VEEP MIMICRY ROW: PREZ, PM CONDEMN

The controversy over a TMC MP mimicking Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar took political centrestage on Wednesday with the issue playing out both inside and outside Parliament and President Droupadi Murmu joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi in expressing dismay.

As Dhankhar, also the Rajya Sabha chairperson, said in the House that he would not tolerate any insult to Parliament or the constitutional post of vice president, TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee said he did not intend to hurt anyone with his act in the Parliament complex on Tuesday.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee backed her party colleague, and the Congress slammed what it termed the government's 'desperate attempt' to divert attention from the unprecedented suspension of over 140 MPs by raising the matter.

In a rare intervention in an unfolding political debate, President Murmu said on X she was dismayed to see the manner in which the vice president was humiliated in the Parliament complex. "Elected representatives must be free to express themselves, but their expression should be within the norms of dignity and courtesy. That has been the Parliamentary tradition we are proud of, and the People of India expect them to uphold it," Murmu said.

Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Dhankhar expressed his anguish, saying the act of mimicking him and its videography caused an 'insult' to the honour of the post of the vice president, the farmers and his Jat community.

The Congress alleged the 'entire Modi ecosystem' is now being galvanised on the 'so-called mimicry non-issue' while it remains silent on how a BJP MP 'facilitated entry of two intruders' into Lok Sabha and on the suspension of over 140 MPs.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh slammed the prime minister for the criticism over the mimicry issue and alleged that Narendra Modi, while bidding farewell to Hamid Ansari, who was retiring as vice president and chairman of Rajya Sabha after a long 10-year tenure, mocked Ansari, reducing his identity to his religion.

Rahul Gandhi said he shot the video of MPs sitting outside Parliament which remains on his phone and asked why was there no discussion over MPs being 'thrown out' of the House.

Coming out in support of Dhankhar, Jat Mahasangh volunteers also staged a protest march near the Congress headquarters against the 'mocking' of the vice president.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday said caste should not be dragged into every issue and wondered if he should rake up his Dalit origins every time he is not allowed to speak in Rajya Sabha. "They are shredding the rules....They are making a historic mistake. It will be part of history that they suspended nearly 150 MPs and ran the House in a one-sided manner," he added.

LS PASSES TELECOM, CRIMINAL BILLS AS SUSPENDED MP COUNT REACHES 143

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed four crucial Bills with voice vote while the Opposition was absent and two more members of the House — Thomas Chazhikadan of the Kerala Congress (Mani) and A M Ariff of the CPI(M) — were suspended – for carrying placards in the House.

The total number of suspended MPs from the Lok Sabha now stands at 97. Since December 14, 143 Opposition MPs have been suspended from both the Houses.

Lok Sabha passed the the new criminal law Bills — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill— that will replace colonial-era criminal laws. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that under the provisions of the new Bills, an FIR will have to be filed within three days of receiving the complaint and the preliminary enquiry will have to be finished within 14 days.

Listing the features of the bills, Shah said, "This bill punishes mob lynching with the death penalty….I am astonished at how some people defend and save the lives of terrorists in the name of 'human rights'…..No arguments to save terrorists will be entertained here…. Modi government has explicitly brought 'terrorism' under the purview of the criminal justice system.”

"We have changed the definition of Sedition from 'Rajdroh' (offences against the government) to 'Deshdroh' (offences against the Nation)," he said noting IPC Section 124, or the Sedition Law, has been repealed. The purpose of the new law is 'not to save the government, but to save the country. In a healthy democracy, everyone has the right to criticise the government, but we will not allow anyone to say anything demeaning about India', Shah said.

The lower House also passed the Telecom Bill that will allow the Centre to allocate satellite spectrum. The Bill has provisions to make the procurement of SIM cards or other telecommunication identifiers through “fraud, cheating or personation” punishable offences with a jail term of up to three years and a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh. 

The bill also provides for stopping transmission and intercepting messages in case of public emergency, in the interest of the public, to prevent incitement for committing offence.

The bill has a provision for a jail term of up to three years or a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh for a person obtaining SIM or other telecom resource through fraud, cheating, personation, the minister said.

PANNUN 'PLOT': MODI SPEAKS ON US CHARGES

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has for the first time responded to United States' allegation that an Indian national conspired to kill a Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Modi said, 'If someone gives us any information, we would definitely look into it.' 'If a citizen of ours has done anything good or bad, we are ready to look into it. Our commitment is to the rule of law,' he added.

Modi sought to play down the diplomatic impact on the US-India relationship. 'There is strong bipartisan support for the strengthening of this relationship, which is a clear indicator of a mature and stable partnership,' he told the Financial Times.

'Security and counter-terrorism co-operation has been a key component of our partnership,' Modi added. 'I don't think it is appropriate to link a few incidents with diplomatic relations between the two countries.' Modi said he is 'deeply concerned about the activities of certain extremist groups based overseas.'

