Wishing you all a Happy New Year 2021.
#HappyNewYear2021

Here is a thread of the LiveLaw annual round up stories of major developments of 2020.

1. Good & Bad : 65 Important Supreme Court Judgments Of

Supreme Court takes up the petitions challenging the constitutionality of farmers laws.

Adv P Wilson @PWilsonDMK says he is appearing in one of the petitions challenging the Acts.

CJI : All the advocates who appeared yesterday(in PILs against farmers protests) are not seen today except for Mr. Dushyant Tiwari

Dushyant Tiwari : I have impleaded the farmers unions.

Solicitor General : There is a confusion. The first item is the petitions challenging the validity of laws.

CJI : We will not decide the validity of the laws today. The first and the only thing we will decide today is regarding the farmers protest and the fundamental right of citizens to move. The question of validity of laws can wait.

CJI : We will hear Mr. Salve, Mr. Parihar and other petitioners (in PILs against farmers protest)

#FarmersProtest

Supreme Court takes up the suo moto case on 'remediation of polluted rivers'.

Meenakshi Arora (amicus curiae) : The water quality level as on January 18 was excellent. Ammonium levels were in control. If that can be maintained, it will be good.

Arora submits that the NGT has appointed a river monitoring committee for Yamuna river and requests court to call for a report from the committee.

"They could assist us in a big manner", Arora submits.

#YamunaRiver #RiverPollution

Arora : Haryana has said they are in the process of upgrading certain STPs and CETPs.
#YamunaRiver #RiverPollution

CJI : Alright. Today we will pass an order calling for a report from the committee you mentioned.

[WEBINAR]
Topic- Keys to Governance: Independence of Judiciary
The Webinar is being organized by India International Centre and D.S. Borker Memorial Foundation.
-Thursday 07 at 6:00PM-

Key Speakers:
1. Rtd. Justice Madan B Lokur, Former SC Judge
2. Tarunabh Khaitan, Vice Dean Faculty of Law, Oxford University
3. Maneka Guruswamy, Senior Advocate
4. N Ram, Former Editor in Chief, The Hindu
Moderator: Suhas Borker, Managing Trustee, DS Borker Memorial Foundation

The webinar has started.
Critical questions to be addressed in the webinar:
1. Is the SC performing its functions to defend the constitution satisfactorily?
2. Has the SC become an executive court?
3. Does the collegiums system ensure independence of judiciary?

4. Are post retirement benefits for judges compromising our judicial system?
5. Is there a need to increase the retirement age of judges?
6. Should there be a bar for restricting the post retirement jobs to judges?

7. How do you keep the government of the day at bay from exercising interference on the court?

<< 𝙇𝙤𝙖𝙣 𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢 & 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧 >>

#SupremeCourt bench led by Justice Ashok will today take up plea(s) seeking extension of loan moratorium owing to the pandemic alongwith sector-specific plea’s.

@RBI
#loan
#loanmoratorium #ExtendMoratorium

Senior Advocate Ravindra Srivastava is making rejoinder submissions.
He says that no authority seems to be looking into the grievances of the borrowers.

Srivastava : Govt and RBI have come up with measures - for small borrowers (for loans up to 2 crores) on which I made submissions regarding discrimination.

They have shown nothing on record to prove why this was done, Srivastava says

Srivastava says that the intervention application of the IBA and the SBI circulars have been signed by the Deputy Managing Director but nowhere it has been stipulated to be a Board Approved policy.

#SupremeCourt is hearing a Public Interest Litigation seeking directions by Top Court, to provide food and healthcare facilities to children and lactating mothers, because the entire Anganwadi system has shut due to the lockdown.

On November 28, the Top Court had directed the Centre & States to file affidavits with regard to implementation of guidelines issued on operation of Anganwadi in the context of COVID-19.

Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves says he has prepared a chart wrt to the laxity of the Union with regard to the Aanganwadi system.

The Central Govt's survey on what states had done points to the fact that states had not reopened anganwadi systems in light of the notification of the Govt dated November 11, says Gonsalves.

The system is totally at a standstill, says Gonsalves.

