'Don't Control Me': Jaya Bachchan Snaps At Priyanka Chaturvedi During Op Sindoor Speech
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Business Standard
22 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Notification for Vice-Presidential poll issued, nomination process begins
The post of Vice President fell vacant on July 21 after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned unexpectedly, citing health reasons New Delhi The Election Commission on Thursday issued a notification for the election to the office of the Vice President, scheduled for September 9, officially kick-starting the nomination process. Key dates: Last date for filing nominations: August 21 Scrutiny of nomination papers: August 22 Last date for withdrawal of candidature: August 25 The post of Vice President fell vacant on July 21 after Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned unexpectedly, citing health reasons. His tenure was otherwise set to continue until August 2027. According to constitutional provisions, in the case of a midterm election, the newly elected Vice President gets a full five-year term. How is the Vice President elected? As per Article 66 of the Constitution, the Vice President is elected by an electoral college comprising members of both Houses of Parliament, including nominated members. Unlike the Presidential election, members of state legislative assemblies are not part of the voting process. The election is conducted using the system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote (STV), with voting held through a secret ballot. Under STV, MPs mark their preferences, and counting proceeds in rounds until a candidate secures the required quota. To contest, a candidate must be: A citizen of India At least 35 years old Eligible for election to the Rajya Sabha They must also not hold any office of profit under the Centre, state governments, or government-controlled bodies. Electoral arithmetic: NDA holds clear advantage The current effective strength of both Houses stands at 786, with one vacancy in the 543-member Lok Sabha (Basirhat, West Bengal) and five in the 245-member Rajya Sabha, four from Jammu and Kashmir and one from Punjab, vacated after AAP leader Sanjeev Arora was elected to the state assembly in a bypoll. To win, a candidate needs at least 394 votes, assuming full turnout. The NDA, led by the BJP, enjoys a clear edge with 293 members in the Lok Sabha and 129 in the Rajya Sabha, including support from nominated members. With a total backing of 422 MPs, the ruling alliance is comfortably placed to secure the vice presidential post. Dhankhar steps down mid-term Jagdeep Dhankhar, who took office in August 2022, resigned on July 21, the first day of the Monsoon Session, citing health reasons. He became the third Vice President to step down before completing the five-year term. In his resignation letter, he said: 'To prioritise health care and abide by medical advice, I hereby resign as the Vice President of India, effective immediately, in accordance with Article 67(a) of the Constitution.' With his departure, the EC has now set in motion the electoral process to fill the vacancy.
India.com
22 minutes ago
- India.com
Class 8 NCERT Book Skips Tipu Sultan, Anglo-Mysore Wars; Centre Explains Decision
The exclusion of Tipu Sultan, Haidar Ali, and the Anglo-Mysore wars from the updated NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook has sparked debate in Parliament. The central government clarified that individual states have the freedom to add content related to regional figures and historical events to their school syllabus. According to media reports, Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary said, 'Education being a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution and the majority of schools being under the jurisdiction of the State Governments, the respective State Government may adopt or adapt NCERT textbooks or develop their own textbooks based on the National Curriculum Framework. The states have flexibility to provide more coverage about regional personalities and events in their textbooks." Trinamool Congress MP Ritabrata Banerjee raised the question, asking whether the new Class 8 textbook leaves out references to Tipu Sultan, Haidar Ali, and the Anglo-Mysore wars of the 1700s in the chapter on India's colonial history, and sought reasons for their exclusion. NEP 2020 Policy In a written response, Minister Jayant Chaudhary stated that the updated Class 8 Social Science textbook (Part 1) was created based on the guidelines of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2023. 'The new textbook comprises four themes: India and the World: Land and the People; Tapestry of the Past; Governance and Democracy; Economic Life Around Us," he added further. Pedagogical approaches in textbooks Jayant Chaudhary said, 'Personalities featured in these themes have been included contextually and in accordance with curricular objectives. The textbook introduces new pedagogical approaches, emphasizes refined classroom practices, and presents a focused syllabus. These textbooks encourage students to explore more through experiential learning, undertake fieldwork, and focus on evidence-based understanding. The approach adopted for the Middle Stage (Grades 6 to 8) is to provide only a broad survey of Indian civilization from prehistoric times all the way to Independence.' The revised textbook, released last month, includes a section on early resistance movements against British colonial rule before the 1857 revolt. It highlights events like the Sannyasi-Fakir rebellion, the Kol uprising, the Santhal rebellion, and several peasant revolts from the 1800s. However, the new edition does not mention the four Anglo-Mysore wars or the resistance led by Tipu Sultan and Haidar Ali against the East India Company — topics that were previously included in the chapter on the expansion of British rule in India.