'These elements, under the guise of freedom of expression, have engaged in intimidation and incited violence,' he told the Financial Times.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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HOUTHI LEADER WARNS ATTACKS ON US WARSHIPS IF MILITIA TARGETED

The leader of Yemen’s Houthis warned on Wednesday they would strike US warships if the Iranian-backed militia was targeted by Washington, which this week set up a multinational force to counter Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The Houthis have since last month fired drones and missiles at merchant vessels sailing through the Red Sea, attacks it says respond to Israel’s assault on Gaza Strip. The US-led initiative will see Washington and 9 other nations patrol the Red Sea.

“We will not stand idly by if the Americans are tempted to escalate further and commit foolishness by targeting our country or waging war against it,” Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said. “Any American targeting of our country will be targeted by us, and we will make US battleships, interests, and navigation a target for our missiles, drones, military operations.”

EUROPE LOOKS TO RESTRICT ASYLUM SEEKERS

The new EU migration and asylum pact seeks to give governments a greater sense of control over their borders while bolstering the EU’s role in migration management —treating it as a European issue, not just a national one. “...Europeans will decide who comes to the EU and who can stay, not the smugglers,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.

The pact stipulates that rapid assessments of whether a person is eligible for asylum will take place at borders. It would make it harder for asylum seekers to move on from the countries they arrive in. A so-called “solidarity mechanism”would see countries receiving fewer asylum-seekers helping countries like Greece and Italy that receive more — either by taking in some of their asylum seekers, or offering those nations financial compensation.

To become law, the plan must in the coming months pass through the EU’s complex approval process.

But the proposals do not detail how anyone who does not qualify for asylum will be deported. The EU lacks return agreements with many countries.

This Saturday, Britain and Italy announced plans to jointly co-finance the journey home for migrants stranded in Tunisia, according to statements from both countries, but did not say how much would money was being provided.

"If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow. It will overwhelm our countries and our capacity to help those who actually need our help the most," Rishi Sunak said. "Making that deterrent credible will mean doing things differently, breaking from consensus. And both Giorgia (Meloni, Italian PM) and I are prepared to do that."

The French parliament approved a divisive immigration bill intended to strengthen France’s ability to deport foreigners considered undesirable, prompting a heated debate after the far-right backed the measure. The bill passed the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, with a 349-186 vote late on Tuesday. It had previously been voted by the Senate.

TRUMP’S POLITICAL FATE RESTS WITH US SC

A US Supreme Court shaped by Donald Trump is destined to play a pivotal role in determining whether he will land in prison — or return to the White House. Trump vowed to seek SC review after Colorado’s top court barred him from the 2024 presidential ballot there, saying his incitement of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol disqualifies him from holding office.

The US Supreme Court is already weighing a request from the Biden-appointed special counsel Jack Smith to expedite Trump’s immunity claim in his federal indictment on charges of illegally trying to obstruct President Biden’s 2020 election win. Trump’s fate now appears to rest entirely in the hands of the US Supreme Court.

THE REST

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SONIA, KHARGE, ADHIR INVITED TO RAM TEMPLE CONSECRATION CEREMONY

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and party leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury have received invitations for the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust sent the invitations to them.

Former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and H D Deve Gowda have also received invitations for the function. More invitations are likely to be sent to other opposition leaders in the coming days.

GOVT MONITORING COVID VARIANT JN.1, BUT NO WARNINGS AS OF NOW

All the Sars-CoV-2 samples sequenced over the past two weeks have been found to be that of the newly designated variant of interest JN.1, according to data uploaded Wednesday by India’s Covid-19 genomic sequencing consortium INSACOG.

This data, however, does not give an accurate picture of the variants that are in circulation in India as laboratories from most states stopped sending in genome sequences from June-July. In May this year, the WHO announced that Covid-19 was no longer a public health emergency, but urged all nations to keep up surveillance to monitor changing trends in cases.

On Tuesday, the WHO designated JN.1 as a “variant of interest”, but underlined that the additional global public health risk posed by the new variant “is currently evaluated as low” – implying that the existing therapies and vaccine will continue to provide protection against severe Covid-19 infection.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday urged the states and UTs to ramp up testing and refer a large number of samples of Covid positive cases and pneumonia-like illness to INSACOG on a daily basis for sequencing. The reiteration came at a review meeting with the states, where Mandaviya also suggested that mock drill at hospitals be conducted every three months to ensure they are prepared in case of a surge.

DOCTORS HAIL DECRIMINALISATION OF MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE

With medical negligence to be decriminalised under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which intends to replace the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Medical Association on Wednesday lauded the proposed legislation, which was passed in Lok Sabha along with Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Bill.

