Supreme Court judge Justice A K Sikri on Thursday recused himself from hearing a plea challenging the Centre’s decision to appoint M Nageswara Rao as interim CBI director.
A bench headed by Justice Sikri listed the matter for on Friday for hearing before a different bench. As soon as the matter came up for hearing, Justice Sikri told senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for petitioner NGO Common Cause that he would not like to hear the matter and was rescuing himself.
You understand my position. I can’t hear this matter, Justice Sikri said.
Justice Sikri was part of the high powered panel which had removed CBI Director Alok Verma.
The Supreme Court on Thursday made it clear that the exercise of making the final report of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has to be completed by the July 31, 2019 deadline.
The top court also said that the upcoming general election and exercise of NRC should not be affected, and asked the competent authorities to sit together to plan them.
The apex court asked the chief secretary of Assam government, secretary of Election Commission and the NRC coordinator in the state to hold a meeting to decide how the officials have to be accommodated for the two exercises.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R F Nariman said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for the Assam, will ensure that the meeting is held within seven days. The outcome of the meeting will be informed to the apex court on February 5, when the matter will be taken again to the bench.
Many people will attest to the fact that their prayers changed lives, saved lives, moved mountains, upheld the faith and got them through tough times. Here are some great reasons why you should pray every day.
Prayer protects us from evil:
1 Timothy 2:1-2 admonishes people to pray for everyone who are in authority so that life can be lived peacefully and quietly in holiness and godliness. If we pray for protection over ourselves, our families, and for others, the angels and protective forces will surround and protect us from harm.
Prayer changes things:
2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us that if people would humble themselves, pray, and turn away from sin, God will hear them and forgive their sins and also heal them from their sicknesses, pains and worries. When we pray, we must focus on God alone and not on things of this world.
Prayer keeps us in the will of God:
Many people wonder from time to time if they are doing things that are of God’s will. They may be faced with a tough decision or want to begin a new adventure and wonder what God wants them to do.
Praying about such issues will help us to get and stay in the will of God. As we pray, we must listen to the still, small voice within our spirit for directions and guidance.
Prayer draws us closer to God:
I’m sure that you want to feel very close to God and praying can help you draw very close to Him indeed. Just like spending time with a friend enhances your friendship, spending time with God greatly enhances your relationship. The more time you spend with God, the more acquainted and intimate you can become.
Prayer enhances our happiness level:
Studies have revealed that people who pray regularly experience less stress and tend to feel happier. The ability to let God know your thoughts, feelings, fears and requests for yourself and others is a great stress reliever and faith builder.
Prayer gives us hope:
Sometimes life can throw some pretty awful things your way and you might be tempted to lose heart or give up on your hopes or dreams. Prayer is your answer to hopelessness.
Prayer decreases selfishness:
I think we can all admit that sometimes we can become selfish and forget about the well-being of others. We can get caught up in the hustle and bustle of every day life and forget and neglect prayer time, and end up feeling burned out. If you take time for regular prayer, we’ll be reminded that life isn’t all about us.
Prayer heals:
Prayer not only brings about physical healings, but also emotional healings. James 5:15 states: “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
There are many instances in the Holy Bible where men, women, and even children were healed due to prayers.
Prayer increases our spiritual strength:
Just like healthy food gives our physical body nourishment and strength, so also prayer and reading the Word of God (i.e. the Bible) nourishes our spiritual nature. As we converse with God in prayer, we are drawing strength from Him and those we pray for are receiving strength as well.
Prayer gives us peace:
Philippians 4:6-7 admonishes us to pray to God with issues, problems and concerns and God will see to it that peace comes to us so that we can rest knowing that the power of prayer works wonders. The Holy Spirit is able to give us supernatural peace even in the toughest of times. So take your heartaches, fears, and biggest concerns to God in prayer.
Prayer is a ‘must’ for everyone. We cannot do anything without prayer. It is the most useful means, because more wonderful things can be wrought by prayer than a man can dream of.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
Oscars winning actress Sandra Bullock is gearing up to work on another Netflix project, “Reborn”. The 54-year-old actor most recently collaborated with the streaming giant on Susanne Bier-directed post-apocalyptic horror Bird Box. She will produce the new project, “Reborn”, which will be helmed by Chris McKay. He has films like “The Lego Batman Movie” and “Robot Chicken” to his directing credits.
