Washington , November 23,2020: The United States is no longer a State Party to the Treaty on Open Skies, said Deputy Spokesman of the US State Department Deputy Cale Brown said on Sunday.
Brown said in an official statement, “On May 22, 2020, the United States exercised its right pursuant to paragraph 2 of Article XV of the Treaty on Open Skies by providing notice to the Treaty Depositaries and to all States Parties of its decision to withdraw from the Treaty, effective six months from the notification date.”
“Six months having elapsed, the U.S. withdrawal took effect on November 22, 2020, and the United States is no longer a State Party to the Treaty on Open Skies,” she added.
National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien said, “Today marks six months since the United States submitted our notice of withdrawal from the Treaty on Open Skies. We are now no longer a party to this treaty that Russia flagrantly violated for years. POTUS has never ceased to put America first by withdrawing us from outdated treaties and agreements that have benefited our adversaries at the expense of our national security.”
Meanwhile, Sputnik quoted Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian lower house’s International Affairs Committee, as saying that the NATO members should guarantee that they will not send data they obtain from flights under the Open Skies Treaty (OST) to Washington after the US withdrawal from the deal.
“The US withdrawal from the OST is a shrewd one-sided game. Russia will act in accordance with its national interests. The US allies from NATO must provide rigid guarantees to Moscow on the non-transfer of data to Washington. Our further actions will be defined only on such basis,” Slutsky wrote on Twitter.
New Delhi , November 22,2020: To lay to rest the apprehensions arising out incorrect interpretations of the notification issued by Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) on November 20 regarding streamlining the provisions of the regulations concerning Post Graduate Ayurveda Education, Ministry of AYUSH on Sunday issued clarifications answering the questions that have been raised in the matter.
The Ministry in its clarification said that the said notification relates to the ‘Shalya and Shalakya streams of Post Graduate Education in Ayurveda.’
“The notification specifies (in clearer terms than the earlier notification on the subject) a total of 58 surgical procedures that PG scholars of these streams (cumulatively) need to be practically trained so as to enable them to independently perform the said activities after completion of their PG Degree. The notification is to specific to these specified surgical procedures and does not allow Shalya and Shalakya Post Graduates to take up any other types of surgery,” it stated.
“Since the beginning, Shalya and Shalakya are independent Departments in Ayurveda colleges, performing such surgical procedures. While the notification of 2016 stipulated that the students shall undergo training of investigative procedures, techniques, and surgical performance of procedures and management in the respective specialty, the details of these techniques, procedures, and surgical performance were laid down in the syllabus of the respective PG courses issued by CCIM, and not the regulation per se. The present clarification was issued in the over-all public interest by CCIM by bringing the said details into the regulation. Hence this does not signify any policy shift,” the Ministry started.
On the issue of the controversy around the use of modern terminology in the said notification, the Ministry said it has not received any comments or objections about the use of modern terminology in the said notification and hence not aware of any such controversy.
It also clarified that all scientific advances including standardized terminologies are inheritance of the entire mankind, and no individual or group has a monopoly over the modern terminologies.
“The modern terminologies in the field of medicine, are not modern from a temporal perspective, but are derived substantially from ancient languages like Greek, Latin, and even Sanskrit, and later languages like Arabic. The evolution of terminologies is a dynamic and inclusive process. Modern medical terms and terminology facilitate effective communication and correspondence not just among physicians, but also to other stakeholders including the public. In the instant notification, modern terms are adopted as per the requirement to ensure that the same is understood widely in the medical profession, in the stake-holding disciplines like the medico-legal, health IT, among others, as well as by the members of the public,” the Ministry added.
The Ministry said that the use of modern terminology in the said notification does not amount to “mixing” of Ayurveda with Conventional (Modern) Medicine, and the purpose of all modern scientific terminology was to facilitate effective communication and correspondence among the different stakeholders.
“The stake-holders of the instant notification include not just the Ayurveda practitioners but also professionals of other stake-holding disciplines like the medico-legal, health IT, insurance, among others, as well as the members of the public. Hence the use of modern terminology was required. The question of “mixing” of Ayurveda with Conventional (Modern) Medicine does not arise here as CCIM is deeply committed to maintaining the authenticity of Indian systems of medicine, and is against any such “mixing”,” the ministry added further.