The Hindu
22 minutes ago
- The Hindu
There should not be targeted attempt to eliminate voice of some citizens, especially from deprived parts of India: Amartya Sen on SIR
1. Do you support the Election Commission's attempt to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls across the country? Getting the rolls right can indeed be a good exercise if it is done correctly. However, if in a hasty attempt to remove errors from the existing list, more errors are introduced, the result can be terrible. Volunteering to undertake this effort with little time and serious possibilities of significant bias can have the effect of making the election far less truthful than continuing to use the existing rolls. Many people have also questioned the neutrality of the Election Commission, and that is an issue that has to be appropriately assessed. But even with an unbiased Election Commission, there can be serious errors in a quickly produced electoral roll, particularly because of the absence of documentary evidence that many citizens, especially the poor and the deprived, are able to present. Class bias is a big danger here. 2. Is there a danger of disenfranchisement of large groups of people in the process of revising the rolls within a very short time, in a hurry? If there is a targeted attempt to eliminate the voice of some citizens, especially from the deprived parts of the nation, that would be a monstrous development. This must be totally avoided, and the Election Commission must take into account the reasons for suspicion that many fair-minded critics have found. It is extremely important that the Election Commission does not generate reason for suspicion by its choices, and that the Supreme Court plays its supervisory role actively and fairly. Indeed, the Supreme Court is ultimately the institution most responsible for making sure that the citizens' rights are not trifled with. As citizens of India, we all have to rely on the constitutional role of the Supreme Court and we are all dependent on its active protection of justice. This is a hugely important concern of citizens today, but there is, in addition, also the question of how the future would judge the Supreme Court today in the light of what they choose to do given the information they have. There is, in fact, a big tomorrow. 3. What do you think of the alleged atrocities against poor migrant Bengali workers in BJP-ruled states? There is a general point here that has to be addressed and also a special concern. The general point is that India is a country for all its citizens, and no part of the nation – whether Bengali or Tamil or Maharashtrian – should be discriminated against in any region of the country. Ill-treatment of Bengali workers elsewhere is very bad indeed, but so is the ill-treatment of any other group of migrant workers. That is the big general point, but a special concern, added to this, is the tendency of some political movements within India to portray many Bengali Indians as if they were Immigrants from Bangladesh. There have, unfortunately, been many attempts at treating Bengalis in general as Bangladeshis. Especially because of the anti-Muslim programmes of some political groups in India, Bengali Indians have often had to suffer from greater discrimination than other Indians. The level of ignorant confusion shown by many powerful officers in Delhi is truly catastrophic when they see the Bengali language (born between the tenth and the eleventh centuries – through the great poetry of Charyapad) as a 'Bangladeshi language'. 4. The BJP seems to be working hard in West Bengal to promote Hindutva in preparation of the state elections next year. Will they succeed? Bengal has had a long history of Hindu-Muslim cordiality as well as cooperative work shared by different communities. A political party that tries to generate communal narrow-mindedness might temporarily experience partial success through its divisive propaganda, but it will not be easy to turn Bengal into a communal bastion of hatred. Divisive efforts of this kind could sometimes have short-lived success, but Bengali culture and society are ultimately resistant to generating an invented internal enmity. The illusion of political gain, if any, from cultivated discord will turn out to be ephemeral.