In a post on X, the IMA thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah for exempting medical professionals from criminal prosecution under Section 26 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, previously Section 304 A of IPC.

Under Section 304 A of IPC, medical negligence attracted criminal prosecution.

‘GPS-BASED HIGHWAY TOLL COLLECTION SYSTEM ACROSS INDIA BY MARCH 2024’

The government will introduce new technologies, including GPS-based toll collection systems, by March next year to replace existing highway toll plazas, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday. The move is aimed at reducing traffic congestion and charging motorists for the exact distance travelled on the highways.

“The government is looking at new technologies, including GPS-based toll systems to replace toll plazas in the country... we will start new GPS satellite-based toll collection across the country by March next year,” he said.

Gadkari also said the road transport and highways ministry has conducted two pilot projects of automatic number plate recognition system (automatic number plate reader cameras) to enable automated toll collection without stopping the vehicles.

During 2018-19, the average waiting time for vehicles at toll plaza was 8 minutes. With the introduction of FASTags during 2020-21 and 2021-22, the average waiting time of the vehicles was reduced to 47 seconds.

ISRAEL STEPS UP RECRUITMENT FROM INDIA, SRI LANKA

Headhunters are actively scouring for tens of thousands of workers in India and Sri Lanka to replace Palestinian workers at construction sites in Israel.

The recruitment in Sri Lanka is at an advanced stage and its foreign employment ministry has said about 100 people had already left for Israel and at least 10,000 would be recruited in all.

Israel is facing a severe crunch of labourers and caregivers after the October 7 Hamas attack. The plan is to recruit up to one lakh workers from India for the construction and caregiver sectors.

The issue has gained traction after Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu touched on this specific aspect during their telephonic conversation on Tuesday. “The leaders also spoke about moving forward on a proposal to bring labourers from India to Israel,” said a readout from the Israeli side.

The proposal to bring workers from India, however, predates the Hamas-Israel conflict. It was in June that Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen came here and inked an agreement to take 42,000 workers from India of which 34,000 would be for the construction sector. But sources said after the conflict with Palestinians, the requirement has gone up.

IN BIG AI PUSH, CENTRE TO STEP UP COMPUTE CAPACITY, OFFER FREE SERVICES TO STARTUPS

As part of an Artificial Intelligence Mission to develop its own ‘sovereign AI’, the Centre is looking to build computational capacity in the country and offer compute-as-a-service to India’s startups.

The capacity building will be done both within the government and through a public-private partnership model, highlighting New Delhi’s intention to reap dividends of the impending AI boom which it envisions will be a crucial economic driver.

The country is looking to build a compute capacity of anywhere between 10,000 GPUs (graphic processing units) and 30,000 GPUs under the PPP model, and an additional 1,000-2,000 GPUs through the PSU Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), says Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

For context, according to a 2020 blog by Microsoft, the company had developed a supercomputer for OpenAI – the firm behind ChatGPT – which consisted of 10,000 GPUs among other things.

USING POLICE DATABASE ON MISSING KIDS, MAN SWINDLED OVER 900 PARENTS, HELD

Hours after he reported his 14-year-old daughter missing, Markandey, who lives in North Delhi’s Burari, received a call from an unknown number.

“I am calling from the police station. We have located your daughter near Chandigarh and are heading there to recover her. Please transfer Rs 8,000 so that we can buy petrol,” the caller told him, giving him a basic description of the girl. Desperate, Markandey transferred the money to the caller.

Then the calls stopped.

On Wednesday, Delhi Police said that at least 904 parents, including Markandey, who were desperate for information about their missing children, were duped by one man who exploited their helplessness.

Shyamsunder Chauhan, 28, a BCA graduate, was arrested from Uttar Pradesh’s Mau by the north district of Delhi Police this week for allegedly downloading information about missing persons, mostly children, from ZIPNET — a database meant for inter-state police coordination, especially to track missing persons, stolen vehicles and phones — and using it to dupe people.

A senior police officer said Chauhan did not have any social media presence and used a police officer’s photo as display picture on his WhatsApp profile.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised. - Marilyn Manson

OFF TRACK

A young scholar from New York was invited to become Rabbi in a small old community in Chicago. On his very first Shabbat, a hot debate erupted as to whether one should or should not stand during the reading of the Ten Commandments.

The next day, the rabbi visited 98 year-old Mr. Katz in the nursing home. `Mr. Katz, I'm asking you as the oldest member of the community"` said the rabbi, "what is our synagogue's custom during the reading of the Ten Commandments?"

"Why do you ask?" asked Mr. Katz.

"Yesterday we read the Ten Commandments. Some people stood, some people sat. The ones standing started screaming at the ones sitting, telling them to stand up. The ones sitting started screaming at the ones standing, telling them to sit down..."

"That," said the old man, "is our custom."