• BJP created history by winning the seventh consecutive assembly election in Gujarat. With this, BJP has equalled the record of CPM, which won seven elections in West Bengal during 1977-2011.
• BJP also broke Congress’s 37-year-old record of winning 149 seats in the 182-member assembly. BJP won 156 seats with 53% vote share — up from 49% votes and 99 seats in 2017.
• Congress recorded its worst performance in Gujarat at 17 seats, a loss of 60 compared to its 2017 tally.

Fashion unaltered

• Himachal Pradesh maintained its ‘rivaaj’ of voting out the incumbent. Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member assembly against BJP’s 25. Congress polled 44% votes against BJP’s 43%.
• In 2017, Congress had won 21 seats while BJP got 44. In 2017, BJP’s vote share was 49% as opposed to Congress’s 42%.

National elevation

• A day after snatching MCD from BJP in Delhi, AAP won the eligibility for the “national party” status. Requiring two seats with 6% votes, AAP got five with 13% votes. In 2017, all its 29 candidates had lost deposits.
• AAP is now the only party besides BJP and Congress with a “national party” tag and at least two state governments.

Tribute to Netaji

• Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav won the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll, necessitated by his death in October.
• With Dimple’s victory, Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Yadav merged his Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party with SP.

A Hindu in Rampur

• Of the six assembly bypolls, two were in UP. At Rampur, the BJP created history as Akash Saxena became the first Hindu candidate to win this seat. SP’s ally RLD won the Khatauli seat.
• In Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha, the ruling parties — Congress and BJD — won the single-seat byelections.
• But in Bihar, opposition BJP snatched Kurhani seat from the ruling JDU-RJD alliance. More here

• A day after Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s strong message, the Supreme Court came back with a stern reminder to the government over mechanism to appoint judges.
• The SC said while Parliament can make a law — something that Dhankhar asserted in his maiden Rajya Sabha speech on Wednesday — it was within the judiciary’s power to “scrutinise” it.

Court’s quote

• A three-judge SC bench said, “Speeches made by the high constitutional functionaries in public, making comments on the Supreme Court Collegium, are not very well taken. You [Attorney General R Venkataramani] have to advise them.”
• A law declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court is binding on all stakeholders, the bench of Justices SK Kaul, Abhay Oka, and Vikram Nath said.
• “Tomorrow, people will say the basic structure is also not a part of the Constitution,” Justice Kaul said, “If every section of the society starts laying down which law is to be followed and which isn’t, then it will lead to a breakdown. If you want to bring some other law, you can always bring some law,if it stands [judicial] scrutiny.”

The trigger

• Dhankhar had raised the scrapping of the NJAC Act, the law that the Modi government had brought to replace the Collegium for judicial appointments, saying it undermined the primacy of Parliament and elected government.

The long-drawn duel

• Before Dhankhar’s remarks, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju had expressed his reservations about the Collegium appointing judges to the top court.
• The NJAC backers have argued that the elected government should have a role in judicial appointments in a democracy.
• In India, judicial appointments have been the SC’s domain since the early 1990s.

The knot

• The NJAC law, brought in 2015, gave the government a role in judicial appointments. It was challenged in the SC, whose constitutional bench scrapped the law. Late Arun Jaitely, then a minister, had termed it a “tyranny of the unelected”.
• On Thursday, the SC said the Collegium system is the “law of the land” which should be “followed to the teeth”.
• Meanwhile, the government informed Parliament that there was no plan to reintroduce the NJAC Bill.

• The Supreme Court has shut the final window for a probe into the terrorist-perpetrated genocide of pandit community members in Kashmir in 1989-90, by dismissing a curative petition by an NGO ‘Roots in Kashmir’.

Why

• In a November 22 order passed in chambers and uploaded on the SC website on Thursday, a bench headed by CJI D Y Chandrachud dismissed the NGO’s curative petition saying “no case is made out”.

