India

New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Jitendra Tyagi, formerly known as Wasim Rizvi, accused for making alleged inflammatory speeches against Muslims in Dharam Sansad case.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and B.V. Nagarathna directed Tyagi not to indulge into such alleged activities anymore and also furnish an undertaking before the trial court that he will not address electronic media or social media. At the end of August, the apex court had declined to extend Tyagi's interim bail, granted on medical grounds, and directed him to surrender.

On Monday, the top court said that Tyagi should be produced before the trial court within three days and he should be released on bail on terms and conditions to the satisfaction of the court.

It made it clear that if he breaches any of the bail conditions, the prosecution may move an application seeking cancellation of his bail.

On May 17, the Supreme Court had granted interim bail for three months to Tyagi arrested in connection with hate speeches at the Haridwar Dharam Sansad held in December last year. The top court imposed a condition that Tyagi would not indulge in hate speech and give a statement to any media.

The top court had told counsel representing Tyagi to ask his client not to indulge in hate speech, as harmony has to be maintained in society. Uttarakhand government counsel submitted before the top court that Tyagi could only be released on bail if he mended his ways and also assured that he would not indulge into making hate speeches.

The state government added that if one wants to talk about her/his religion is not a problem, but the person should not indulge in hate speech against other religions. In January this year, the Uttarakhand Police arrested him for inflammatory speech at the event in Haridwar.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit, has approved the appointment of 20 judges to high courts of Punjab and Haryana, Bombay, and Karnataka.

According to a statement uploaded on the apex court website, the Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on September 12, 2022 has approved the proposal for elevation of the following judicial officers as judges in the Punjab & Haryana High Court: Gurbir Singh, Deepak Gupta, Amarjot Bhatti, Ritu Tagore, Manisha Batra, Harpreet Kaur Jeewan, Sukhvinder Kaur, Sanjiv Berry, and Vikram Aggarwal.

Another statement uploaded on the apex court website said: "The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on 12th September, 2022 has approved the proposal for elevation of the following Advocates as Judges in the Bombay High Court: Santosh Govindrao Chapalgaonkar, and Milind Manohar Sathaye."

The top court in a statement said: "The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on 7th September, 2022 has approved the proposal for appointment of the following Additional Judges as Permanent Judges in the Karnataka High Court: Justice Mohammed Ghouse Shukure Kamal, Justice Rajendra Badamikar, and Justice Khazi Jayabunnisa Mohiuddin."

According to another statement, the Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on September 7, 2022 has approved the proposal for elevation of the following judicial officers as judges in the Bombay High Court: Sanjay Anandrao Deshmukh, Yanshivraj Gopichand Khobragade, Mahendra Wadhumal Chandwani, Abhay Sopanrao Waghwase, Ravindra Madhusudan Joshi, and Vrushali @ Shubhangi Vijay Joshi.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) Petitioners in the hijab ban case on Monday told the Supreme Court that Karnataka High Court faulted by holding wearing of the headscarf is not an essential practice of Islam, contending that since the court had no expertise in the field, it should not have gone into the issue of whether hijab was an essential religious practice by interpreting the Quran.

Senior advocate Yusuf Mucchala submitted before a bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia that human dignity is a constitutionally protected facet and scriptures say people have to observe modesty and wearing of the headscarf may be a personal marker in this context.

He said interpreters and scholars may disagree, but if a woman thinks wearing hijab is right, then she should follow it. "It is not the job of the courts to say follow one and don't follow the other," he said.

He added further that the Karnataka High Court used one interpretation of the Quran against another to give a finding on the essentiality of the hijab, which is objectionable.

The bench replied that it had no option, as the petitioners claimed it to be essential religious practice. "What option does the high court have but to point it out? Now you say the high court cannot do this."

Muchhala said it is only judicial wisdom to not touch a field in which the court has no expertise and the court should have stayed away from it. "When HC encountered the question, it should have said hands off, we cannot look into that," he said.

He said whether hijab is a fundamental right or not is applicable here and the question here is not about religious denomination but an individual's fundamental rights.

The apex court was hearing submissions on the fourth day against the Karnataka High Court's judgement of March 15 upholding ban on hijab in pre-university colleges.

The high court found no infirmity in the state government's order that virtually banned the wearing of hijab by Muslim girls studying in pre-university colleges.

The top court scheduled the matter for further hearing on September 14.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a plea seeking analysis of a link between watching internet porn and sex crimes, including child abuse.

A bench of Chief Justice U.U. Lalit and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat said child sex abuse is a crime by itself and police investigation into individual cases would show whether or not viewing of pornography had triggered the crime.

It observed a judicial declaration from the apex court that porn on the Internet has led to child sex crimes would be like giving a go-ahead to online surveillance. "What you are advocating may be surveillance and collection of data," the bench told senior counsel and BJP leader Nalin Kohli, who was the petitioner-in-person.