Nov 22,2020:A drastic amendment to the Kerala Police Act, 2011, to give the local law enforcement more teeth to curb defamation has led to an uproar with opposition parties, journalist bodies and civil rights activists seeing a threat to the freedom of the press and free speech in Kerala.
Kerala Governor Arif Muhammad Khan signed an ordinance amending the law to give the police more power to prosecute persons who exploit various communication platforms to slander fellow citizens.
The ordinance has introduced a new provision, Section 118-A, to the Act. The amendment proposes three years of imprisonment and a fine of upto ₹10,000 for those convicted of producing, publishing or disseminating derogatory content through any means of communication to intimidate, insult or defame any person.
The Congress has reacted sharply to the move. Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said the amendment would reverse the course on media freedom, muzzle free speech and jeopardise civil liberties.
B.G. Harindranath, former Law Secretary, Kerala, said the amendment granted the police untrammelled authority to examine published and broadcast content and register cases even in the absence of a specific complaint. The new law has rendered defamation a cognisable offence.
The amendment had resurrected the “same legal vices” the Supreme Court had “trashed” by scrapping Section 66 A of the IT Act.
“Conferring power on the police to gauge mental injury, loss of reputation and such matters due to dissemination of information would result in widespread abuse. The amendment could curtail the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19 (1) of the Constitution”, he said.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the amendment targeted defamatory social media posts and online content. It did not seek to curb reportage, political satire, opinion, free speech, impartial journalism or commentary.
MUMBAI,Nov 21,2020: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Friday cleared conglomerate Reliance Industries’ $3.4 billion deal to buy Future Group’s retail assets, thwarting Amazon.com’s efforts to block the deal.
The Commission announced its decision in a tweet on Friday, with details likely to be made public later.
Amazon had approached the CCI and the country’s market regulator SEBI alleging the deal would violate some pre-existing agreements it had with Future Group.
Last month Amazon won an injunction from a Singapore arbitrator to halt the deal pending arbitration.
While the deal is yet to receive approval of stock exchanges and market regulator SEBI, the three companies are now embroiled in a legal battle at the Delhi High Court over the transaction.
An Indian antitrust lawyer said the CCI only looks into competition issues around a deal and is not concerned with other disputes between parties.
ADDIS ABABA,Nov20,2020: Rebels from Ethiopia’s Tigray region fired rockets at the capital of neighbouring Amhara region on Friday, Amhara authorities said, raising concern that a conflict between the insurgents and the central government could spill into a wider war.
Two weeks into the conflict, the United Nations said it was making plans for as many as 200,000 refugees fleeing into neighbouring Sudan.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have been killed and tens of thousands of refugees have already fled from fighting in Tigray as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tries to hold his ethnically diverse nation together.
“The illegal TPLF group have launched a rocket attack around 1:40 a.m. in Bahir Dar,” the Amhara government’s communications office said, referring to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The rockets caused no damage, it said.
Bahir Dar, Amhara region’s lakeside capital, is located hundreds of miles from the fighting in Tigray. Tigrayan refugees have told Reuters the Amhara militiamen are fighting on the government side, and the two regions have a border dispute.
At the Um Rakuba settlement in Sudan, where aid workers are setting up a camp in the scrubland for 10,000 mainly Tigrayan refugees, those who arrived queued up for cornflour porridge and put up makeshift shelters.
Aid agencies fear a humanitarian emergency in Tigray, where hundreds of thousands of people depended on relief aid even before the conflict. Refugees have crowded into boats to cross a river to Sudan, overwhelming aid groups on the other side.
WASHINGTON ,Nov,20.2020: The U.S. government put convicted rapist and murderer Orlando Hall to death by lethal injection on Thursday, the eighth execution under the Trump administration since capital punishment was reinstated at the federal level over the summer.
Hall, 49, was pronounced dead at 11:47 p.m. EDT after officials at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons administered him a fatal dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the bureau’s execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, a spokeswoman for the agency said.
Hall was the second African-American man to be executed by lethal injection on federal death row in recent months.