Top National and International Headlines of the Week transcript on 26 November 2023
In top national news: An Army Major was among two soldiers killed in an encounter that has been continuing between security forces and militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district since Wednesday morning. Two soldiers were also injured, and one militant was killed, in the joint operation being conducted by the J & K Police and security forces in the border district. The deceased officer belonged to the 63 Rashtriya Rifles, police sources said, adding that the injured have been evacuated to a hospital. The special forces had been rushed to retrieve the Major’s body when militants opened fire at them, injuring three soldiers. One of them succumbed to his injuries later, sources said.
In other news, petitioners seeking a review of the Supreme Court’s October 17 ruling, which rejected the prayer to grant legal recognition to same-sex marriages, urged the court to hear their plea in open court. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi appeared for some of the petitioners and submitted the petition before a bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud. He said that all the judges who delivered the verdict had agreed there was discrimination, and there had to be some consequent result since the lives of large numbers of people depended on the verdict. The Chief Justice said he would take a call after seeing the petition.
In some tragic news: Justice Fathima Beevi, the first Muslim woman judge of the Supreme Court, died at a private hospital in Kerala’s Kollam today, at the age of 96. She was considered a role model for gender justice, and had been an icon of women’s empowerment as she blazed a trail in the legal profession and otherwise. In his condolence message, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the life of Justice Beevi was one of the remarkable chapters of women’s empowerment in Kerala. Through Justice Beevi, Kerala had won recognition as the state which contributed the first woman judge to the country, he said.
Students at a government middle school in Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh boycotted classes on Wednesday and Thursday after their headmistress was suspended over the construction of a boundary wall. While the panchayat pradhan for Saidpur Nibaula village alleged that the local Block Education Officer (BEO) was upset over the wall not covering his office, and hence punished the headmistress, Sambhal Basic Shiksha Adhikdari denied the allegation, saying the headmistress, Deepti Yadav, “got the boundary wall constructed to avoid inspection at the school”. The middle school at Saidpur Nibaula in Asmoli block is for classes VI to VIII and has 81 students enrolled. Assistant Teacher Deepti Yadav, who was the headmistress was suspended on Tuesday by the district education department.
In top international news: The United States “thwarted a conspiracy to assassinate” Khalistan separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil and “issued a warning to India’s government over concerns it was involved in the plot,” UK-based daily Financial Times has reported, citing multiple sources. This comes two months after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that Canadian security agencies were probing “credible allegations” about a potential link between Indian government agents and the killing of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver in June. The Indian government had rejected Canada’s allegations as “absurd” and “motivated”. But this time, India has said that it takes the US inputs on security “seriously”, and “issues” in this context were being examined.
In news from Nepal: Police and protest groups clashed in Kathmandu on Thursday with the former using tear gas shells to disperse agitators. While the Nepal Army was kept on standby, the need to use these personnel didn’t arise, a senior home ministry official told Indian Express. Pro-monarchy protestors – led by Durga Prasai, an entrepreneur and a former Maoist activist turned central committee member of the K P Oli-led Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist – moved away from the designated protest area towards marketplaces where they began shouting slogans in favour of restoring the monarchy and abolishing the ‘costly federal system’. They even clashed with members of Yubasangh – a militant youth wing of UML Party.
In news from the US: A 26-year-old Indian doctoral student died after being shot inside a car in the US state of Ohio, in an incident described by his medical university as “sudden, tragic and senseless”. Aaditya Adlakha was a fourth-year doctoral student in the molecular and developmental biology programme at the University of Cincinnati Medical School, according to a statement from the medical school, WXIX-TV reported. Adlakha died earlier this month at the UC Medical Center, according to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office. On November 9, Cincinnati Police Lt. Jonathan Cunningham said officers found a man shot inside a vehicle that crashed into a wall on the upper deck of the Western Hills Viaduct.
Lastly: The far-right, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders was headed for a massive parliamentary election victory on Wednesday in one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II, and one that is bound to send shockwaves through Europe. That puts him in line to lead talks to form a new ruling coalition and possibly become the country’s first hard-right prime minister at a time of political upheaval through much of the continent. The exit poll published by national broadcaster NOS said that Wilders’ Party for Freedom won 35 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, more than double the 17 he won at the last election.