During the hearing, Justice Bhat cited a US Supreme Court verdict in connection with a question of banning the Internet to a certain class in order not to give them access to porn. He said one of the judges there observed 'We cannot set the house on fire to roast a pig'."

The top court said the government has sufficient resources to deploy to ensure that criminal material is not uploaded on the Internet.

The bench queried Kohli whether the court should intervene, if petitioner's final goal is that such material should not be uploaded, and added that this is a tiger and if it gets loose, the problem is at what point the court would control it.

Kohli cited an incident in Assam where a direct link was found between pornography and sexual assault on a minor girl. To this, the bench said: "The issue of the link between viewing pornography and crime is individual case specific."

The plea sought a direction to the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) to collect data in a time bound from all the state police organisations on the specific issue of investigations revealing a direct link between viewing of pornographic material and acts of rape.

After hearing arguments, the top court declined to entertain the plea and Kohli withdrew the petition.

--IANS
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Bhubaneswar, Sep 12 (IANS) As many as 2,231 missing persons were reunited with their families during a 10-day special drive conducted by Odisha Police, the police said on Monday.

The police in coordination with the Crime Against Women and Children Wing (CAW&CW) of the Odisha crime branch carried out the drive from September 1 to 10 to trace missing persons.

Out of the total persons traced, 1,536 are female and 390 are male. The police traced 305 minors, including 272 girls, during the drive, the state crime branch informed in a tweet.

On the other hand, the state transport authority (STA) in association with the police has conducted a drive against drunk driving from September 7 to 9.

During the three-day drive, a total of 599 people were found driving under the influence of alcohol, of which 222 drunk drivers were arrested in accordance with the directives of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety, an official said.

Similarly, 338 driving licences have been confiscated for suspension. A total of 455 prosecution reports (PRs) have been submitted to courts for further action.

Besides, 1,568 other cases have been detected for violation of Motor Vehicles Act, against whom 1,532 e-challans have been issued.

Despite a set of strict laws and regulations, drunk driving continues to be one of the major reasons behind road accidents in India. As many as 246 road accidents took place in Odisha in 2021 due to drunken driving, claiming the lives of 79 people besides injuring 151 others.

The amended Motor Vehicles Act says that in the case of drunken driving, first-time offenders will face imprisonment up to six months and/or fine up to Rs 10,000 and the second offence can lead to up to two years' prison term and/or fine of Rs 15,000.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) The Union Health Ministry will start a mega drive for voluntary blood donation 'Raktdan Amrit Mahotsav' from September 17 to October 1, which is National Voluntary Blood Donation Day.

As per official source, the mega drive aims to collect 1.5 lakh unit of the blood on the first day of the drive on September 17, breaking the previous world record of highest blood donation in a single day. September 17 also coincides with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday.

Currently, India has the capacity to store around 1.5 lakh units of blood. However, if the number of the people exceeds, then blood will not be taken but he/she will be given the participating certificate. The registrations have also begun for voluntary blood donation on the Aarogya Setu portal under the 'Raktdaan Amrit Mahotsav' which invites people to donate blood and be a part of Prime Minister's mission for humanity.

The campaign is being launched to increase the awareness about the need of regular non-remunerated blood donation and to ensure availability, affordability and accessibility of blood and its components to all, an official said. Presently, there is a huge gap between demand and supply of the blood. As per 2021 statistics, the demand and supply ratio was 1.46 vs 1.25 crore units. The data of people registered for donating blood on Aarogya Setu App will be made accessible to blood banks or organisations conducting the drive through the e-RaktKosh web portal, the source said.

The Nikshay Mitra initiative launched by the President on September 9 has seen total enrolment of 1,78,443 TB patients and 1667 Nikshay Mitras (donor) so far, the source added. He said that for the effective engagement of the community in eradicating TB, the Health Ministry was implementing the community support to TB patients - Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.

Nikshay Mitra (Donor) for this programme includes co-operative societies, corporates, elected representatives, individuals, institutions, non-governmental organisations, political parties and partners who can support by adopting the health facilities in state, district, block and peripheral health care facilities. The minimum duration for the support will be one year and the maximum will be three years. The Nikshay Mitra will provide nutritional support, diagnostic and the vocational support to the patients under the programme.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) Counsel representing petitioners challenging the Karnataka High Court judgment on hijab on Monday told the Supreme Court that women who wear hijab must not be looked upon as caricatures, and when wearing of a turban is not objected to, then why object to this head covering?

Senior advocate Yusuf Mucchala, representing some petitioners, submitted that women who wear hijab must not be looked upon as caricatures and they must be looked at with dignity. He said they are strong-willed women and nobody can impose their judgement on them.