The story follows an elderly woman who dies in a Manhattan hospital only to find herself reborn in the afterlife world of Adystria, where good and evil are waging an eternal war amid dragons. She then sets off on a quest to find her late husband.
The project will also be produced by Roy Lee and Miri Yoon for Vertigo Entertainment, while Millar and Capullo will serve as executive producers. Samantha Nisenboim will be the co-producer.
The movie is based on Mark Millar and Greg Capullo’s comic book series of the same name. McKay is adapting the script, the streaming giant said in a press release.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh has called a meeting of all political parties in the state on January 29 to discuss the Citizenship Amendment Bill even as protests against the Bill continue in the state. The chief minister’s media advisor, Irengbam Arun on Thursday said that the CM has called the meeting at his official residence here on January 29 in the morning to discuss the Bill.
The BJP is heading a coalition government in the state with the National People’s Party, Naga People’s Front and the Lok Janshakti Party. Meanwhile, protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) are continuing in the state with people taking out processions and holding sit-ins in various districts demanding that the Bill be withdrawn.
Manipur People’s Party (MPP), many students’ organisations and civil society players in the state are against the CAB. MPP president O Jugindro had earlier said that his party would oppose the Bill tooth and nail. He further added that the Bill, if passed in the Rajya Sabha, would reduce the population of indigenous people of the northeastern states, including Manipur, to microscopic minority. Six students’ organisation of the state along with the women organisation ‘Meira Paibi’ have also announced that they would launch agitation against CAB at New Delhi when the Bill would be introduced in the Rajya Sabha.
The chief minister has earlier said that the Bill will have no effect on the state. The Manipur Cabinet in its January 10 meeting chaired by the chief minister had urged the Centre to exempt the state from the jurisdiction of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The state cabinet in the same meeting also decided to urge the Centre and authorities concerned to give assent to the Manipur Peoples’ (Protection) Bill, 2018 passed by the state assembly.
The Manipur Peoples’ (Protection) Bill, 2018 defines Manipuris and non-Manipuris and seeks to protect the interests and identity of the indigenous people. The Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8 which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who fled religious persecution from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and entered India before December 31, 2014.
Kashmiri militant-turned-soldier Lance Naik Nazir Wani, who got martyred while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in the valley, has been chosen for this year’s Ashok Chakra, the highest peacetime gallantry award.
The soldier was once a terrorist, but he gave up those activities and joined the Territorial Army. He was in the 34 Rashtriya Rifles during the operations in which he was martyred and was in the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry regiment.
The highly-decorated soldier has already received the Sena Medal twice for his gallantry against terrorists.
A resident of Cheki Ashmuji village in Kulgam, he is survived by his wife and two children.
Ashok Chakra is the highest peacetime gallantry award in the country, followed by the Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, respectively.
Four officers and soldiers have received the Kirti Chakra while 12 others have also been awarded the Shaurya Chakra this year.
In the running for the crucial 2019 general elections, the oldest political party of the country, Congress, seems to have got the ‘long-awaited entry’ as a booster with Priyanka Gandhi marking her presence in active politics and being appointed as AICC General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh East by Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday. How she will add on to the most recent comeback-spree of Congress in the months-away general elections will be a noteworthy show.
While Congress President Rahul Gandhi began his two-day visit to Amethi on Wednesday, the party made this giant news public with a press statement informing that she will be taking charge of her responsibility with effect from February first week. The statement also read Jyotiraditya Scindia being in-charge of the western UP and KC Venugopal as the AICC General Secretary (Organisation) replacing Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot.
Senior Congress leader and former MP Eknath Gaikwad expressed, “Whenever politicians from the Gandhi dynasty have entered the politics, the outcome has been fruitful. With the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi as the in-charge of East UP, we expect that it will be a significant advantage in the upcoming polls.”
“Priyanka has the same charisma that her grandmother Indira Gandhi had as a popular mass leader and crowd-puller. I feel obliged that I got the opportunity to work with the Gandhi family and now with Priyanka Gandhi,” he added.
