The Evening Wrap: Modi attacks Congress in Rajya Sabha

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday, hit out at the opposition in Rajya Sabha saying, “ ek akela kitno par bhari padh raha hai” (One person is proving to be more than equal to them all) striking a combative note that he is ready to take on any allegations made against him and his government. Without referring to the allegations against him that the BJP government is silent on the Hindenburg report against the Adani Group, Modi said the dirt will further help the lotus (BJP’s symbol) to grow. The Opposition members were crowding the well of Rajya Sabha sloganeering through his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint session of Parliament. He defended his government against the opposition allegation on BJP government undermining the federal values. He said as a former Chief Minister he understood the importance of federalism and his government always supported cooperative and competitive federalism. He said his effort is to combine national progress and regional aspirations. He added that the priority of his government is common people. “We are accused of troubling the states. I have been the chief minister for a long time. I understand the meaning of federalism. We have stressed on cooperative, competitive federalism. We have kept in mind national progress in our policies and also regional aspirations. Those who are sitting in Opposition today, they had tampered with the rights of states,” Modi said. His speech was drowned by MPs from the Congress, TMC, AAP, BRS, DMK and Left parties who were raising slogans in the well of the house. Several Opposition MPs were standing at their seats in protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the Hindenburg revelations on the Adani group and its impact on SBI and LIC. Singling out Left and DMK especially, the Prime Minister Modi sought to remind them how Congress governments in the past misused Article 356 to get rid of elected government. “Look at the history, which party and people in power misused Article 356 the most? Elected governments were toppled 90 times, who were those who did that? A Prime minister used Article 356 fifty times, and scored a half-century and that name is Indira Gandhi. In Kerala Communist government was elected which wasn’t liked by Pandit Nehru and was toppled,” he said. Then he shifted his focus to the DMK members. “In Tamil Nadu too, governments of veterans like MGR and Karunanidhi were dismissed by Congress people. In 1980, Sharad Pawar who was a young chief Minister then was booted out by the Congress ruled central government. We have seen what happened with NTR when he was in the US for treatment and attempts were made to topple his government. This was the level of Congress’ politics. They troubled every regional leader,” he added. Particularly targeting the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, he said none of the descendants of the Nehru family use the surname Nehru and the Congress accuses him of not mentioning Nehru in his speeches. During the Congress regimes, he said, Raj Bhawans were functioning as Congress offices. He said he is there to work for the country and the Opposition is playing politics. Referring to the clamour for shifting to the Old Pension Scheme in Opposition-ruled States, the Prime Minister said for immediate political benefits, certain State governments are putting a burden on the future generation. He urged the States to follow financial discipline and not to tamper with the economic health of the country. “Don’t spoil the future of your children,” he said asking the States to learn from the economic distress in neighbouring countries. Collegium recommendation of Victoria Gowri | Government flagged need for mechanism to assess ‘personality’ of candidates The government, just a little over a month before the Supreme Court Collegium recommended advocate Victoria Gowri for Madras High Court judgeship on January 17, 2023, had in the apex court flagged the “compelling need” for a debate to include an “appropriate mechanism” in the Memorandum of Procedure for “assessment of the personality” of candidates under consideration for judicial appointments to constitutional courts. On December 8 last year, Attorney General R. Venkataramani drew the attention of a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka to a letter written by the government to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court on July 11, 2017. This letter highlighted the observations made by two Supreme Court judges in a judgment which sentenced Calcutta High Court judge, C.S. Karnan, to six months’ imprisonment for contempt on July 4, 2017. The incident was the first of its kind in the court’s annals. Karnan had served as a Madras High Court judge before his transfer to Calcutta. Justices J. Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi, now retired, had observed that Karnan’s case “brought out the system’s failure of not providing an appropriate procedure for making assessment of the personality of the contemnor [Karnan] at the time of recommending his name for elevation”. Venkataramani’s 11-page status report quoted the two judges’ observation that “what appropriate mechanism would be suitable for assessing the personality of a candidate being considered for appointment to be a member of a constitutional court is a matter which is to be identified after an appropriate debate by all concerned — the Bar, the Bench, the state and civil society. But the need appears to be unquestionable”. The government’s letter, which was sent only days after the Karnan judgment, told the Supreme Court that a “new opportunity” had been created, and there was a “compelling need to make improvements” in the selection process under the Collegium system. The court, according to the government’s status report, never replied to the letter. The Centre said this was one of the reasons why the finalisation of the Memorandum of Procedure for judicial appointments (MoP) was still pending despite the court’s October 2015 direction to the government in the NJAC verdict to “supplement” the MoP in consultation with the Supreme Court to make the selection process “transparent and accountable”. The order of the court on December 8, 2022 records the contents of the status report. However, the Bench said the “final view of the Supreme Court Collegium” was expressed in the version of the MoP it had sent to the government on March 13, 2017, almost four months before the Karnan case verdict. “We have endeavoured to emphasise to the Attorney General the undisputed legal position that the MoP is final. That does not mean that if the government suggests some changes or improvements in the MoP, that cannot be looked into. But till that happens, the MoP, as existing, would apply,” the Bench led by Justice Kaul observed in its December 8 order. On February 7, a Special Bench of Justices Sanjeev Khanna and BR Gavai defended the scrutiny process of the Collegium system as “fairly robust”. The Bench surmised that the Collegium “must have” known about the social media utterances of Gowri, which the petitioners said amounted to “hate speech”, before recommending her for appointment as an Additional Judge of the Madras High Court. Justices Khanna and Gavai did not entertain the petitioners’ plea to take “judicial notice” of a statement made by Chief Justice of India D.Y Chandrachud, who headed the Collegium which recommended Ms. Gowri, in open court proceedings on February 6 that “developments” regarding her were not known to the Collegium when they had approved her. Supreme Court agrees to hear on February 10 plea seeking probe into Hindenburg Research report on Adani Group The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Friday a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to constitute a committee monitored by a retired apex court judge to inquire and investigate into the Hindenburg Research report which has made a slew of allegations against the business conglomerate led by industrialist Gautam Adani. Advocate Vishal Tiwari, who has filed the petition, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday. Tiwari told the bench, also comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala, that a separate plea filed on the issue is scheduled to be listed for hearing on February 10. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Friday a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to constitute a committee monitored by a retired apex court judge to inquire and investigate into the Hindenburg Research report which has made a slew of allegations against the business conglomerate led by industrialist Gautam Adani. Advocate Vishal Tiwari, who has filed the petition, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday. Tiwari told the bench, also comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala, that a separate plea filed on the issue is scheduled to be listed for hearing on February 10. “A similar petition is coming up tomorrow,” he said, adding, “This pertains to the Hindenburg Research report which has tarnished the image of the country and caused loss.” He urged the bench that his plea be also heard on Friday along with the separate plea. “All right. Tag it,” the CJI said. In his public interest litigation (PIL), Tiwari has also sought directions to set up a special committee to oversee the sanction policy for loans of over ₹500 crore given to big corporates. Last week, another PIL was filed in the apex court by advocate M.L. Sharma seeking prosecution of short-seller Nathan Anderson of U.S.-based firm Hindenburg Research and his associates in India and the U.S. for allegedly exploiting innocent investors and the “artificial crashing” of Adani Group’s stock value in the market. The Adani Group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share-price manipulation, against the business conglomerate. In his plea, Tiwari has said the petition depicts the “drastic condition and fate of people” when there is a situation of share fall in the securities market due to various reasons. “Lots of people, who had their whole lifetime saving in such stocks, get a maximum setback due to fall in such shares with a huge amount of money going into the drain,” the PIL submitted. “In the aftermath of an unprecedented attack on billionaire Gautam Adani’s vast empire by Hindenburg, the market value of all 10 Adani stocks have halved with investors sitting with a colossal loss...,” the plea filed by Tiwari submitted. It claimed that no concrete steps have been taken by authorities on the issue despite a “massive attack being perpetrated” on the country’s economy. “It is ultimately the public money for which the respondents (Centre and others) are answerable and there needs to be strict concern for mitigating of such loans with a clear process and sanction policy for such high stake loan amount,” it said. The plea has made the Centre and others, including the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, as respondents. Over 16 lakh people renounced Indian citizenship since 2011, says government data More than 16 lakh Indians renounced their Indian citizenship since 2011 including 2,25,620 last year, according to data provided by the government in Rajya Sabha on February 9, 2023. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar presented the details while replying to a question. He said the number of Indians who renounced their Indian citizenship in 2015 was 1,31,489, while 1,41,603 people gave it up in 2016 and 1,33,049 in 2017. In 2018, the number was 1,34,561, while 1,44,017 Indians renounced their citizenship in 2019, 85,256 in 2020 and 1,63,370 in 2021. The number in 2022 was 2,25,620, according to the minister. For reference purposes, Jaishankar said the data for 2011 was 1,22,819 while it was 1,20,923 in 2012, 1,31,405 in 2013 and 1,29,328 in 2014. The total number of Indians who gave up Indian citizenship since 2011 comes to 16,63,440. To a specific query, he said, according to information, five Indian nationals obtained the citizenship of the United Arab Emirates during the last three years. Jaishankar also provided a list of 135 countries whose citizenship Indians acquired. In Brief: Chitra Ramkrishna gets bail The Delhi High Court on Thursday, February 9, 2023, granted bail to Chitra Ramkrishna in a money-laundering case, being probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) involving alleged illegal phone tapping of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees. The former NSE managing director, who was arrested on March 6, 2022 by the CBI in the alleged NSE co-location scam, was granted bail by the High Court in September last year. She was arrested in the present case by the ED July 14 last year. Ramkrishna, who worked with the exchange from the early 1990s, was its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer from April 2013 to December 2016. Russia stripped of hosting 2025 swimming world championships Russia was stripped of hosting the 2025 swimming world championships on Thursday and Singapore was awarded the event by the governing body of the sport. Russia had originally been chosen in 2019 to host the event in Kazan, which also held the championships in 2015. The International Olympic Committee has asked the governing bodies of sports not to stage events in Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 09 FEBRUARY 2023 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Modi attacks Congress in his Motion of Thanks speech in Rajya Sabha, says his priority is common people Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday, [hit out at the opposition in Rajya Sabha]( saying, “ ek akela kitno par bhari padh raha hai” (One person is proving to be more than equal to them all) striking a combative note that he is ready to take on any allegations made against him and his government. Without referring to the allegations against him that the BJP government is silent on the Hindenburg report against the Adani Group, Modi said the dirt will further help the lotus (BJP’s symbol) to grow. The Opposition members were crowding the well of Rajya Sabha sloganeering through his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint session of Parliament. He defended his government against the opposition allegation on BJP government undermining the federal values. He said as a former Chief Minister he understood the importance of federalism and his government always supported cooperative and competitive federalism. He said his effort is to combine national progress and regional aspirations. He added that the priority of his government is common people. “We are accused of troubling the states. I have been the chief minister for a long time. I understand the meaning of federalism. We have stressed on cooperative, competitive federalism. We have kept in mind national progress in our policies and also regional aspirations. Those who are sitting in Opposition today, they had tampered with the rights of states,” Modi said. His speech was drowned by MPs from the Congress, TMC, AAP, BRS, DMK and Left parties who were raising slogans in the well of the house. Several Opposition MPs were standing at their seats in protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the Hindenburg revelations on the Adani group and its impact on SBI and LIC. Singling out Left and DMK especially, the Prime Minister Modi sought to remind them how Congress governments in the past misused Article 356 to get rid of elected government. “Look at the history, which party and people in power misused Article 356 the most? Elected governments were toppled 90 times, who were those who did that? A Prime minister used Article 356 fifty times, and scored a half-century and that name is Indira Gandhi. In Kerala Communist government was elected which wasn’t liked by Pandit Nehru and was toppled,” he said. Then he shifted his focus to the DMK members. “In Tamil Nadu too, governments of veterans like MGR and Karunanidhi were dismissed by Congress people. In 1980, Sharad Pawar who was a young chief Minister then was booted out by the Congress ruled central government. We have seen what happened with NTR when he was in the US for treatment and attempts were made to topple his government. This was the level of Congress’ politics. They troubled every regional leader,” he added. Particularly targeting