As a bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia queried that if his main argument is that it is an essential religious practice, Mucchala said his argument is that it is his right under Articles 25(1)(a), 19(1)(a) and 21, and on a conjoint reading of these rights, his fundamental rights are violated.

"What is the crime these little girls are committing? Putting a piece of cloth on their head?"

He added if wearing of a turban is not objected to and it shows that there is tolerance for diversity, then why object to the hijab.

Mucchala said two rights are given -- freedom of religion and freedom of conscience -- and they complement each other and added that the high court should not have gone into issue whether hijab was an essential religious practice by interpreting the Quran, as it did not have the expertise in the field.

The bench replied that it had no option, as the petitioners claimed it to be essential religious practice. Mucchala said whether hijab is a fundamental right or not is applicable here and the question here is not about religious denomination but an individual's fundamental right.

Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, representing some petitioners, submitted that one would wear a prescribed uniform, but the question is whether a person can wear anything more which is important for her culture.

As the bench asked Khurshid what was his view on hijab being an essential religious practice, he said it can be seen as religion, conscience, and culture, and also can be seen as individual dignity and privacy.

Khurshid added that there is no binary like obligatory and non-obligatory in Islam. "What is in the Quran is obligatory," he said. He added that revelations in the Quran are not man-made, they are the word of God, which came through the Prophet and it is mandatory.

He also said he will not say uniform must be dispensed with, but there is something in addition with the uniform which should be permitted.

He submitted that the idea of unity in diversity comes from this preservation of composite culture, and added that one of his clients is a Sikh woman, as some of them have started wearing turbans, the issue may arise for them too.

Khurshid also distinguished between burqa, hijab, and jilbab through pictures, and emphasised on the importance of cultural identity.

"Ghoonghat is considered very essential in UP or north India. When you go to the gurudwara, people always cover their heads. This is culture."

He further added that in mosques in some countries, people don't cover their head, but in India people wear a head cover, and this is culture.

After hearing detailed arguments, the top court scheduled the matter for further hearing on September 14.

The apex court is hearing submissions on the fourth day against the Karnataka High Court's judgement of March 15 upholding ban on hijab in pre-university colleges.

--IANS
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Mumbai, Sep 12 (IANS) A clinical trial conducted at the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) has indicated that a simple, low-cost intervention can drastically increase the cure and survival rate among breast cancer patients, top officials said here on Monday.

The landmark multi-centre clinical trials were conducted in women undergoing breast cancer surgery and it emerged that injection of a commonly used drug around the tumour - just prior to surgery, on the operation table - could drastically enhance the cure and survival rate of the patients on a long-term basis.

Director of TMC, Rajendra Badwe, who carried out the trials, presented the results at the ongoing European Society of Medical Oncology Congress in Paris on Monday, and simultaneously TMC's professor Sudeep Gupta addressed the media on the findings in Mumbai.

The trial outcome shows that the injection needs no additional expertise, is affordable, barely Rs 100 per patient, but can result in saving at least 100,000 lives of breast cancer patients annually worldwide, said Badwe.

In comparison, expensive, targeted drugs costing over Rs 10 lakh per patient have shown far less benefits in early breast cancer patients, as per the study titled 'Effect of Peri-Tumoral Infiltration of Local Anaesthetic Prior to Surgery on Survival in Early Breast Cancer'.

Spearheaded by Badwe, the study was conducted on 1,600 women planning to undergo early breast cancer surgery at 11 cancer centres in India, including TMC, over 11 years from 2011-2022, said Gupta.

"This is the first study of its kind globally showing a sizable benefit by single intervention prior to surgery. For scientists, it opens a window of peri-operative intervention to modulate the environment of cancer in such a way as to prevent its deleterious reaction to the surgery," Badwe told the Paris conference.

Gupta said in Mumbai that the inexpensive and immediately implementable treatment in breast cancer can be practised by any surgeon who treats the disease, as shown from a large randomised trial, which is the 'gold standard' of evaluating the worth of new treatments.

Detailing on the study, the duo said half the patients (out of the 1,600) were part of the 'control group', who received standard surgery followed by the usual post-operative treatment comprising chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy as per guidelines.

The other half was the intervention group, who received an injection of a common local anaesthesia agent, 0.5 per cent lidocaine, all around the tumour just before the surgery, and later underwent the same post-operative treatment as given to the control group.

After treatment, the patients were regularly followed-up for several years till the cut-off date of September 2021 to compare the cure and survival rates between the control group and the local anaesthesia group.

"As expected, there was no toxicity of lignocaine in patients who received it (the injection). The six-year disease-free survival was 81.7 per cent in the control group and 86.1 per cent in the local anaesthesia group for a 26 per cent relative reduction in the risk of a relapse or death - considered significant in statistical terms.

