The UNSC’s “watered down” statement on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Naseeruddin Shah writes on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s verses being removed from textbooks; The Assam government’s plans to set up schools for the children of historically marginalised tea garden workers — here are the top stories from today’s edition of The Indian Express,
Big Story
Ten weeks into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations Security Council issued its first presidential statement— adopted by consensus, including Russia — which did not mention “war”, “conflict” or “invasion”. Instead, it referred to the conflict as a “dispute”. This is UNSC’s first unanimously adopted statement, and it is significant that it took place under US presidency and Russia came on board with the language widely perceived to be significantly “watered down.”
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As Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s verses are removed from numerous textbooks around the country, Naseeruddin Shah writes: “The removal of his verses from school textbooks indicates the chilling fact that protest of any kind is no longer permissible. Is someone afraid that these poems will resonate with the imprisoned intellectuals, activists and teachers in our country? Or is it just that Faiz is Pakistani?”
From the Front Page
Hours after a Mohali court issued a non-bailable warrant against him, Delhi BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga was granted relief by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which held an urgent hearing late on Saturday night. “The HC has granted relief to Bagga, and has ordered no coercive action shall be taken against him till the next hearing on May 10,” said Bagga’s counsel, Senior Advocate Anil Mehta, who filed the plea seeking a stay on the arrest warrant.
The Center defended in the Supreme Court the penal law on sedition and the 1962 verdict of a constitution bench upholding its validity, saying they have withstood “the test of time” about six decades and the instances of its abuse would never be a justification of reconsideration. It also opposed the need for a larger bench, saying that a bench of three judges can also test the validity of the sedition law.
The Directorate of Estates under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has sent notices to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and the Indian Women Press Corps to vacate the bungalows allotted to them as their tenures will soon end. Last month, the Directorate had undertaken an exercise to vacate bungalows allotted to a number of Union Ministers, like MP Chirag PaswanRam Shankar Katheria, and Union minister PC Sarangi among others, during their tenures.
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For Bahadur Prasad, who held the country’s oldest track record till Saturday morning, the breaking news he received via a WhatsApp message in Varanasi ended a three-decade-long wait. Armyman Avinash Sable had broken Prasad’s 5,000 meters national record, clocking 13 minutes and 25.65 seconds in San Juan Capistrano, USA, finishing 12th in a high-quality field which included two Olympic medalists on Friday. “All these years, I wanted someone to go faster than me. It is not good for athletics in a country if a record stands for 30 years,” Prasad said.
General Manoj Pandey has broken a glass ceiling by becoming the first Army Chief from Corps of Engineers. But, whether it’s his qualifications, career, postings or diligence, the General has been on a march. From seniors to juniors to batchmates, many vouch for Pande’s attention to detail and his keenness to know things, while also talking about his sincerity, humility, and soft-spoken, mild nature. In that, many say, he is closer to his immediate predecessor Naravane, than say the late Rawat, who was flamboyant and often found himself in a rough patch over his remarks.
Assam’s tea garden workers, mainly Adivasis from the Chota Nagpur plateau region who were brought to the state by the British as indentured laborers in the 19th Century, have for generations lived marginalised, isolated lives in the gardens. Literacy and education, too, have long suffered in these areas. To “combat dropout rates and facilitate the completion of school education” in the tea garden areas of Assam, the state government is in the process of setting up 119 tea garden schools — of which 97 will start this session.
And finally
What happened to Bollywood? With the South Indian film industry producing blockbuster after blockbuster, this is a question tossed around frequently, particularly in the last six months. But with figures like hundred crore and thousand crore being bandied around like candy floss, long-time observers say that there is more to it than meets the eye — figures can be both inflationary and deceptive. The number of tickets sold, on the other hand, is a much more tangible metric, they say.
P Chidambaram writes on the complex relationship between state and citizen: “Ordinarily, the State and the citizens should be able to co-exist in this perfectly sensible arrangement. The rub lies in the following: the meaning of what is written in the Constitution becomes, sometimes, the bone of contention and, therefore, interpretation. The right to interpret the Constitution is asserted by the judiciary (“sole repository of judicial power”) but that is contested by the legislature (“sole repository of law-making power”). The judges are invariably appointed, but the power of appointment, usually, rests with the government.”
Until tomorrow,
Rachel Philipose and Rounak Bagchi
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