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Karnataka’s political crisis takes the lead once again Friday. The deadline for chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy to prove majority is 1:30pm, and newspapers are counting down the minutes.
The deadline was decided upon by governor Vajubhai Vala, who “stepped in” since “proceedings in the Karnataka assembly” descended to “chaos”, writes The Indian Express in “Governor sets a deadline as Karnataka vote goes into limbo”. Speaker K.R. Kumar remained undecided on the resignations of the rebel MLAs.
Hindustan Times writes that the governor is “likely setting up another political showdown before the final word is heard on the fate of the 15-month-old coalition government”. The Times of India calls it “a dramatic twist” of events, and The Hindu says the governor’s intervention “came as a shock” for the coalition government, which it says is “13 months” old.
While The Hindu states that the governor’s direction came after the “House adjourned earlier on Thursday amid a heated debate without a vote on the confidence motion moved by the Chief Minister”, TOI says the “missives overshadowed the trust vote moved by Kumaraswamy on a day when Congress’s strength in the House shrunk by two more MLAs”.
HT says the governor “acted upon” the request of “exasperated” BJP members, who requested the vote be wound up after “three adjournments amid acrimonious verbal exchanges and repeated disruptions by slogan-chanting Congress members”.
“In the night, the entire BJP Legislature Party, led by Leader of the Opposition B.S. Yeddyurappa, slept in the Assembly, protesting against the delay in the motion being put to vote,” informs The Hindu.
Jadhav release
Also making news is “After India calls for action on ICJ order, Pak says will grant consular access” (Express). The daily writes that it was only “hours after New Delhi asked Islamabad to ‘immediately’ grant consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav” that they complied.
HT writes that “external affairs minister S Jaishankar said Jadhav was innocent of the charges levelled against him and a forced confession without legal representation and due process wouldn’t change this fact.”
The Hindu writes, “Mr. Jaishankar described the verdict as a vindication of India’s position and a reiteration of the rule of law.”
TOI informs that the “modalities were being worked out” for Jadhav’s consular access.
Ayodhya verdict
The Hindu’s second lead informs “SC to hear Ayodhya title dispute cases from Aug. 2”.
“The order came after the court perused a progress report filed by the committee earlier this week,” it informs.
TOI gives it less than column space on page 1, saying that the court is “allowing the mediation panel to continue negotiations till July 31”. HT gives it column space, while the Express drops it entirely.
Muzaffarnagar riots and others
The Express runs an exclusive report which finds “glaring holes” in Uttar Pradesh’s prosecution of “10 murder cases filed on the violence that swept through Muzaffarnagar in 2013, killing at least 65 people”. Its headline is disturbing: “In 40 of 41 Muzaffarnagar riot cases, including murder, all accused are acquitted”.
It found that the “courts acquitted all in the 10 murder trials that ended between January 2017 and February 2018”.
On its front page flap, HT carries “Trade point planned at India-China LAC” which finds no mention in the other papers. It writes, “The Indian Army has approved the opening of a new trading point with China… along India’s disputed, albeit peaceful 3,488-km border with China in a confidence building measure ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s October visit.”
Opinion
In “NRC quagmire”, TOI argues that considering the Assam National Register of Citizens is rife with so many errors and corruption charges that it is perhaps not prudent to perform this exercise again in West Bengal.
The Centre and state governments have asked for an extension from the Supreme Court to publish the final list.
Updating the NRC list in Assam requires people to “produce documentation which links them to a legacy database that ends with electoral rolls up to March 24, 1971”. This has proven to be difficult for many since millions of Indians still don’t have proper identification documents. The NRC has also vested immense power in petty bureaucracy and quasi-judicial bodies where “abuse of power was inevitable.” Further, the fate of those who will not make it to the list also remains uncertain, writes TOI.
