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The Supreme Court is currently hearing a bunch of petitions filed by lawyers and organisations seeking live streaming and recording of the proceedings of the Apex Court, thereby pushing for greater transparency in judicial proceedings as well as raising public awareness on important questions of constitutional law being heard by the Court. One of the petitions has been filed by Ms. Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate, in her own name, wherein she has sought directions including that Supreme Court case proceedings of ‘constitutional and national importance’ having an impact on the public at large be live streamed in a manner accesible to the public; and Supreme Court to frame guidelines for determining the cases that qualify for live streaming, amongst others. She also gave examples of cases having constitutional and national importance, i.e., the constitutional challenge to the Aadhaar Act, Section 377, IPC, offence of adultery, and the entry of women in Sabarimala temple.

The hunt for the ‘real core Hindu’ is on. Somebody ‘right’ asked the other day: ‘Will the real core Hindu please stand up?’ So far nobody has stood up. Resident Indian National Congress leader in Pakistan Mani Shankar Aiyar is not ‘real core Hindu’. He told his Pakistani constituency that 69% of India did not vote for ‘Hindu nationalist party’ BJP. Aiyar’s main point was the 69% who did not vote Modi were a “fractionized” lot.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Campaigning for the Chengannur Assembly by-election has slipped into top gear with the polling date less than three weeks away.

A journalist friend got a gift a decade ago – an Emporio-Armani wrist watch which went round his wrist like a dream. One evening it went flying off his wrist into the four-deep raucous crowd lined up around the dance floor at the neighbourhood bar. End of time! An Emporio-Armani is max priced these days at around Rs 50,000. Peanuts compared to Siddaramaiah’s Hublot, going price Rs 40 lakh!

The recent spurt in fanatic messages, seeking to redefine character of Indian nation, is intriguing for its timing. The next election to the Lok Sabha is not even a year away. Narrowing down supporting sections to mere upper castes cannot be taken as a sure sign for expanding the electoral base of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Fanaticism exists in every society. Yet they did remain silent for three years. The time for their euphoria was immediately after unprecedented verdict that gave a clear verdict in favour of the BJP in its three and half decades’ existence.

‘Could Mayawati be the next PM?’ NDTV tweeted Sunday after Dr Pronoy Roy asked the question to Mayawati at a JD(S) rally in Karnataka. The BSP supremo smiled. Two JD(S) leaders on the stage with Mayawati smiled. Close Up it looked like a Colgate commercial! Danish Ali, who at times claims he is second only to H S Devegowda in the JD(S) hierarchy, answered with an emphatic ‘Yes’.

A humongous problem that is being brushed under the carpet in India is the grave sickness in the banking industry, particularly the public sector banks. In fact, the banking scam is far bigger and widespread than coal scam or 2G spectrum scam. Diamond merchant Nirav Modi banking fraud case and the Vijay Mallya Kingfisher airlines case are only the tip of the iceberg and the rot in the Indian public sector banks is far greater and unfathomable. Gajendra Haldea, a retired erstwhile Planning Commission official and former IAS officer, believes corruption in Indian banking is huge and perhaps much worse than China when banks there had huge non-performing assets.

NITI Aayog’s warning that India should rethink about joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) forum could not have come at a more appropriate time. The government’s key think-tank had reportedly argued, in a note on free trade agreements (FTAs) and their costs to highly import-dependent India, that such a partnership could be disastrous to the country. India is one of the world’s biggest import-driven, deficient-balance-of-trade economies. Significantly, India’s joining RCEP would mean a huge market access to China — the key player in the grouping. And, that threatens to unsettle India’s economy and its domestic manufacturing programmes.

Conclusions of a global survey on jobs by Gallup are set to further embarrass the Modi government in the ‘pakoda’ debate. And the timing of the report provides least comfort to the government as its record in creating new jobs is facing scrutiny in an election year. Modi’s suggestion recently that people selling pakodas and earning Rs 200 a day must also be counted as gainfully employed had created a storm, with former finance minister P Chidambaram butting in with his caustic remark that by the same logic begging could also be considered as employment. Modi’s comment, which many considered outrageous, led to a barrage of protests.

‘Electrification’ of India was completed on April 28, 2018, according to a tweet by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which claimed the government has ‘fulfilled a commitment’. However, the subsequent government clarifications revealed that there were several villages ‘not-electrified’ and electrification work was in progress. As for the fulfillment of election promise, he must remember that he had promised ‘24-hour electricity in every village and street’ on January 23rd 2014 in an election rally in Gorakhpur, while boasting about his achievements in Gujarat, and making taunts at Mulayam Singh Yadav. He had added further that it required a ’56-inch chest’ to do that.