Dilip Simeon's blog

Has the NDA government illegally delayed providing subsidised food and other benefits to the poor under the National Food Security Law through executive orders that subvert the law and the Parliamentary decisions? A petition before the SC claims so.  A petition challenging alleged illegal delay in implementation of many benefits under the National  Food Security Act  by the NDA government has been filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) before the Supreme Court. The petitioners have pleaded for immediate implementation of the law by the centre and the state governments. The law, passed by the UPA, required that its provisions be implemented within 365 days of the passage of the legislation. But the government has delayed the implementation of the law through administrative orders. PUCL  has challenged the legality of delaying the application of the law and the provisions under it through executive orders when the main law provided otherwise....

Orders of the two-member Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, against whistle-blower officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, have been struck down by the Central Administrative Tribunal. The tribunal held that the orders were against the principles of natural justice and were made without justification.  Quashing the orders of the ACC, the tribunal on Wednesday ordered the committee to decide on Chaturvedi’s change of cadre in a time-bound manner based on the large set of evidences the officer produced of harassment and threat in his parent cadre state Haryana.    The tribunal, prima facie found that Chaturvedi had gone through extreme hardship for blowing the lids of several scams but the ACC had ignored these facts on record while deciding on his plea for change of cadre. The tribunal noted in its orders, “there is very little scope for the ACC to decline the approval (to Chaturvedi’s cadre change). However no reasons have been assigned...

A new civil war in Islam is raging between the unarmed Sufis and the Salafis. Many would read the global war on terror as a Samuel Huntingtonian self-fulfilling prophecy; witnesses would most likely identify it as a tragically wrong hypothesis. There are clearly many fault lines within Islam, some of which are deepening dramatically. One, there are attacks on Muslim intellectuals, attempts to suppress dissent. Two, there is polarisation between the Shias and Sunnis, primarily due to the Sunnification of Islam that has been continuing since the early 20th century. The emerging civil war , however, is between Sufis and Salafis. This began in the 19th century when Wahhabis attacked tombs in Arabia (the Wahhabis distinguish themselves from the Salafis). It has intensified in the last two decades with the multiplication of groups that claim to be Salafi or “early Muslims”. These groups profess an Islamic creed that is pure and uncontaminated by accretions. Sufis under siege:  I...

Certain breast cancers spread to the bones using an enzyme that drills “seed holes” for planting new tumours, research has shown. The discovery could lead to treatments aimed at preventing secondary breast cancers in patients with non-hormone sensitive disease. The enzyme lysyl oxidase (Lox) is released from the primary tumour in the breast. Scientists found that it produces holes in bone that provide fertile ground for the growth of spreading, or metastatic, cancer cells. But the process could be blocked, at least in mice, with bisphosphonate drugs that prevent bone loss and are used to treat osteoporosis. The drugs are already prescribed to men with advanced prostate cancer that has spread to the bones, to prevent pain and fractures. Dr Alison Gartland, from the University of Sheffield, who led the research, said: “This is important progress in the fight against breast cancer metastasis and these findings could lead to new treatments to stop secondary breast tumours growing in t...

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative but success is a science. If you have the conditions, you get the results.Thus goes an old saying. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi heading a BJP majority government loosely garbed in an almost redundant National Democratic Alliance(NDA) completes an  year in office, it is time to delve deep and dissect dispassionately to foresee the future. Over a year ago, the conditions were ideal. A decade of familiarity had already bred contempt. A thoroughly besmirched Congress led UPA had to go. The young had little patience for the old. And in the vacuum came charging the knight in dazzling armour, riding astride a pedigreed horse called Gujarat. The results followed. Narendra Modi milked both ‘chai’ and ‘chant’ to bag the chair. One year into power, the shining shield has given way to name-sporting suits but India’s dapper prime minister resolutely refuses to get of the high horse called Gujarat. All roads from Delhi can be t...

China’s plans for a rapid expansion of nuclear power plants are “insane” because the country is not investing enough in safety controls, a leading Chinese scientist has warned. Proposals to build plants inland, as China ends a moratorium on new generators imposed after the  Fukushima  disaster in March 2011, are particularly risky, the physicist He Zuoxiu said, because if there was an accident it could contaminate rivers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for water and taint groundwater supplies to vast swathes of important farmlands. China  halted the approval of new reactors in 2011 in order to review its safety standards, but gave the go-ahead in March for two units, part of an attempt to surpass Japan’s nuclear-generating capacity by 2020 and become the world’s biggest user of nuclear power a decade later. Barack Obama recently announced plans to renew a nuclear cooperation deal with Beijing that would allow it to buy more US-designed reactors, and poten...

NB:  The  Modi government might like us to forget that the  2003 Sino-Indian Joint declaration agreed to by A.B. Vajpayee was the furthest India has gone to accept China's sovereignty over Tibet . One view of this is that Vajpayee went this far in acknowledging Chinese sovereignty over Tibet in exchange for Chinese acceptance of Sikkim as part of India. Another view is that Vajpayee sold out Indian interests. From either perspective, 2003 statement was a gain for China.   What is noteworthy is that China refers to Arunachal Pradesh as 'South Tibet' - and that the 2003 declaration strengthened its capacity to do so.  Here is the operative paragraph:  " The Indian side recognizes that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China and reiterates that it does not allow Tibetans to engage in anti-China political activities in India. The Chinese side expresses its appreciation for the Indian posit...