Priyanka with her charismatic personality refreshes memories of her grandmother and former Prime Minister for many. Although Junior Indira made her debut now, she has always been a popular figure among masses with an ability to gather a crowd wherever she goes. So far in earlier elections, the contributions of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, 47, the daughter of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, were only limited to helping her brother Rahul and Sonia Gandhi in campaigning for Amethi and Raebareli Parliamentary constituencies. However, this time, as the in-charge for eastern UP, she will be managing the campaign for the party in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Parliamentary constituency, which falls in the region.
Dr. Santosh Yadav, Youth Secretary of Pragatishil Samajwadi Party said, “Launching Priyanka Gandhi into active politics is a right step ahead of the 2019 polls and it will definitely impact the emotions of the youth voters. She is an emerging face among the youth. The way Indira Gandhi brought a change in the entire country, we believe that Priyanka too will be successful.”
In the election game formula, Uttar Pradesh is considered to be a politically vital state and the most crucial passage to the country’s central power with 80 Parliamentary seats. As per the political analysts, Priyanka’s inclusion with a key role signifies how Congress is aggressively putting effort for the magic state to challenge the ruling Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata party and the week-old Mayawati-Akhilesh alliance that reached an agreement without keeping Congress in the loop.
Prashant Wasnik, BSP leader believes that Congress has no strength in Uttar Pradesh. He said, “While Congress promotes dynastic politics, BSP is a cadre-based party. Congress’ strategy to launch Priyanka into active politics will make no difference to the poll mandate. However, Congress is only featuring her in the minimum areas in the state where it has voters’ support and publicising it to have a state-wide impact. The BSP-SP alliance will be successful in the state and win the election with a majority.”
While the party workers called themselves “fired up and ready to go” believing India’s most famous political dynasty’s scion’s entry would be a huge advantage for the party in the upcoming polls, the saffron party disregarded the announcement; BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “Rahul Gandhi failed, so they need Priyanka as a crutch. Can’t they find anyone beyond that family?”
BJP MLA Vilasrao Jagtap stated, “There was a time when Indian voters used to go by their emotions around the Gandhi family but that time has ended. Congress never uplifts senior leaders as the frontrunner and always promotes their family members. Every time before the election, Congress strategically brings Priyanka Gandhi for campaigning purposes; otherwise, she remains inactive rest of the time. Congress has no strong face to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
Looking at the poll results five years back, in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP celebrated their landslide victory with 71 seats that significantly helped the party to claim a majority of the seats in the lower house of the Parliament. While the Samajwadi Party won five seats and the hands of the Bahujan Samaj Party remained empty, Congress only managed to secure Amethi and Raebareli which are the strongholds of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi respectively. However, the trend has recently repealed with the party’s victory in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh — the three Hindi heartland states which were known to be BJP bastions.
Amongst the recent outcry of “democracy at risk”, various accusations are made on EVM tampering, mostly by the trailing parties. There was a press conference by an Indian hacker on foreign land to prove his point but he missed the point to enlighten you regarding the various safeguards taken by the Election Commission (EC) of India to ensure that they can’t be tampered with.
The protection measures taken by the EC can be broadly categorised into various processes. There are three levels of checks and three mock polls prior to moving the machines to the polling stations. Meanwhile, the machines are always under camera lenses. Last minute polling with 100 votes before the actual polls is conducted and defected machines, if found, are immediately replaced. The Political Party representatives are always there to witness or certify the whole process. Even after the Polls, a strong guarding of the machines during storing of the machines in the warehouses after elections is done with 24*7 CCTV facilities. Sealed EVMs are taken under heavy-armed escorts under the vigilance of camera lenses. CCTV supplements the three-tier armed securities. No single technical decision is taken without their consent, scrutiny, and approval. They follow a rigorous scrutiny process and are free to do a check of the EVMs at any time of the day. In India, EVMs are protected with a high hand so the tampering is rare.
However, technically speaking, it is possible to ‘hack’ the current EVMs which were used in the recent elections. But in order to hack it, we have to adopt some realities. To hack EVMs, one needs to have physical access to the Ballot Unit for enough time. If you have physical access and time is not an issue, then you can remove the original chip, put your own chip which fulfills your needs, and Voila! You have hacked it. If you do not have physical access to it, you can at least manipulate it by wireless communication. Bluetooth and Internet can easily do it. Again, you can hack it physically if you have access to the programming ports of the Ballot Machine. You can just plug wire in the programming port of the EVM connected to your computer and burn new code with it.
