War of words reaches crescendo over Jai Sri Ram

The tirade that begun with the 'Award Wapsi' gang in 2014 followed by the 'Tukde Tukde Gang' has now reached its crescendo in 2019 with 'Jai Sri Ram' chanters.

May be, the last one does not fit in the nomenclature of 'gang,' but it does suit the purpose espoused by the divisive forces in the country.

The newly baptised slogan involving Lord Sri Ram by the Tukde Tukde gang is sure to boomerang on it as the vast majority of Hindu population will not tolerate such an insulting narration of its most revered deity.

This is evident from the fact that when Mamta Banerjee, the Chief Minister of west Bengal in a bid to browbeat the chanters of Jai Sri Ram slogan, had got them dumped into the jail, it did more harm to her reputation than anything good.

Here now comes the news of her party's goons brutally attacking some students and also a professor for not obeying them to chant the newly coined slogan, Jai TMC. Jai Mamta Didi.

Obviously, this development will have far-reaching consequences and its echo will be heard far and near in all parts of the country. To say the least, such developments go against the very spirit of the Constitution of India which speaks of secularism and equality for the people of India.

By pricking the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Hindus, any perpetrator irrespective of his or her stature is inviting the wrath of the majority bulldozer.

Thanks to the magnanimity of the Hindu population, the Hindus have so far taken all the bitter attacks by the religious and political fanatics in its stride with enviable tolerance and restraint.

However, there is a limit to everything and if the Hindus are driven to the wall repeatedly, then these limits may be breached which will bring total annihilation of the destructive elements.

Therefore, wisdom lies in exercising restraint on the part of the divisive forces by whatever description they are known, otherwise the inevitable will happen which would lead to the total catastrophe and chaos in the country .

High Court on Vande Mataram

A bench of chief justice D N Patel and justice C Hari Shankar of the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea seeking direction to the Centre to declare 'Vande Mataram' as the national anthem at par with 'Janaganamana.' The bench said that it does not see any reason to give direction as prayed for .

It may be noted that earlier in October 2017 similar plea was made by a PIL which was also rejected by the court. However, the court could have passed a speaking order instead of recording a brief and terse order dismissing the petition the subject matter of which is very close to the hearts of the millions of our countrymen.

In fact, the song Vande Mataram weighs more than Jana Gana Mana because the latter just represents an ode to the British Emperor while the former offers humble prayer to the motherland.

District courts to try POSCO cases

Visibly annoyed over the slow pace of action on protection of children from sexual predators, the Supreme Court on July 25 directed the Centre to set up within 60 days one dedicated court in each district where over 100 cases under protection of Children from sexual offences (POCSO) Act are pending trial.

The court acted after it was told that "as per available data, number of victims compensated under POSCO were 3% in 2015, 4% in 2016 and 5% in 2017".

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose took the decision after learning that 1.5 lakh cases are pending trial before 670 designated courts.

TS mulling law to prevent touting

Telangana police have started consultations on the proposed anti-touting law on a par with the one in place in Delhi and a few other States by making touting a punishable offence, including six-month imprisonment.

As part of the exercise, police carried out discussions with RGI Airport representatives a few days ago. The proposed law would make touting illegal at tourist places, railway stations, and other locations, where touts chase visitors and offer various services.

As of now, consultations are being held with different stakeholders by discussing the best practise in the laws framed in different states.

Touting has been a major problem at RGI Airport and Cyberabad police regularly conduct drives against taxi touts. Presently, police have been carrying out enforcement against the touting taxi drivers at the airport by detaining them for some time and later releasing them after levying fines for different traffic violations.

"The touts at the airport are getting away by paying fines. They continue to operate from the premises and harass the passengers. Except booking them for different traffic violations, we are unable to get the desired results of keeping the touts away.

Discussion on anti-touting act is under progress to make it a punishable offence by sending the touts to jail," a senior Telangana State police official said.

Police would have to send a proposal to the Home Department and later to the Law Department for legal vetting before finally seeking the nod of the Telangana Assembly.

Under the Delhi prevention of touting and malpractices against tourists Act, 2010, touting is defined as: " whoever loiters around airport, railway stations, bus stands, markets or other places frequented by tourists with the intention of offering any unsolicited service and exhibits such conduct so as to show such intention (like following, arguing, communicating or otherwise drawing attention of tourists through words or gestures or placards or pamphlets thereby causing obstruction or annoyance to tourists or general public) and otherwise has no reasonable explanation for frequenting the said place will be deemed to have committed the act of touting".

However, like all laws, the proposed law's success would largely depend upon its effective enforcement.

Advocates Protection Act

Madhya Pradesh will be the first State to enact a legislation for the protection of lawyers in the country. The government has mulled a law, called the Advocates Protection Act to protect the lawyers from increasing incidents of threat, insult and assault. The proposed law provides hefty fines besides imprisonment up to seven years for the offenders.

Indeed, such a measure would go a long way in providing fear- free atmosphere to the practising lawyers who strive to get justice to the people and are an indispensable part of the judiciary for the establishment of the Rule of Law.

SC clears seven names for elevation as HC judges

The Supreme Court collegium has recently cleared the names of seven advocates to be appointed as Judges of the High Courts in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Accordingly, the names of T Vinod Kumar, A Abhishek Reddy and K Laxman from Telangana and R Raghunandan Rao, Battu Devanand, D Ramesh and N Jaisurya from Andhra Pradesh have been cleared by the collegium .

However, the Centre has to accept the recommendation and notify the same to appoint them.