New Delhi, Apr 27: Senior advocate Indu Malhotra was today administered the oath of office as a Supreme Court judge by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, making her the first woman lawyer to enter the top judiciary directly.
With Malhotra joining the bench, the strength of the Supreme Court is now 25, against the sanctioned strength of 31, including the CJI.
Malhotra was administered the oath of office and secrecy in a ceremony held at court number 1 in the apex court.
New Delhi, Jul 29: The new National Education Policy (NEP) approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is set to usher in a slew of changes with the vision of creating an education system that contributes directly to transforming the country, providing high-quality education to all, and making India a global knowledge superpower.
The draft of the NEP by a panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Kasturirangan and submitted to the Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal when he took charge last year. The new NEP replaces the one formulated in 1986.
Some of the key highlights of the New Education Policy are:-
The policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialized areas of interest at a deep level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others.
It identified the major problems facing the higher education system in the country and suggested changes such as moving towards multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with more institutions across India that offer medium of instruction in local/Indian languages, a more multidisciplinary undergraduate education, among others.
The governance of such institutions by independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy has also been suggested.
Under the suggestions for institutional restructuring and consolidation, it has suggested that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students, and by 2030 each or near every district in the country there will be at least one HEI.
The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs including vocational education from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.
Single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters.
It also pushes for more holistic and multidisciplinary education to be provided to the students.
New Delhi, Jun 29: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central government to find out the facts related to blacklisting and canceling of visas of foreign nationals who attended the congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin area here.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar and also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna asked the Centre to find out the facts related to the matter and fixed it for further hearing on July 2.
The apex court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta "if visas of these foreigners are canceled, then why are they still in India?"
"You (Centre) can deport them. If visas are not canceled, then, it is a different situation," the court said. The top court was hearing a number of petitions challenging blacklisting and cancellation of visas filed by few foreigners.
Mehta sought more time to file a reply on the matter, after which the court posted the matter for further hearing on July 2.
The petitions, filed by the foreign nationals from 35 countries, have sought directions to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to remove their names from the blacklist, reinstate their visas and facilitate their return to their respective countries.
The petitions sought to declare the decision of the MHA of blacklisting the foreign nationals who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation as "arbitrary".
"Unilateral blacklisting of 960 foreigners by the Home Ministry vide press release dated April 2, 2020, and the subsequent blacklisting of around 2500 foreigners as reported on June 4, 2020, is in violation of Article 21. Therefore, it is void and unconstitutional as the petitioners have neither been provided any hearing nor notice or intimation in this regard," the plea said.
One of the petitioners named Fareedah Cheema, a Thai national in the seventh month of her pregnancy, said she was quarantined in March, like other foreign nationals but was released from quarantine only in late May and is still at a facility under restricted movements, without the avenue to go back to her home nation and experience the birth of her child with security and dignity, with her loved ones.
These foreign nationals presently in India were blacklisted for a period of 10 years from traveling to India for their alleged involvement in Tablighi Jamaat activities.
The Home Ministry had said that foreign Tablighi Jamaat members, who were staying in India in violation of visa rules during the nationwide lockdown implemented to combat the COVID-19 spread, have been blacklisted.
A large congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat in the national capital in March had emerged as a major COVID-19 hotspot in the country.
The government had said the decision of banning the foreign Tablighi Jamaat members was taken after details of foreigners found illegally living in mosques and religious places emerged from various states across the country.
New Delhi, Jul 27: India’s coronavirus epidemic is now growing at the fastest in the world, increasing 20% over the last week to more than 14 lakh confirmed cases, according to Bloomberg’s Coronavirus Tracker.
Infections in the South Asian nation of 130 crore people have reached 14.3 lakh, including 32,771 deaths, India’s health ministry said, with daily cases close to a record 50,000 on Monday. India is only trailing the US and Brazil now in the number of confirmed infections, but its growth in new cases is the fastest.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are among the states where the maximum number of daily cares are being reported. The world’s second-most populous country has been ramping up testing, with 515,472 samples taken on Sunday, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research.
Still, India and Brazil have some of the world’s lowest testing rates, with 11.8 tests and 11.93 tests per 1,000 people respectively, compared to the US with 152.98 tests per 1,000 and Russia with 184.34, according to Our World in Data, a project based at the University of Oxford in the UK.
Comments
Add new comment