Guwahati , Jan 10: In a major blow to the government, three ministers of the Assam cabinet have submitted their resignation to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonwal.
This comes two days after the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) severed ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a mark of protest against the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill.
On Wednesday, AGP leaders Atul Bora, Keshav Mahant and Phani Bhushan tendered their resignations to Sonowal.
A Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 seeking to accord Indian citizenship to certain minority community refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan was passed by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday amid strong objections by some Opposition parties and a shutdown in the North Eastern parts of the country.
In this regard, AGP spokesperson Dilip Patgiri had told ANI “We have been saying for a long time that if Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is brought in Lok Sabha we will end our relationship with BJP. Our leaders met Home Minister (Rajnath Singh) and expressed that AGP is going to break the alliance,” on Monday.
New Delhi, Jan 10: Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution bench will hear the disputed Ram Mandir land dispute case, which have a larger implication on the coming Lok Sabha elections, on January 10.
The five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, will hear the Ram Mandir land dispute matter.
The case has almost 30 respondents and many petitioners.
On Tuesday, the SC had in the late evening issued a notification on the setting up of a Constitution bench to hear the Ram Mandir land dispute case.
Besides the CJI Gogoi, the other four judges, who will preside in the five-judge Constitution bench, would be Justices S A Bobde, N V Ramana, Uday Umesh Lalit and D Y Chandrachud.
The Apex Court had last year rejected a plea by Muslim parties to refer Ayodhya land dispute to a five-judge Constitution bench.
On the last date of hearing on January 4, the Top Court had deferred the case to January 10.
New Delhi, Jan 10: The Bill for 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections of the society got nod from Parliament on Wednesday, with the Rajya Sabha approving it with 165 member voting in favour and 7 voting against it.
The Bill, moved for consideration by Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chsand Gehlot, was passed by the Upper House with 165 member voting in its favour while 7 voted against it.
Earlier, an amendment moved by Ms Kanimozhi of DMK to refer the Bill to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha, was rejected by the House with just 18 members voting in its favour and 155 voting against it.
Parties such as CPM, CPI and IUML also wanted the Bill to be referred to the House Select Committee.
Further, all amendments moved by the members of the Opposition to the Bill, including T K Rangaraja of CPM, were rejected by the House.
With the approval of the Rajya Sabha, the Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, got the nod of Parliament.
New Delhi, Jan 7: The Centre on Monday announced 10 per cent reservation in the government jobs and educational institutions for the economically weaker sections of the General category.
Sources said the Cabinet, held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took this decision.
It was decided that people in the General category, whose family income is below Rs 8 lakh per annum, will get direct entry in government jobs and get 10 per cent quota in higher education institutes.
The Government is expected to bring the Constitutional Amendment Bill on Tuesday on the last day of Winter session of Parliament. Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution will have to be amended for implementation of the decision, they added.
Currently, all government jobs has around 50 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes.
A UN report has warned that “vast areas of impunity” remain globally for people traffickers, with victims subjected to crimes ranging from sexual exploitation to organ removal.
Despite a recent trend towards more people trafficking convictions in many African and Middle Eastern countries, the report from the UN Office and Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pointed out that “the total numbers in these areas remain very low”.
“There appears to be hardly any risk for traffickers to face justice,” it said.
The report said 100 cases of organ removal had been reported over the period 2014-17, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa, with cases also reported in Europe and Central and South America.
It cites research saying that in some cases there is evidence of traffickers colluding “with medical professionals, relying on corrupt and fraudulent practices”.
Perpetrators of this form of trafficking take advantage of “severe levels of vulnerability”, the UNODC says, for example people in refugee camps who are recruited “with false promises of receiving payments and/or transport to safer locations”.
However, trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation was by far the most common form found in the data compiled by the report, accounting for 59 per cent of victims detected in 2016.
The UNODC underlined the role of groups involved in various armed conflicts in using human trafficking “to finance activities or increase their workforce”, as well as for sexual slavery.
It highlighted the case of the thousands of girls and women from the Yazidi minority enslaved by the so-called Islamic State group in Iraq.
One of them, Nadia Murad, was one of the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize last year in recognition of her activism on behalf of other victims.
The UNODC said the overwhelming number of detected victims of trafficking globally were female, with just under half being adult women.
A further 23 percent being girls and the report warns that their share of the total is increasing.
After sexual exploitation, the next most common reason for trafficking was forced labour, accounting for a third of victims covered by the data and especially prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
A number of other patterns are also mentioned, such as trafficking for forced marriage, more commonly detected in South East Asia.
The total number of victims reported to the UNODC in 2016 stood at just under 25,000, an increase of more than 10,000 since 2011, with increases “more pronounced in the Americas and in Asia”.
However, the report cautions that the increase may be down to more efficient identification of victims, rather than an increase in the numbers of people being trafficked.
While Europe and the Middle East attract many victims from other parts of the world, the authors found that the majority of victims are detected in their countries of citizenship.