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Citizenship, triple talaq bills set to lapse on June 3

Agencies
February 13, 2019

New Delhi, Feb 13: The contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and the one on banning triple talaq are set to lapse on June 3 when the term of the present Lok Sabha ends as they could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha which adjourned sine die on Wednesday.

The Budget session was the last Parliament session of the present government.

The 17th Lok Sabha has to be constituted before June 3. Lok Sabha polls are due this summer.

Bills introduced in the Rajya Sabha and pending there do not lapse with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha. Bills passed by the Lok Sabha and pending in the Rajya Sabha lapse.

The opposition had been opposing provisions of the two bills in Rajya Sabha where the government lacks numbers.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

The legislation was passed by the Lok Sabha during the Winter Session on January 8 and has been awaiting the Rajya Sabha's nod.

There has been strong opposition to the bill in Assam and other Northeastern states.

Student organisations, political parties and socio-cultural bodies have been protesting on the grounds that it seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come into India up to December 31, 2014, thereby increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also, according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of their religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that.

Two BJP chief ministers of the Northeast -- Arunachal Pradesh's Pema Khandu and Manipur's N Biren Dingh -- have also voiced their opposition to the contentious Bill.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the bill is an "atonement of the wrong that was done during India's Partition. India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition".

On Saturday, addressing a rally in Assam, Modi said the citizenship bill won't harm the interests of the people of the region but will provide succour to those who have "embraced the idea and ethos of Mother India".

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) bill which makes the practice of instant triple talaq (talaq-e-Biddat) a penal offence, is being opposed by opposition parties which claim that jail term for the husband for divorcing his wife is legally untenable.

The government has promulgated the ordinance on triple talaq twice. Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2019, divorcing through instant triple talaq will be illegal, void and would attract a jail term of three years for the husband

A Bill to convert the earlier ordinance, issued in September, 2018, was cleared by the Lok Sabha in December and was pending in the Rajya Sabha

Since the Bill could not get parliamentary approval, a fresh ordinance was issued.

Seeking to allay fears that the proposed law could be misused, the government has included certain safeguards in it such as adding a provision of bail for the accused before trial.

These amendments were cleared by the Cabinet on August 29, 2018. While the ordinance makes it a "non-bailable" offence, an accused can approach a magistrate even before trial to seek bail.

In a non-bailable offence, bail cannot be granted by police at the police station itself.

A provision has been added to allow the magistrate to grant bail "after hearing the wife", the government had said.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Jehanabad, Jan 27: The police here carried out a raid at the ancestral house of anti-CAA activist Sharjeel Imam, who has been slapped with a sedition case in the national capital for alleged inflammatory speeches he gave at Shaheen Bagh and the Jamia Milia Islamia, a senior official said on Monday.

According to Superintendent of Police, Jehanabad, Manish Kumar, Imams house in Kako police station area was raided late on Sunday night following "help sought by central agencies" which are investigating the cases lodged against the JNU research scholar.

Imam was not found at his house but two of his relatives and their driver were detained for interrogation and let off thereafter, the SP said.

A graduate in computer science from IIT-Mumbai, Sharjeel Imam had shifted to Delhi for pursuing research at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU.

He was slapped with a sedition case after his alleged speeches went viral on the social media wherein he was heard speaking about Assam's possible secession from the country in the wake of the Citienship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Earlier, he had been booked on similar charges at a police station in Aligarh for a speech he delivered on the AMU campus.

Besides, a case under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA has been registered against him at Assam.

Imams late father Akbar Imam was a local JD(U) leader who had unsuccessfully contested an assembly election in his lifetime.

Reacting to the developments, his distraught mother Afshan Rahim told the media, "My son is innocent. He is a bright young man and not a thief or a pickpocket. I swear in the name of God that I do not know about his whereabouts. But I can guarantee that upon learning about the cases, he will appear before the investigating agencies and fully cooperate in the probe."

She said that it has been a long time since she met her son though she had a telephonic conversation with him a few weeks ago.

"He was obviously disturbed by the CAA and fears of the National Register of Citiznes (NRC) about being implemented across the country which, he said, would affect not just Muslims but all poor people," she said.

In fact, after 15 days of Shaheen Bagh protest, he had asked the agitators there to withdraw and watch the situation for a month, and then decide on the further course of action, she said. "But they refused to relent. He was calling for a 'chakkajam' (road blockade). He is just a kid and not capable of instigating people for secession," she added.

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News Network
July 9,2020

New Delhi, Jul 9: India reported the highest single-day spike of 24,879 new positive cases and 487 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 7,67,296, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of the total number of cases, 2,69,789 are active, 4,76,378 have been cured/discharged/migrated and 21,129 have died.

Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state due to COVID-19 with as many as 2,23,724 cases, including 91,084 active, 1,23,192 cured/discharged and 9,448 deaths.

It is followed by Tamil Nadu (1,22,350) and Delhi (1,04,864).

Meanwhile, a total of 1,07,40,832 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 8. Of these, 2,67,061 samples were tested yesterday, stated Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

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Agencies
August 3,2020

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has given nod to the Serum Institute of India (SII) for conducting phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the Oxford University developed Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the country.

Government officials said that the approval for conducting phase 2 and 3 clinical trials by the SII was granted by DCGI Dr V G Somani late Sunday night after a thorough evaluation based on the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on Covid-19.

"The firm has to submit safety data, evaluated by the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), to the CDSCO before proceeding to phase 3 clinical trials," a senior official said.

"As per the study design, each subject will be administered two doses four weeks apart (first dose on day one and second dose on day 29) following which the safety and immunogenicity will be assessed at predefined intervals," the official said.

As a rapid regulatory response, the expert panel at the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) on Friday, after a detailed deliberation and considering the data generated on the vaccine candidate in phase 1 and 2 of the Oxford University trial, had recommended granting permission for phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the potential vaccine, 'Covishield', on healthy adults in India,  the officials said.

Currently, phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the Oxford vaccine candidate is going on in the United Kingdom, phase 3 clinical trial in Brazil and phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in South Africa.

The officials said that the SII had submitted a revised proposal on Wednesday after the SEC on July 28, following deliberation over its application, had asked it to revise its protocol for the phase 2 and 3 clinical trials besides seeking some additional information.

The panel had also recommended that the clinical trial sites which have been proposed for the study be distributed across India.

According to the revised proposal by the SII, 1,600 people aged above 18 years will participate in the trials across 17 selected sites, including AIIMS-Delhi, B J Medical College in Pune, Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (RMRIMS) in Patna, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, AIIMS-Jodhpur, Nehru Hospital in Gorakhpur, Andhra Medical College in Visakhapatnam and JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research in Mysore.

"According to the application, it would conduct an observer-blind, randomised controlled study to determine the safety and immunogenicity of 'Covishield' on healthy Indian adults," the official said.

The SII, which has partnered with AstraZeneca, for manufacturing the Oxford vaccine candidate for Covid-19 had submitted its first application to the DCGI on July 25 seeking permission for conducting the phase 2 and 3 trials of the potential vaccine. 

Initial results of the first two-phases of trials of the vaccine conducted in five trial sites in the UK showed that it has an acceptable safety profile and homologous boosting increased antibody response, sources had said.

To introduce the vaccine, SII, the world's largest vaccine maker by number of doses produced and sold, has signed an agreement to manufacture the potential vaccine developed by the Jenner Institute (Oxford University) in collaboration with British-Swedish pharma company AstraZeneca. 

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