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Ravish Kumar opposes CAB, Rajat Sharma welcomes it, ‘What A Sham!’ says Telegraph

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The Lok Sabha’s nod to the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), which seeks to give citizenship to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from three neighbouring countries, dominates the headlines Tuesday.

The B.S. Yediyurappa-led BJP government in Karnataka’s big sweep in the bypolls also makes it to the front page—it’s the lead in The Hindu.

Meanwhile, Business Standard  brings in more depressing news on the economic front: “Equity flows see sharpest dip in 3.5 years, slip 78% in November”.

CAB: Different aspects of the Lok Sabha Monday are reflected by different newspapers. The Indian Express’ headline reads, “LS clears CAB: Shah invokes ‘Partition on basis of religion’ to defend Bill”; Hindustan Times highlights, “Citizenship bill clears LS after fierce rights debate”; The Times of India is reminded of the NRC, “LS passes citizenship bill 311-80 at midnight, Shah says ‘NRC is coming’”; The Hindu keeps it simple, “LS passes Citizenship Bill amidst Opposition outcry”.

The Telegraph is unapologetic and very loud: “What a Sham”. Home Minister Amit Shah ‘piloted’ the CAB with “the contention that the legislation would not have been necessary had the Congress not divided the country on religious lines”, it writes.

Express is dramatic in its report, recalling Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech on the night of India’s independence:  “At the stroke of midnight, the Lok Sabha passed the contentious” CAB wherein Shah “invoked the partition and said that the BJP had to bring the Bill because the Congress had partitioned the country in 1947 on the basis of religion”.

TOI notes that Shah was “repeatedly drawing a distinction between refugees fleeing religious persecution and infiltrators even while asserting an all-India national register of citizens (NRC) is on the anvil”. Hindu brings to light that “Manipur would be brought under the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system, thus exempting it from” CAB.

HT questions whether CAB violates “the spirit of the Constitution”. Senior advocate Upamanyu Hazarika said CAB, “as a stated act of legislative policy, was in breach of Article 14, the right to equality”.

Karnataka bypolls: In “Yediyurappa firms up strength as BJP sweeps Karnataka bypoll”, Hindu explains how the “ruling BJP led by Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa firmed up its majority in the Karnataka Assembly with a victory in 12 out of 15 constituencies that went to bypolls”. Congress’ top state leaders, Siddaramaiah and Dinesh Gundu Rao announced their resignations “owning moral responsibility”, it reports.

TOI terms Yediyurappa as “Lingayat strongmen” and his strategy “of rewarding defectors and promising them ministerial positions on victory… worked with voters seeming to prioritise stability over qualms about electing turncoats”.

HT focuses on how the JD(S) and Congress have “lost ground in the state”. In 2018, “all 15 constituencies were won by the two parties”. But this time “the Congress won two, and the JD(S) none”.

Others: Amongst leading mainstream newspapers, Hindu alone highlights on Page 1 that India is  “129 out of 189 countries on the 2019 Human Development Index” which is “one slot from the 130th position last year”.

HT reveals that “there was no fire fighting equipment, panic alarm, accessible emergency exit, or other safety measures at the old Delhi building gutted in a devastating inferno that killed 43 workers of an illegal factory” Sunday.

“In a major relief to the construction sector”, the Supreme Court “relaxed its ban in the national capital region in the day time from 6 am to 6 pm”, says TOI.

Express’ front page features photographs from a protest where Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students were lathicharged as they “tried to march towards Rashtrapati Bhavan to protest against the hostel fee hike”.

Opinion

The Indian Express: The Delhi fire tragedy is a reminder of the urgency of creating safer working conditions in unregulated industry hubs, Express writes in “Put out the fire”. The 600-square-yard Anaj Mandi building in Delhi was a typical example of a manufacturing units cluster operating without permit and with barely any ventilation, it writes. Questions raised in the aftermath of such incidents have never moved municipals and fire safety authorities to take “concerted action to plug the loopholes in the city’s accident preparedness”. Anaj Mandi is a good example of the “liberalised economy’s underbelly”. The government should attempt creative solutions to enable safer working conditions without “stifling entrepreneurship”, it writes.

Prime time

Television news was devoted to the Citizenship Amendment Bill Monday. The debate in the Lok Sabha saw live coverage late into the evening. The cynosure of all coverage was Shah — excerpts from his speech were replayed all day.

Times Now debated “#BJPBattlesCABCharge with anchors Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar at pains to explain how the bill applied to Muslim majority countries where minorities were persecuted.

On CNN News18, Marya Shakil called the Bill a “showdown”.  India Today asked if this is the “foundation for Hindu rashtra?” and if CAB endorses the “two-nation theory?”, while News X called it “#HinduHomelandDebate”.

Times Now and Zee News asked why Congress had a problem with the Bill — Zee saw this as “Hindu hate politics”.

NDTV 24×7: On Reality Check, Sreenivasan Jain spoke to top legal experts about CAB — of the nine who agreed to speak, seven said CAB was illegal. Among these were former Supreme Court Justice Madan B. Lokur.

Justice Santosh Hegde said, “Classification based on religion is not reasonable… discrimination on the basis of religion is contrary to the Constitution.”

Tarunabh Khaitan, professor of public law at Oxford University, asked, “Why are Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal not included in CAB, they are all our neighbouring countries which have seen significant migration and refugee movement. Is it because Muslims are not a majority in these countries?”

Republic TV: On “#CABWar”, Arnab Goswami, who had opposed the Bill last week, began the debate saying “While I have reservations over the CAB. While I do feel that Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Afghans… bringing them to India if they can technically prove that they are non-Muslims is wrong, while I disagree with all that, I must say that I completely agree with Amit Shah… that the party which is the most communal and has divided the country is the Congress party…”

BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao who featured across channels, justified the BJP’s position: “Anyone who is not a citizen of India, and who is actually a citizen of any of these three countries, will be given citizenship basis their minority religion, as those minorities aren’t equal citizens in those countries.”

Later in the debate Goswami expressed his feelings on CAB: “Foreigners can come for tourism, foreigners cannot take away my land, foreigners cannot take away my way of life, my job, my agriculture… and I don’t give a damn if the foreigners are Hindus.”

AIMIM leader Waris Pathan praised Asaduddin Owaisi, who had dramatically torn up the Bill in Parliament. “(He) stands for the rights of the minorities, that’s why they cannot compete with him and are scared of him.”

Aaj Tak: Here too the contentious CAB came in for heated debate.

BJP’s Sudhanshu Trivedi said the Bill was “a response from secular democratic republic of India to Islamic republic of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan”, he declared.

NDTV India: “Welcome to India, the country which believes in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is a family),’’commented anchor Ravish Kumar, “which just passed a bill allowing immigrants (into India) from three neighbouring countrie s– except Muslims.”

Kumar pointed out that India doesn’t have only three neighbouring countries: “Are Sri Lanka’s Tamil and Buddhists not exploited there? Many Muslims from the Shia and Ahmadiyya community are tortured and killed in Pakistan,” he observed.

India TV’s Rajat Sharma welcomed the Bill and disagreed with Kumar. He claimed Muslims cannot be tortured in Islamic countries, “It is the people from minority religions like Hinduism, Buddhists and Jainism etc who are exploited in these neighbouring countries.”

Edited by Amit Upadhyaya

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6 COMMENTS

  1. CAB JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD JINDABAD… Shame on those whose oppose CAB ..

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