the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, he said none of the descendants of the Nehru family use the surname Nehru and the Congress accuses him of not mentioning Nehru in his speeches. During the Congress regimes, he said, Raj Bhawans were functioning as Congress offices. He said he is there to work for the country and the Opposition is playing politics. Referring to the clamour for shifting to the Old Pension Scheme in Opposition-ruled States, the Prime Minister said for immediate political benefits, certain State governments are putting a burden on the future generation. He urged the States to follow financial discipline and not to tamper with the economic health of the country. “Don’t spoil the future of your children,” he said asking the States to learn from the economic distress in neighbouring countries. Collegium recommendation of Victoria Gowri | Government flagged need for mechanism to assess ‘personality’ of candidates The government, just a little over a month before the Supreme Court Collegium recommended advocate Victoria Gowri for Madras High Court judgeship on January 17, 2023, had in the apex court [flagged the “compelling need” for a debate]( to include an “appropriate mechanism” in the Memorandum of Procedure for “assessment of the personality” of candidates under consideration for judicial appointments to constitutional courts. On December 8 last year, Attorney General R. Venkataramani drew the attention of a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka to a letter written by the government to the Secretary General of the Supreme Court on July 11, 2017. This letter highlighted the observations made by two Supreme Court judges in a judgment which sentenced Calcutta High Court judge, C.S. Karnan, to six months’ imprisonment for contempt on July 4, 2017. The incident was the first of its kind in the court’s annals. Karnan had served as a Madras High Court judge before his transfer to Calcutta. Justices J. Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi, now retired, had observed that Karnan’s case “brought out the system’s failure of not providing an appropriate procedure for making assessment of the personality of the contemnor [Karnan] at the time of recommending his name for elevation”. Venkataramani’s 11-page status report quoted the two judges’ observation that “what appropriate mechanism would be suitable for assessing the personality of a candidate being considered for appointment to be a member of a constitutional court is a matter which is to be identified after an appropriate debate by all concerned — the Bar, the Bench, the state and civil society. But the need appears to be unquestionable”. The government’s letter, which was sent only days after the Karnan judgment, told the Supreme Court that a “new opportunity” had been created, and there was a “compelling need to make improvements” in the selection process under the Collegium system. The court, according to the government’s status report, never replied to the letter. The Centre said this was one of the reasons why the finalisation of the Memorandum of Procedure for judicial appointments (MoP) was still pending despite the court’s October 2015 direction to the government in the NJAC verdict to “supplement” the MoP in consultation with the Supreme Court to make the selection process “transparent and accountable”. The order of the court on December 8, 2022 records the contents of the status report. However, the Bench said the “final view of the Supreme Court Collegium” was expressed in the version of the MoP it had sent to the government on March 13, 2017, almost four months before the Karnan case verdict. “We have endeavoured to emphasise to the Attorney General the undisputed legal position that the MoP is final. That does not mean that if the government suggests some changes or improvements in the MoP, that cannot be looked into. But till that happens, the MoP, as existing, would apply,” the Bench led by Justice Kaul observed in its December 8 order. On February 7, a Special Bench of Justices Sanjeev Khanna and BR Gavai defended the scrutiny process of the Collegium system as “fairly robust”. The Bench surmised that the Collegium “must have” known about the social media utterances of Gowri, which the petitioners said amounted to “hate speech”, before recommending her for appointment as an Additional Judge of the Madras High Court. Justices Khanna and Gavai did not entertain the petitioners’ plea to take “judicial notice” of a statement made by Chief Justice of India D.Y Chandrachud, who headed the Collegium which recommended Ms. Gowri, in open court proceedings on February 6 that “developments” regarding her were not known to the Collegium when they had approved her. Supreme Court agrees to hear on February 10 plea seeking probe into Hindenburg Research report on Adani Group The [Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Friday]( a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to constitute a committee monitored by a retired apex court judge to inquire and investigate into the Hindenburg Research report which has made a slew of allegations against the business conglomerate led by industrialist Gautam Adani. Advocate Vishal Tiwari, who has filed the petition, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday. Tiwari told the bench, also comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala, that a separate plea filed on the issue is scheduled to be listed for hearing on February 10. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Friday a plea seeking a direction to the Centre to constitute a committee monitored by a retired apex court judge to inquire and investigate into the Hindenburg Research report which has made a slew of allegations against the business conglomerate led by industrialist Gautam Adani. Advocate Vishal Tiwari, who has filed the petition, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday. Tiwari told the bench, also comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala, that a separate plea filed on the issue is scheduled to be listed for hearing on February 10. “A similar petition is coming up tomorrow,” he said, adding, “This pertains to the Hindenburg Research report which has tarnished the image of the country and caused loss.” He urged the bench that his plea be also heard on Friday along with the separate plea. “All right. Tag it,” the CJI said. In his public interest litigation (PIL), Tiwari has also sought directions to set up a special committee to oversee the sanction policy for loans of over ₹500 crore given to big corporates. Last week, another PIL was filed in the apex court by advocate M.L. Sharma seeking prosecution of short-seller Nathan Anderson of U.S.-based firm Hindenburg Research and his associates in India and the U.S. for allegedly exploiting innocent investors and the “artificial crashing” of Adani Group’s stock value in the market. The Adani Group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share-price manipulation, against the business conglomerate. In his plea, Tiwari has said the petition depicts the “drastic condition and fate of people” when there is a situation of share fall in the securities market due to various reasons. “Lots of people, who had their whole lifetime saving in such stocks, get a maximum setback due to fall in such shares with a huge amount of money going into the drain,” the PIL submitted. “In the aftermath of an unprecedented attack on billionaire Gautam Adani’s vast empire by Hindenburg, the market value of all 10 Adani stocks have halved with investors sitting with a colossal loss...,” the plea filed by Tiwari submitted. It claimed that no concrete steps have been taken by authorities on the issue despite a “massive attack being perpetrated” on the country’s economy. “It is ultimately the public money for which the respondents (Centre and others) are answerable and there needs to be strict concern for mitigating of such loans with a clear process and sanction policy for such high stake loan amount,” it said. The plea has made the Centre and others, including the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, as respondents. Over 16 lakh people renounced Indian citizenship since 2011, says government data More than 16 lakh Indians renounced their Indian citizenship since 2011 including 2,25,620 last year, [according to data provided by the government in Rajya Sabha]( on February 9, 2023. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar presented the details while replying to a question. He said the number of Indians who renounced their Indian citizenship in 2015 was 1,31,489, while 1,41,603 people gave it up in 2016 and 1,33,049 in 2017. In 2018, the number was 1,34,561, while 1,44,017 Indians renounced their citizenship in 2019, 85,256 in 2020 and 1,63,370 in 2021. The number in 2022 was 2,25,620, according to the minister. For reference purposes, Jaishankar said the data for 2011 was 1,22,819 while it was 1,20,923 in 2012, 1,31,405 in 2013 and 1,29,328 in 2014. The total number of Indians who gave up Indian citizenship since 2011 comes to 16,63,440. To a specific query, he said, according to information, five Indian nationals obtained the citizenship of the United Arab Emirates during the last three years. Jaishankar also provided a list of 135 countries whose citizenship Indians acquired. In Brief: Chitra Ramkrishna gets bail  The Delhi High Court on Thursday, February 9, 2023, [granted bail to Chitra Ramkrishna in a money-laundering case,]( being probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) involving alleged illegal phone tapping of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees. The former NSE managing director, who was arrested on March 6, 2022 by the CBI in the alleged NSE co-location scam, was granted bail by the High Court in September last year. She was arrested in the present case by the ED July 14 last year. Ramkrishna, who worked with the exchange from the early 1990s, was its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer from April 2013 to December 2016. Russia stripped of hosting 2025 swimming world championships Russia was[stripped of hosting the 2025 swimming world championships]( on Thursday and Singapore was awarded the event by the governing body of the sport. Russia had originally been chosen in 2019 to host the event in Kazan, which also held the championships in 2015. The International Olympic Committee has asked the governing bodies of sports not to stage events in Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. First Day First Show Stay up-to-date on all things cinema with the "First Day First Show" cinema & entertainment newsletter. Every week, we bring you movie reviews, news from regional cinema, Bollywood, Hollywood, and beyond, as well as updates from the streaming platforms. Whether you're a cinephile or just looking for your next great binge-watch, we've got you covered. 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