Not the first time

• Earlier, the NGO’s writ petition was dismissed on July 24, 2017, by a bench headed by then CJI Dipak Misra “for the simple reason that the instances referred to in the present petition pertain to the year 1989-90, and more than 27 years have passed by since then. No fruitful purpose would emerge, as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture.”
• A review petition was dismissed by the same bench on October 25, 2017.

But…

• A bench headed by then CJI Dipak Misra had on January 11, 2018, appointed a special investigation team (SIT) headed by retired Delhi High Court Judge S N Dhingra to carry out further probe into 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, after a lapse of 34 years, ignoring its “unlikely to get evidence at this late juncture” yardstick applied to Kashmir genocide case, which had resulted in mass exodus of pandits.
• Moreover, a bench of Justices A S Bopanna and P S Narasimha had last heard the anti-Sikh riots case in November when the SIT gave a report saying little evidence was available in many cases. However, it had recommended action against a judicial officer whose orders reflected a pattern of acquittals and a police officer who failed to discharge his duties.

Plea by another NGO

• The SC had consistently refused to entertain petitions for a probe into the “Kashmir genocide”. On September 2 this year, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and C T Ravikumar had dismissed a plea by another NGO, ‘We the Citizens” seeking probe to fix accountability on officers and politicians for their inaction during the ‘genocide’ of Hindus in Kashmir between 1989 and 2003.
• It had said, “the issues raised by you are purely within the domain of the executive. You should approach the government.”

• The Meghalaya High Court said over 13 lakh MT of coal was illegally mined, transported and discovered, which the state sought to pass off as coal mined prior to the imposition of the ban on coal mining.

Mismatch of stock

• Citing Justice B P Katakey’s report on reassessed coal available at depots across East Jaintia Hills, West Khasi Hills, South Garo Hills and South West Khasi Hills, the high court said that 19.54 lakh MT of coal was available in the state as compared to a September report by the state government that had recorded 32.56 lakh MT of coal available for auction.
• Highlighting the gap between the two recorded figures, a three-member division bench said on Wednesday: “13 lakh MT of coal was illegally mined, transported and discovered, which the state sought to pass off as coal mined prior to the imposition of the ban (by NGT in 2014).”

A ‘fast and loose’ play

• “There is, no doubt, further amounts of coal (will be available), in addition to the total quantity of 32.56 lakh MT as indicated in the chief secretary’s report of September 20, 2022,” the order stated, adding that “it is evident that the state continues to play fast and loose with the court.”

An attempt to legalise rat-hole mining?

• Eight years after it was banned by the NGT, the practice of rat-hole coal mining is still rampant in Meghalaya owing to what many see as an unholy nexus between a section of politicians, bureaucrats and coal barons. Rat-hole mining, a dangerous practice, involves digging narrow tunnels, each of which fits only one person to enter and extract coal.
• In January 2021, six workers lost their lives after a crane collapsed into the pit of a coal mine. In December 2018, at least 17 labourers died when the mine they were working in got submerged.
• With Meghalaya elections just a few months away, the issue of coal mining is back in the limelight. Rajya Sabha member from the state, WR Kharlukhi of ruling party NPP, is demanding that rat-hole mining be legalised. Read more here.

Scroll below for answer

• It’s December and once again, a cyclone is approaching the eastern coast of peninsular India. The IMD has issued an alert for the coastal areas of north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and south Andhra Pradesh.
• A deep depression over southwest and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal has intensified into a cyclonic storm.
• Every year since 2016, at least one major cyclone has developed in the Bay of Bengal. Nada and Vardah in 2016, Ockhi in 2017, Phetal in 2018, Pawan in 2019, Burevi in 2020 and Jowad in 2021.

Name’s Mandous

• The cyclone has been named ‘Mandous’, meaning a treasure box. It’s pronounced as ‘Man-Dous’. The name was suggested by the UAE.
• The cyclonic storm is likely to reach the southwest Bay of Bengal off the north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh coasts.

On alert

• Heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over the next three days in Prakasam, SRSP Nellore and Tirupati district in south coastal Andhra Pradesh and in Chittoor, Annamayya and YSR Kadapa districts in Rayalaseema.
• IMD has issued a red alert for Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, and Villupuram districts of Tamil Nadu.

