of a national leader a couple of months ago. The BJP leaders attending the session demanded that the government water down provisions of the Prohibition law. They agreed to a common precept that the law was detrimental to their party’s interest.