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The Union cabinet nod to the controversial Citizenship Bill dominates Thursday’s headlines. The Supreme Court’s move to grant bail to former Union minister P. Chidambaram, in jail for 106 days in a money laundering case, gets wide coverage too.
Sundar Pichai’s elevation to lead Google’s parent company Alphabet also makes a splash.
Citizenship Bill: “After Cabinet nod, Citizenship Bill read for tabling in House,” writes The Hindu in its lead. It lists salient features of the Bill including the 31 December 2014 cut-off date for members of the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Parsi, Jain and Sikh communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan “to be eligible to get Indian citizenship”.
In “Govt brings law making religion key to citizenship for all illegals”, The Indian Express emphasises the communal nature of the bill. Hindustan Times goes with a bold-lettered dramatic headline — “Contentious citizenship bill approved by Cabinet”, adding that “stage [is] set for House showdown” with the Opposition calling the bill “divisive”. The Times of India only mentions the Bill on its flap, focusing on the exclusion of Northeastern Tribal areas from the Bill.
Chidambaram’s bail: Hindu’s report on “Chidambaram gets bail in money laundering case” says the former minister had to furnish a Rs 2 lakh bail bond to secure his release. Other newspapers have nearly identical headlines on the number of days he spent in jail: TOI writes “PC walks out of jail after 106 days, SC says bail is the rule”; and Hindustan Times goes with “Chidambaram freed after 106 days in jail”. In “Chidambaram gets bail after 106 days, told not to speak on case”, Express reports that the Congress leader has been warned to “not give any press interviews nor make any public comment in connection with this case qua him or other accused”, and will also have to deposit his passport in court.
Google’s Sunder Pichai: “Sundar Pichai will run Google & parent, A to Z” TOI reports, noting how Pichai “who grew up in a two-room apartment in Chennai’s middle-class neighbourhood Ashok Nagar” is now “taking over as the CEO of one of the most cash-rich companies, Alphabet”. Hindu captures the context in “Google co-founders step aside as anti-trust scrutiny heats up”. HT, too, reports that the change in leadership comes at a time of “unprecedented global demand for more safeguards, regulatory scrutiny and taxes”.
Others: HT and Hindu briefly report on the Delhi government’s announcement of setting up 11,000 wi-fi hotspots across the national capital, with the first 100 being inaugurated on 16 December.
“Cabinet clears data protection bill with changes in localisation norms” reports HT, while Express elaborates that “Some data can be stored abroad without copy in India, 15 cr fine for misuse”.
“Delhi doctor, woman friend found dead in his vehicle,” reports TOI, while HT (“Doctor, 62, shoots dead woman, 45, commits suicide”) writes about how the doctor allegedly shot the woman he was in an extramarital relationship with “before turning the revolver on himself in Rohini on Wednesday”. Hindu also reports the news in a small blurb.
Opinion
Hindustan Times: As the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) turns 70, HT notes that the alliance is “weak and divided” today due to a lack of consensus on what its primary threat is. This is mainly because of the “nature of political leaders in its anchor members”.
The “big fissure” is over US, Turkey, Germany and Central Europe’s differing approaches on how to deal with Russia. There are also “murmurs that NATO needs to look more closely at China” as Beijing makes inroads in Europe’s digital and infrastructure space.
For India, unlike the past where it saw NATO as an “instrument of Western dominance”, it now increasingly “has an interest in seeing NATO remains a source of global stability and a contributor to balance of power preferred by New Delhi”.
The Hindu: In “Close encounters”, Hindu writes that the security forces “must be trained to desist from panic responses while dealing with extremists”. Its commentary comes in the context of Justice VK Agarwal judicial enquiry commission’s finding that the 17 people who died in an ‘encounter’ in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur in 2012 were not Naxalites.
While the security forces maintained that it was a gunfight, the commission “found no evidence” of this held that the firing had been “one-sided”. The post mortem report revealed that 10 of the 17 killed were shot on their backs. Injuries sustained by uniformed personnel were likely “caused through friendly fire”.
The commission noted that the entire operation was botched due to inadequate training, poor intelligence and lack of communication. The findings of the commission are “chilling and sordid” because they reveal how the truth can be “subverted by the very officers who are supposed to enforce the law”, writes the paper.
“Ways must be found to initiate action officers who were involved in the operation and its cover-up,” it recommends.
Prime time
After the Union cabinet approved the Citizenship Amendment Bill Wednesday, it became a hugely contentious topic on prime time news.
NDTV 24×7 asked if CAB was unconstitutional. India Today’s Preeti Choudhary wondered whether India was going back to the two-nation theory.
Meanwhile, on Republic TV, Arnab Goswami was more concerned about the bail to former finance minister P. Chidambaram, on “#CongBailClub”.
CNN News18: #TheRightStand with Anand Narasimhan looked at the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).
Narasimhan remarked, “If you have two crore Hindus in Bangladesh, how can you say that those who are coming to India are coming because of religious persecution? And, if these people are coming illegally then how can you legalise a certain section and say the rest are illegal? Basically the Citizenship Amendment Bill intends to legalise illegal non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.”
BJP’s Amit Malviya ignored such concerns: “CAB will be applied all over the country, therefore North-East should not be so concerned.”
Political analyst Manojit Mandal was severely critical of the Bill: “This CAB is nothing but a bailout bill for the NRC fiasco… My friend from the BJP… only understands one kind of demography — that is religious demography.”
Times Now: On “The Newshour”, Navika Kumar also brought up CAB and asked, “Who’s linking citizenship to religion?” on “#CitizenshipDangal”.
Lawyer Shehzad Jai Hind said, “There should be ‘secularism protection fund’ instead of tiger protection fund because from NRC to Article 370 or even uniform civil code, they (opposition) believe it is targeting secularism and Muslims are in danger.”
The debate got slightly out of hand as people yelled and some audios were muted as BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi insisted that legal documentation was needed for anyone who comes to India to work — if they did not have legal documentation they would be called “ghuspetiyas”.
As mayhem continued, Kumar upbraided the panelists: “One at a time, I will regulate this so that people, our viewers can at least hear the points people are making…”
To political analyst Nishant Verma, she was even sterner: “One minute, maine aapse supari nahi li hui hai — don’t give me directions on what to do.”
Islamic scholar Atiq Ur Rahman said, “This kind of Bill is not only sectarian, but this will also divide India.”
India TV: The Citizenship Bill was discussed here too. Anchor Saurav Sharma asked, “Hindustan mein Musalmano ko no entry? (No entry for Muslims into India?)”
RSS’s Sangeet Ragi had an explanation, “All the major countries in the world have toughened up their visa rules. The world is concerned about political Islam.”
BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia was clear that the government has “the right to decide who is a legal immigrant and who is not”.
Zee News: “Taal Thok Ke” questioned Congress party workers’ celebrations after Chidambaram was given bail. Sachin Arora declared, “Chidambaram par Congress ka josh high”.
Political analyst Vikas Gupta didn’t find this at all surprising: “If a person is coming out of jail after 106 days and the family celebrates, what is there to debate on this?”
BJP’s G.V.L. Narsimha Rao thought it was the height of shamelessness, “If Congress finds corruption worth celebrating, the people of this country will soon show them their place.”
Political analyst Nishant Verma also reminded Arora of previous celebrations: “If Amit Shah is celebrated after staying in jail for 97 days, and Yogi Adityanath is made CM after staying out on bail for 4,300 days, then this is nothing.”