A high wind intensity

• Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, south Andhra Pradesh and north Sri Lanka coasts may experience winds at 40-50 kmph, gushing up to 60 kmph. The wind intensity may go up to 70-90 kmph on December 9 and 10.

On standby

• Tamil Nadu has put in place teams for rescue operation and clearing water logging.
• The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams are on alert mode in all district collectorates. Updates here

Report submitted

• The Navy has submitted a detailed report on these two fighters, which were trial-evaluated earlier this year, to the defence ministry to take a final decision on what will eventually be a government-to-government deal, defence sources told TOI on Wednesday.

Operational demos

• Both Dassault Rafale-M and Boeing Super Hornet underwent operational demonstration trials to assess their “suitability and capability” at the shore-based test facility (SBTF) at INS Hansa in Goa, which has a ski-jump to resemble an aircraft carrier’s deck, earlier this year.

Rafale-M Vs Super Hornets

• The French fighter had a head-start on logistical and other grounds given that the Indian Air Force (IAF) has already inducted 36 Rafales under the Rs 59,000 crore deal inked with France in September 2016. IAF now has a Rafale squadron each deployed at Ambala and Hasimara.
• The Navy has been fast-tracking its case for the 26 carrier-based fighters especially after commissioning of the country’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, on September 2.

‘Interim solution’

• Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar had last week said that the 26 fighters were an “interim solution” till the indigenous twin-engine deck-based fighter (TEDBF) being manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is ready. It will take the TEDBF at least a decade to become fully operational.
• As of now, the Navy is left with 40 of the 45 Russian-made MiG-29Ks that operate from the deck of the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. The operational serviceability of the MiG-29K fighters has been a major problem for some years.

• Chinese President Xi Jinping began a visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday that Beijing said marked its biggest diplomatic initiative in the Arab world, as Riyadh expands global alliances beyond a long-standing partnership with the West.

Significance

• The meeting between the global economic powerhouse and Gulf energy giant comes as Saudi ties with Washington are strained by US criticism of Riyadh’s human rights record and Saudi support for oil output curbs before the November midterm elections.

America’s concern

• China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, is a major trade partner of Gulf oil and gas producers. Bilateral ties have expanded under the region’s economic diversification push, raising US concerns about growing Chinese involvement in sensitive infrastructure in the Gulf.

A new bonhomie

• Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that Riyadh would remain a “trusted and reliable” energy partner for Beijing and that the two countries would boost cooperation in energy supply chains by establishing a regional centre in the kingdom for Chinese factories.

34 deals

• On Wednesday Chinese and Saudi firms signed 34 deals for investment in green energy, information technology, cloud services, transport, construction and other sectors, Saudi state news agency SPA reported. It gave no value for the deals, but had earlier said the two countries would seal agreements worth $30 billion.

‘Epoch-making visit’

• Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered Xi a lavish welcome, in contrast with the low-key reception for US President Joe Biden whose censure of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler formed the backdrop for a strained meeting in July. The Chinese foreign ministry has described the visit as an “an epoch-making milestone in the history of the development of China-Arab relations”.

• The White House has supported Congress to pass a legislation that seeks to eliminate the per-country quota on green cards to allow US employers to focus on hiring people based on merit and not their birthplace. The bill, if passed, would benefit lakhs of immigrants, especially Indian-Americans, reported news agency PTI.

A question of equal access

• A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently. This week, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act 2022.

How it’s going to be executed

• The EAGLE Act would eliminate a per-country cap on employment-based green cards— a policy that disproportionately affects Indian immigrants. If passed, this legislation would phase out the per-country caps over a course of nine years to ensure that eligible immigrants from less-populated countries are not excluded as the Act is implemented.
• These changes would take effect over a nine-year transition period to ensure that no countries are excluded from receiving visas while the per-country caps are phased out. During the transition period, visas would also be set aside for nurses and physical therapists to address urgent needs in the healthcare industry, and for employment-based immigrants and their family members who are not currently in the United States, the White House said.