The NHRC study and recommendation states that he Anganwadi's must immediately restart, says Gonsalves

Bollywood is just a bubble of privileged, tone-deaf hypocrites. You think criticising Modi is activism? You can't even call out a director accused of #metoo. What happened to your political correctness and feminism? Is it only limited to gaslighting Dalits? Shows your hypocrisy

Secondly, if you read history, you will find that Dalits would have a broom attached to their backs by UC rulers so that the land would not be polluted. By portraying a Dalit politician holding a broom, you are glorifying the stereotype of casteist jobs which our ancestors fought

Thirdly, using a casteist slur like untouchable is not clever wordplay by any means. It is just dehumanizing and constitutionally banned. We were outcasts who were not allowed to even touch the same places as UCs. If you don't know our history, don't misuse it. Unlearn casteism

Moreover, the director of the movie is Subhash Kapoor, a man accused of sexual assault. It baffles me how all of Bollywood has shown their casteism in targeting Dalits for criticising the misleading portrayal of themselves, but no one has pointed a finger at the sexual molestor!

Bollywood is just a bubble of privileged, tone-deaf hypocrites. You think criticising Modi is activism? You can't even call out a director accused of #MeToo . What happened to your political correctness and feminism? Is it only limited to gaslighting Dalits? Shows your hypocrisy

What is the Gujarat Model of ‘development’? Thread.

1. Gujarat spends less than 2% of its income on education (the norm is 5-6%) with the result that 45% workers in Gujarat are illiterate or studied up to the fifth standard with the quality of education very poor. (The Wire)

2. Public expenditure on health is 0.8% of the state income, well below the norm of 4-6%. Gujarat is decelerating very fast in almost all health indicators.

3. Forty-five percent children in the state are undernourished and the decline of maternal mortality rate has decelerated.

4. Close to 93-94% workers are in informal and traditional sectors with low incomes and low social security.

One of the reasons it attracts businesses is because of the low wage rates, which are comparable to that of Uttar Pradesh.

5. The Gujarat government's cumulative public debt has shot up to an astronomical ₹2,40,651 crore in 2018-19 and estimated to rise to ₹2,66,990 crore in the current financial year, which is ₹62,000 crore more than the total budget of ₹2,04,815 crore.

6. During the Vibrant Gujarat investors’ summits held between 2003 and 2011, MoUs were signed pledging investment totalling ₹40 lakh crore. However, only 8 per cent of the promised investment, amounting to just ₹3 lakh crore actually came.

101 years ago today, Islam reemerged in modern America with the arrival in Philadelphia of a sage and scholar named Mufti Muhammad Sadiq.

Follow along as we recount his story alongside a brief history of Muslims in the United States. (1/16)
#100YearMovement

The presence of Islam in America dates back to the 13 colonies, when West Africans were enslaved and brought to the new world against their will. Many were Muslim and continued to practice their faith even as it was impossible for them to live freely. (2/16)
#BlackHistoryMonth

But by the end of the 19th century, Islam as a religion in the U.S. started to wane. The descendants of Muslim slaves had little connection to their forefathers, though some had inherited relics such as prayer mats and copies of the Holy Quran. (3/16)

Around the same time Islam was fading in America, a new spiritual movement was awakening halfway across the world.

It was known as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, founded in 1889 by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, India. (4/16)
#PromisedMessiah

Ahmad claimed to be the awaited latter day reformer and Messiah for all religions, who came to revive the true and essential teachings taught by the Holy Prophet of Islam. His movement began as a small group in an Indian village and has grown to millions worldwide today. (5/16)

Many have accused the Narendra Modi government of not doing enough to change the biased historical narratives set in motion during the 54 years of Congress rule.
The #ChauriChaura centenary celebrations is one such initiative to set right, a historical wrong.

Thread begins.

What is the Chauri Chaura incident?
On February 4, 1922 at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, a procession was taken out in support of Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement.
The police, on orders from the British government, fired on the peaceful march, triggering an outrage.

First a little background to the incident and why the face-off happened with the British administered police.
The protest was called against the atrocities that was unleashed on the locals when the Non Cooperation movement started in Gorakhpur. Several leaders were arrested.

A group of 2,000 people gathered to protest as part of Gandhi's call for Non Cooperation with the British. The crowd swelled soon.
The police were ordered to fire in the air to disperse the crowd. This further agitated them.
Then the police fired at the protestors, injuring many.