The Big Question is, can all of the above thing really happen?
The answer is, NO!
Because the hacker will never have that much time at their hand even if they get their own circuit ready. It will take more than 90 seconds to open, remove, and replace the ‘motherboard’ of the EVM. You will need to carry the necessary tools to the Polling booth which is highly impossible given the security checks. A Tamper-proof feature has also been added in the EVMs which means that if there is an attempt to physically open it, the machine will be useless and can’t be used further. Both the Ballot Unit and Control Unit are standalone devices. It means that they are not connected with any form of communication. A Ballot Unit will be able to communicate with the Control Unit only when they are connected to each other while counting of votes. There is no provision or scope of connecting it to the Internet or Bluetooth. The main microcontroller comes with a pre-burned program which cannot be replaced as it can be programmed only once. Also, to write an alternate program, the hacker needs to have a meticulous study of the circuit of the EVM so that we know which port of EVM is connected to what.
The Ballot Machine is essentially a counter which just counts how many times a particular button is pressed. When the button is pressed once in real-time, the programmer has to make sure that it is read only once. So to register one vote only, the Ballot machines freeze for some fixed time of few seconds. In those few seconds, if you press any button for any numbers of times, nothing will be registered.
When I say hacking is not possible, you may recollect the Dummy EVM which was ‘demonstrated’ in the Delhi Assembly by the AAP leaders. It was a homemade EVM whose code was written to cater to specific needs. It was essentially a mini-project of engineering college level. There were no security provisions attached to it for obvious reasons as he programmed it just to show how vulnerable the EVM is. The real EVMs come with a lot of security features. Some political parties even alleged that the machines are made abroad and the countries which manufacture them do not use it themselves as they can be tampered. This is also an Erroneous interpretation. These are manufactured by the Indian PSUs and we are, in fact, exporting it to various African and Asian Countries. One should not undermine the Indian techies. Moreover, the Election Commission of India is a highly credible institution and it is respected on the Global Level as well. It is shameful that a few people are trying to malign its image on trivial grounds. We are assuming all the officials, manufacturing companies, government officials are innocent and EVM’s tampering opportunity exists only outside this ambit. The company who builds these machines is highly skilled and it is their expertise domain where they might have kept many secret doors which only they know.
We, the people of India, need to be more matured and should not get carried away with such rumour-mongering and displayed tricks without having full-proof knowledge. Politics is always at its best in demeaning each other, we as a voter should not lose faith in democracy and its pillars.
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)
Haryana’s Special Task Force (STF) has arrested a wanted sharpshooter, who was carrying a reward of Rs 75,000, from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday.
A spokesman of the police department said that the arrested was identified as Amit, alias Chottu alias Sultan, a resident of Soop village in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh.
The accused, who was carrying a bounty of Rs 75,000, was nabbed on Tuesday from Agra by a nine-member STF team led by Inspector Satish Deswal. Amit was allegedly involved in a number of crimes and had been absconding for the last nine years, the official said.
Railways have extended services of 22 pairs of trains across the country, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday.
These trains include the 18107/18108 Rourkela-Koraput Express extended to Jagdalpur, 14369/24369-14370/24370 Bareilly-Singrauli/ Shaktinagar Express extended to Tanakpur, 14630/14629 Firozpur-Ludhiana Cantt Sutluj Express extended to Chandigarh, 24887/24888 Barmer-Haridwar Link Express extended to Rishikesh, 18213/18214 Durg-Jaipur Express extended till Ajmer, 19710/19709 Kamakhya-Jaipur Kaviguru Express extended to Udaipur.
All these extensions have been planned by utilising the lie-over periods of the existing trains at their respective terminating stations. These extensions will help in more gainful utilisation of coaching stock and will augment revenue of Indian Railways, Goyal told reporters after the announcement of the extensions.
Many people will attest to the fact that their prayers changed lives, saved lives, moved mountains, upheld the faith and got them through tough times. Here are some great reasons why you should pray every day.
Haryana’s Special Task Force (STF) has arrested a wanted sharpshooter, who was carrying a reward of Rs 75,000, from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday.
Railways have extended services of 22 pairs of trains across the country, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday.