‘Don't demoralise forces': Supreme Court junks plea seeking judicial probe into Pahalgam terror attack
The top court said, 'This is the time when the entire country has joined hands to fight terrorism.'
It allowed the petitioner, Fatesh Kumar Sahu, to withdraw the petition in person.
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Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Owaisi slams ‘pant utaaro' Aadhaar checks at UP eateries ahead of Kanwar Yatra: ‘This filth must stop'
AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi has hit out at the Uttar Pradesh administration and police for allowing vigilante groups to harass hotel staff near Muzaffarnagar during the Kanwar Yatra, questioning why they are being allowed to operate as a 'parallel government.' AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi addresses a press conference on voter revision, in Hyderabad, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. He also criticised vigilante groups harassing eatery owners along the Kanwar Yatra route.(PTI) Referring to recent reports of men being forced to remove their pants to 'prove their religion' along the Delhi-Dehradun highway, Owaisi said that areas like Baghonwali, Sarwat, and Bajheri near the Muzaffar Nagar bypass have seen peaceful pilgrimages for over a decade, but things have drastically changed. 'There are hotels in those villages that have been operating peacefully for years,' he said. 'Why is it that 10–11 years ago, there were no such incidents, and now people are being pulled out, asked for Aadhaar cards, and even forced to strip if they fail to show one? Who are these vigilantes? Is the government running the state, or have these groups taken over?' In his sharp criticism, Owaisi asked what authority these individuals had to storm into hotels and question staff. 'Who gave you the right to enter a hotel and ask someone their name or demand their Aadhaar card? Are you the police? Are you the law? Are you the government?' he said, referencing a Supreme Court order prohibiting such harassment, which he said is still in force. 'They went to the hotel and asked for the Aadhaar card of the owner. When they didn't get it, they said, 'pant utaaro' — 'take off your pants'. Kya hai yeh gandagi? — 'What kind of filth is this?' This filth must stop. If the police won't act, these people will keep behaving like they're the superior government. Our demand is simple: follow the rule of law,' Owaisi said. Vigilantes force eatery staff to 'prove' religion His remarks come in the backdrop of reports from Muzaffarnagar where followers of controversial seer Swamy Yashveer Maharaj allegedly forced roadside eatery workers and hotel staff to prove their religion by lowering their pants. The vigilante group, reportedly part of a self-styled outfit called the Bharatiya Sanatan Suraksha Dal, has been accused of repeatedly targeting establishments run by minority communities during the ongoing Kanwar Yatra. The Supreme Court, on July 22 last year, issued an interim order staying the Uttar Pradesh government's directive that mandated shopkeepers along Kanwar Yatra routes to display their names. The court clarified that owners are only required to mention the type of food served at their establishments. During the hearing, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that the state's order had no legal basis and described it as a 'camouflage order.' The order came in response to a directive issued by Muzaffarnagar Police last year, which required all eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of their owners on signboards. The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government later expanded this directive statewide, with the governments of Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh adopting similar measures. However, the move drew strong criticism not only from the Opposition but also from several NDA allies, including the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Is Trump gambling with America's future?
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel From Iran to Capitol Hill, President Trump is governing as if he believes all the constraints that limited him during his first term have may be right in that assessment. But if he is, both he and his party could ultimately regret his decision last week to bomb Iran. The problem of Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon has vexed presidents for decades. Yet Vice President JD Vance, reflecting the courtier mindset that has come to dominate Trump's White House,insisted that other presidents hadn't bombed Iran only because they were 'dumb.'Actually, as I was told in conversations last week with several former senior national security officials from the Joe Biden and Barack Obama administrations, those presidents also seriously considered bombing Iran. But both concluded that military action might only slow, not stop, Iran's nuclear effort — and could ultimately increase its determination to secretly build a bomb for deterrence. They recognized that even an attack that initially met its military goals could trigger unintended consequences and ultimately hurt America's long-term because Trump has spent a lifetime dodging accountability in the legal system, the idea that his actions could have unintended consequences seems foreign to him. He has especially good reason to feel unbound now. The institutions that might have restrained him — and usually did restrain other presidents — are buckling under his relentless drive to centralize more presidential events over just the past week have captured the breadth of this capitulation. The six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices signaled again that they see themselves less as hindrances than handmaidens to Trump's accumulation of power when they voted to essentially bar lower courts from imposing nationwide injunctions against his policies. Two of the tiny handful of Congressional Republicans who have maintained a degree of independence — Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina — announced that they would not seek reelection, showing the president's success at eradicating dissent within his party. Congressional Republican leaders again demonstrated that they will not defend the institution's authority when they justified Trump's refusal to consult Congress (or even inform Democrats) before he bombed Iran. The decision by the University of Virginia's president to resign under pressure from the administration underscored how many institutions in civil society are surrendering to Trump's unprecedented incursions on their was just one is nothing if not a student of human weakness. And he has clearly taken note of how many institutions are splintering under his assaults. In response, Trump is indulging his most aggressive instincts and taking political and policy gambles that might have seemed too reckless during his first term. On issue after issue, he is treating an extremely confrontational position as merely his opening ante — before immediately doubling down with even more extreme tendency was evident from his first day back in office when he pardoned not only the Jan. 6 defendants who broke into the Capitol, but also those who violently assaulted police officers. He's not only dropped federal investigations against political allies, but has directed his administration to launch investigations of individuals he considers adversaries — most recently saying he would consider deporting friend-turned-foe Elon Musk. In Los Angeles, Trump went beyond federalizing the state National Guard over the objection of California Governor Gavin Newsom and also deployed active-duty Marines into the city. Then, he not only used troops to defend federal buildings in LA, but also to provide security for federal immigration and drug enforcement agents on raids. The 'one big beautiful bill' staggering through Congress not only extends the tax cuts he passed in 2017, but would cause nearly as many people to lose health insurance as his failed first-term attempt to repeal the Affordable Care has been equally unconstrained in international affairs. He hasn't applied punishing tariffs only to China, but to close allies including Canada and Mexico. He has moved from America-first isolationism to threatening to seize territory from friendly nations. And as noted above, he not only acquiesced as Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, but joined the attack with the biggest non-nuclear bombs in America's arsenal. The former senior Biden and Obama national security officials told me any administration would have considered a military strike after Israel opened a window of opportunity by degrading Iran's air defenses and disabling its key regional proxies. But the officials also said that the continuing uncertainty over how much the attack actually set back Iran's nuclear program validated the conclusion in those prior administrations that a diplomatic agreement offered a better chance of lasting common thread linking Trump's second-term choices is that he appears to view himself as both infallible and invulnerable. ('I run the country and the world,' he has declared.) He partially retreated when bond markets rebelled against his tariffs, but no other external force has cowed him. And unlike his first term, he's filled his government with loyalists more prone to flatter than challenge him. Business executives and international leaders have followed suit, sacrificing their independence (and in some cases self-respect).That lack of pushback appears to be encouraging him to take yet more gambles. None have entirely blown up on him yet. But he is rushing onto so many ledges that any could crumble beneath him. Iran eventually could respond to his attack with a destabilizing act of terrorism or a sprint toward a bomb; his National Guard deployments into blue cities could trigger a Kent State moment when civilians are killed; trade wars could derail the economy; voters could recoil from a budget bill that cuts taxes for the top 0.1% by over $230,000 annually while revoking health insurance from more people than any previous University political scientist Corey Brettschneider points out that when other presidents have sought to aggrandize their power and undermine Constitutional freedoms, the system's supposed checks from Congress and the Supreme Court have usually failed. According to Brettschneider, who explored that history in his powerful recent book The Presidents and The People, what has slowed those presidents (from John Adams through Woodrow Wilson) is 'citizens pushing back' and building 'a coalition in opposition' when rights and liberties are history points to the real danger of Trump's towering overconfidence. It has emboldened him to take serial risks that may ultimately hurt the American people and provoke a public backlash, particularly among the swing voters that he — and more immediately his party in 2026 —need to retain is repeatedly raising his bets as if he believes he can draw only aces from the deck. He might do well to remember that back in Atlantic City, his ventures into the casino business more than once ended in bankruptcy.(The article is an opinion piece by Bloomberg's Ronald Brownstein.)
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Now playing in Assam, the drama of deportation
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated July 7, 2025)As Assam gears up for assembly election early next year, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has already set a combative tone for the campaign. In recent months, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has launched an aggressive, and legally contentious, drive to identify and deport 'illegal Bangladeshis'. This move has involved reviving decades-old laws, sidelining the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and stirring a combustible mix of security, identity and religion in the state's political prompted by judicial developments but largely driven by electoral calculations, the Sarma government has intensified efforts to deport individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants, particularly those of Bangladeshi origin. What marks this phase as particularly significant is a new legal interpretation: even those included in the NRC, the Supreme Court-monitored citizenship register, are not necessarily safe from deportation if later declared foreigners by the state's quasi-judicial Foreigners Tribunals (FT) that determine citizenship status through an adversarial process. This reinterpretation quietly nullifies the political and administrative heft of the NRC NRC was conceived as the definitive solution to Assam's decades-old 'foreigner problem', a comprehensive register that would once and for all separate genuine Indian citizens from illegal immigrants. The exercise consumed enormous resources and generated tremendous anxiety across the state before finally producing its results in 2019. However, the outcome satisfied no one. Of the 33 million applicants, 1.9 million were excluded from the final list, a number that BJP leaders, including Sarma, deemed suspiciously Sarma, who was then a rising star in the BJP after his dramatic defection from the Congress in 2015, was among the NRC's most vocal critics. He demanded 'reverification' of 20 per cent of names in border districts and 10 per cent elsewhere, arguing that the process had been compromised. But rather than wait for any such reverification, his government has now taken a more radical step: effectively robbing the NRC of any legal SC handed Sarma the legal tool he needed in a May ruling in Rafiqul Hoque vs Union of India, in which Hoque had challenged his designation as a foreigner partly on grounds that his name appeared in the draft NRC. The court ruled that 'inclusion of the name of the appellant in the draft NRC would have no bearing on the order passed by the Tribunal, affirmed by the [Gauhati] High Court, declaring the appellant a foreigner'. In other words, being on the NRC list provided no protection against being declared a foreigner by a dual-track system has unleashed a Kafkaesque nightmare in Assam where even legal reprieve offers no protection. In a recent case, one Hachinur, who was out on bail and regularly reporting to the police, was detained again, without warning, and without his family being informed, despite his appeal pending before the high court. The court later termed the detention illegal, ordering his immediate release and chastising state authorities for violating due Having sidelined the NRC, Sarma has turned to more expedient methods. His government's most controversial innovation has been the revival of the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act (IEAA), 1950, that had largely fallen into disuse. The Act grants the central government and, by extension, district commissioners acting on its behalf, sweeping powers to expel 'any person or class of persons who have come into Assam from outside India' if their presence is deemed 'detrimental to the interests of the general public of India or any Scheduled Tribe in Assam'.What makes this law so attractive to Sarma's government is that it bypasses the elaborate judicial machinery that has come up around immigration cases. Under the current system, suspected foreigners are typically referred to FTs. These proceedings can drag on for years, and many of those declared foreigners subsequently appeal to higher courts, creating further 1950 Act, by contrast, allows for much swifter action. Sarma contends that a recent SC constitutional bench ruling (October 17, 2024, in a case concerning Section 6A of the Citizenship Act) validates this approach, thereby facilitating swifter 'pushbacks', occasionally even without antecedent FT proceedings. The SC bench, in upholding Section 6A, explicitly stated that the IEAA 'shall be effectively employed for the purpose of identification of illegal immigrants', granting the Centre the power to remove immigrants deemed 'detrimental to the interests of India'.At least 330 declared foreigners have reportedly been 'pushed back' into Bangladesh. In January 2025, when more than 200 individuals were found languishing for years in Matia detention centre, the country's largest, the SC expressed stern disapproval over the delay and directed the government to expedite the deportation executing the court order has not been easy. Bangladesh has shown little enthusiasm for accepting deportees, especially those unable to provide clear proof of their nationality. The 14 people who were 'pushed back' in May but then spent days in no-man's land before returning to Assam illustrated the practical limitations of the deportation policy. Without cooperation from Bangladesh, many deportation orders become political That, indeed, is what Himanta's drive has become. By reviving the decades-old fear of demographic alteration, the Assam CM is reactivating the BJP's Hindu-Muslim binary in a state where religion, language and indigeneity form an unstable triangle. His messaging is aimed squarely at indigenous communities who have historically felt threatened by migration from erstwhile East Bengal and later Bangladesh. Sarma's 'uncompromising' stand on security and illegal immigration is designed to consolidate this support base. On June 25, he signalled a renewed push to reclaim land for indigenous communities by intensifying the crackdown on alleged encroachments by illegal immigrants. Soon after taking office, Sarma had launched a series of eviction drives, largely targeting Bangla-speaking recent incidents in Assam, where meat was allegedly found near temples following Eid celebrations, have reinforced the narrative the BJP is trying to push. Sarma was quick to frame these acts as 'the weaponisation of beef against Hindus', amplifying communal tensions. Another polarising move has been the government's decision to issue arms licences to 'original inhabitants' in vulnerable border areas. This has been widely interpreted as an attempt to strengthen perceptions of insecurity and promote community-based self-defence. Sarma has urged citizens to adopt a firm stance. 'Modiji alone cannot protect us,' he warned, insisting that unless the Assamese people themselves resist infiltration, neither laws nor leaders can preserve their political intent becomes more apparent when considered alongside Assam's shifting electoral dynamics. The All India United Democratic Front, once a key force representing Muslim interests, has been significantly weakened. This opens up space for the Congress to reclaim Muslim support. At the same time, it gives the BJP an opportunity to label any Congress-Muslim alliance as evidence of the party's alleged 'anti-national' leanings. The Congress finds itself in a complicated position. Supporting due process and minority rights leaves it vulnerable to charges of being 'pro-foreigner'. But remaining silent in the face of what critics see as systematic persecution of a certain group undermines its secular credentials. The recent appointment of Gaurav Gogoi as state Congress president was an attempt to find a leader who could navigate these treacherous political Gogoi's own background has given Sarma ample ammunition for attack. The BJP leader has accused Gogoi and his British wife of being Pakistani sympathisers gathering intelligence on Indian soil. Sarma's announcement that he will reveal 'evidence' on September 10 appears strategically timed to build anti-Congress sentiment. For Gogoi and the Congress, the stakes are high. Gogoi's appointment suggests the Congress is willing to stake its fortunes on a direct contest with Sarma. But the BJP's narrative, of a Muslim-friendly Congress allegedly compromised by foreign interests, could prove a potent challenge in Assam's volatile electoral Assam approaches the election, Sarma's efforts are not only aimed at consolidating the BJP's support base but are also subtly redefining the terms of political engagement in the state, where the boundaries between governance and campaign rhetoric are getting increasingly to India Today Magazine- Ends