Similarly, the six-year over survival rate was 86.2 per cent versus 89.9 per cent in the two groups for a 29 per cent reduction in death risk with the local anaesthetic injection, again critically important, said Badwe.

His earlier research suggested a window of opportunity just prior to, during and immediately after surgical removal of the primary cancer when anti-cancer interventions could reduce the risk of development of disseminated Stage 4 metastatic cancer during the patient's lifespan.

The institutions where the clinical trials were conducted are: TMC Mumbai, Kolhapur Cancer Centre, Sterling Multi-speciality Hospital, Pune, and Siddhivinayak Ganapati Cancer Hospital, Sangli (all Maharashtra); All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Max Superspeciality Hospital (both Delhi); B. Borooah Cancer Centre, Guwahati; Basavatarakam Indo-American Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, Hyderabad; Gujarat Cancer & Research Institute, Ahmedabad; Malabar Cancer Centre, Thalassery (Kerala); and North-Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences, Shillong.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has now officially confirmed the pan India raids which were conducted at 50 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and the Delhi-NCR region to dismantle and disrupt the emerging nexus between terrorists, gangsters and drug smugglers and traffickers based in India and abroad.

"The NIA crackdown followed the launch of investigations against this nexus by the NIA after the re-registration of 2 cases, earlier registered by the Delhi Police, on August 26. A few of the most desperate gang leaders and their associates based in India and abroad, who are spearheading and carrying out such terror and criminal activities were identified and booked," said the official.

The official said that the recent sensational crimes and extortion calls by criminal syndicates and gangsters to businessmen, professionals including doctors had created panic among the people. These gangs were using cyber-space to publicise these crimes to create terror among the public at large.

The NIA learnt during it's investigations that such criminal acts were not isolated local incidents but there was a deep rooted conspiracy involving terrorists, gangsters and drug smuggling cartels and networks, who were operating from both within and outside the country.

"Many gang leaders and members have fled India and were now operating from foreign countries, including Pakistan, Canada, Malaysia, Australia. The ongoing probes by the NIA in cases being investigated by the Agency, such as the killing of Shaurya Chakra Awardee Comrade Balwinder Singh in Punjab also revealed that most of these conspiracies were being hatched from inside the jails of different states and were being executed by an organised network of operatives based abroad," the official said.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that these gangs were carrying out target killings to terrorise the public to extort money for running and promoting their criminal syndicates and activities. These gangs were also raising funds through smuggling of drugs and weapons.

In its ongoing efforts to dismantle these transnational terror and crime networks, the NIA conducted searches at 50 locations in Fazilka, Faridkot, Muktsar Sahib, Moga, Tarn Taran, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Mohali district of Punjab, East Gurugram, Bhiwani, Yamunanagar, Sonepat and Jhajjar districts of Haryana, Hanumangarh and Ganganagar districts of Rajasthan and Dwarka, Outer North, North West, North East and Shahdara districts of Delhi-NCR.

"Searches were conducted today morning at the premises of Goldy Brar (Canada), Lawrence Bishnoi, Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, Varinder Pratap alias Kala Rana, Kala Jathedi, Vikram Brar, Gaurav Patyal alias Lucky Patyal (who was earlier arrested in Armenia), Neeraj Bawana, Koushal Chaudhary, Tillu Tajpuria, Amit Dagar, Deepak Kumar alias Tinu, Sandeep alias Bandar, Umesh alias Kala, Irfan alias Cheenu Pahalwan, Ashim alias Hashim Baba, Sachin Bhanja and their associates.

"During the searches, six pistols, one revolver, one shotgun, have been seized, along with ammunition. Apart from the above, drugs, cash, incriminating documents, digital devices, details of benami property, threat letters have also been seized by the NIA.

"Further investigations will continue to dismantle these terror networks as well as their funding and support infrastructure," said the official.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that India is rapidly moving towards joining the three armed forces and efforts are on to have common logistic nodes so that the resources of one service can be made available to the other in a seamless manner.

"We are rapidly moving towards connectivity of all three services," Singh said, adding that "Our effort is to have common logistic nodes so that the resources of one service can be seamlessly made available to other services."

The Defence Minister spoke of the necessary synergy and fusion between civil and military stakeholders, and stressed that the presence of representatives from different sectors from both sides shows the "commitment" to achieving the goal that India envisions.

In the programme organised at Manekshaw Centre in Delhi Cantonment, he said that logistics is one of the sectors which has benefited the most from this collaboration.

Addressing the seminar on Army Logistics here, the Union Minister said that India has made rapid progress in the rail sector and more than 9,000 km of lines have been doubled in the last seven years. He said in the five years before 2014, the figure was only 1,900 kms.

--IANS
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