In “After Vindication”, Express highlights the circumstances of the verdict in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case by the International Court of Justice and what will follow after it. “The ICJ called on Pakistan to take a fresh look at Jadhav’s case, immediately restore his legal rights and provide India consular access,” it says. The court also ruled that Pakistan violated the Vienna conventions by failing to inform “Jadhav of his legal rights and immediately intimate the Indian embassy about his detention”.
In a strange but expected fashion, Pakistan’s official reaction is to “claim victory” over the verdict, writes Express. However, while India may have won on the international legal turf, “the task of persuading Pakistan to respect the ICJ ruling will not be easy”. Along with using all available legal means it will also require to have a quiet conversation with Pakistan “to encourage it to do the right thing”, it writes.
Prime Time
Prime Time debates were split between Ishrat Jahan attending a Hindu religious event in a hijab, the wobbly Karnataka assembly, and more unusually, the issue of minimum wage.
Aaj Tak: On ‘#HallaBol’, anchor Anjana Om Kashyap discussed BJP leader Ishrat Jahan getting heckled for wearing a hijab while attending a Hindu event.
BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia blamed the state government saying, “The entire nation stands by Ishrat Jahan… It is deplorable that the government of West Bengal has been unable to secure Jahan and her children.”
Political analyst Manojit Mandal defended the state, “Action is being taken against those people. We are giving her assurance that there is no need to be scared. There is law and order in this Bengal.”
Times Now, too, discussed Jahan’s ordeal. The question anchor Padmaja Joshi posed was — “Can ‘tolerance’ be selective?”
Islamic scholar Ilyas Sharafuddin said, “No one should hound or intimidate any lady”, but added, “When she claims to be a Muslim, by worshipping the creations and not the creator, Allah, she is breaking the basic rules of Islam.”
Lawyer Mahmood Paracha said, “Ishrat Jahan should be provided with security. It is the basic concept of freedom of choice in India.”
Zafar Sareshwala, chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, argued, “It is her (Ishrat Jahan) sole business whether she is going anywhere with or without hijab and it is highly unacceptable to hound a lady in this way.”
ABP News: The shootout in Sonebadhra in Uttar Pradesh which saw 10 deaths and 24 arrests, became the topic of debate. Anchor Romana Isar Khan asked the panel if the police feels handicapped in front of goons in UP.
Political analyst Nishant Verma and BJP spokesperson Shalmani Tripathi had a spat over the state’s law and order situation. “The police is meant for law and order, not revenge,” said Verma.
Tripathi then accused Verma of being an “ideological goonda,” adding that it was only after Yogi Adityanath took over as chief minister that “the police was given the freedom to fight back against goons”.
CNN News: Zakka Jacob discussed the ongoing breakdown of the Congress-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka. BJP MLAs led by B.S. Yeddyurappa refused to leave the assembly premises Thursday stayed the night there.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, counsel for the speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar, said, “It is not the Speaker who decides the trust vote in that sense… The decision really is as much of the governmental bodies as well.”
BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya argued that the Speaker was in no way looking to expedite the process. “If he had wanted 26 people to speak, the assembly proceedings could have continued. We saw the Congress and JD(S) members creating a ruckus,” Malviya said.
NDTV 24×7: With the government opting for a Rs 2 hike in minimum wage, Sreenivasan Jain dissected the labour code.
BJP’s Lalitha Kumaramangalam said, “Implementing a minimum wage is a problem for land owners who are dead against increasing the minimum wage. The economic survey said that whatever the minimum wage is, it must be implementable.”
Jain countered her. “We’re losing sight of the fact that 90% of this county is already paying above the minimum wage.”
Activist Akriti Bhatia, called the move “anti-labour”.
“We talk about a $5 trillion economy, but how will we create any purchasing power when one person can’t even have a meal in a day. It is an extremely sorry state that we have reached today,” she said.
With inputs from Rachel John.
Ishrat Jahan news has hidden by prominent Indian secularist media. Most readers of Indian Express or The Hindu will never learn of it, because they buried the news in back pages. These are the same papers that run banner headlines if something like this happened to a Muslim by Hindu groups.