Aadhaar a threat to national security: Subramanian Swamy

Agencies
October 31, 2017

New Delhi: BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said that compulsory Aadhaar is a threat to the country's security and expressed hope that the Supreme Court will strike it down when its larger Constitution bench takes up the matter.

The firebrand BJP leader took to Twitter and tweeted that he will soon write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi detailing how compulsory Aadhaar poses a big threat to the country's security.

Swamy said this a day after the Supreme Court referred a batch of petitions challenging the Centre's move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of various services and social welfare schemes to a five-judge Constitution bench.

The order was passed by the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud while responding to a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Aadhaar law on charges of being intrusive and violating the right to privacy.

The top court also pulled up the West Bengal government for directly approaching it against the central government's move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits under social welfare schemes.

The bench said that hearing on the petitions challenging the government's move would take place in the last week of November.

The court said this after Attorney General KKVenugopal told the bench that the government had filed a detailed affidavit refuting all the allegations on expanding the area under Aadhaar linkage.

Asking the court not to issue any further interim orders, Venugopal said the government was ready to argue and the court, if deemed fit, could set up a Constitution bench to decide on the various Aadhaar petitions.

He said the government had already issued more than 100 orders and notifications to address the glitches in the implementation of Aadhaar.

The government counsel also told the court that fake reports were being spread about Aadhaar linking, including how the unique ID was being made compulsory for CBSE students to appear in Class 10 and 12 exams.

As court said that the challenge to Aadhaar law would be heard by the five-judge Constitution bench, the issue of extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other schemes for those who don't have the unique identification number is now on the backburner.

The issue is not there, as the court is hearing the matter in the last week of November, the Attorney General said.

The existing deadline is up to December 31.

In the last hearing of the matter on October 25, the Centre had indicated that the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other schemes for those who don't have the unique identification number and are willing to go for it may be extended till March 31.

The validity of Aadhaar law that has been challenged by a number of people, including former Karnataka High Court Judge KS Puttaswamy, first Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha and researcher Kalyani Sen Menon.

Aadhaar is being challenged in the court amid apprehensions that it violated right to privacy - which a nine-judge bench had already declared as a fundamental right - with the use of biometric details like fingerprints and iris scans.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon has warned that the “picture of life in Lebanon remains grim,” highlighting an "alarming" level of human suffering and significant humanitarian consequences due to the ongoing Israeli carnage.

Imran Riza, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL), provided a stark overview of the Arab country's dire circumstances in a statement released on Monday.

“The current picture of life in Lebanon remains grim. Yesterday, airstrikes reportedly killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Aalmat in Mount Lebanon,” Riza said on X.

An airstrike in the city of Tyre on the same day resulted in the tragic deaths of five siblings from a single family, all of whom had special needs, according to his statement.

He added that in the last week, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 241 individuals and left 642 others injured in Lebanon, as reported by the Ministry of Health.

“In the past month, more than 185,000 people have fled their homes in their search for safety within the country, bringing the total to over 870,000 people internally displaced,” Riza said

The UN official highlighted that numerous individuals, including the elderly and those with health issues, are staying behind while witnessing the ruins of their ancestral homes.

He urged for the swift safeguarding of civilian people and infrastructure, emphasizing the necessity to uphold international humanitarian law and end the ongoing violence.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that Israeli forces bombed a house in the town of Maydoun in Bekaa on Monday night, killing three people and destroying the house.

Earlier, Israel bombed the northern town of Ain Yaaqoub, killing at least 14 people.

The killings came as Israeli military continued to pound Lebanon, bombing shops selling electrical appliances in the southern city of Tyre and carrying out air raids on the towns of Shamshtar in eastern Baalbek and Roumine in southern Nabatieh.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks killed at least 54 people across the country on Monday.

Israel’s merciless attacks continue despite calls from the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and directives from the International Court of Justice urging measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

In Lebanon, at least 3,243 people have been killed and 14,134 others wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah opened a support front for Palestinians in Gaza only a day after the Israeli regime unleashed its genocidal war on the besieged territory.

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News Network
November 22,2024

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Bengaluru, Nov 22: For the second day running, the Karnataka BJP on Friday staged a statewide protest condemning the government’s alleged move to notify land of farmers as Waqf property.

The BJP staged a protest before the offices of Deputy Commissioners at district headquarters.

The BJP leaders are vehemently demanding that the state government cancel a 1974 Gazette notification in this regard.

The agitators are also demanding scrapping of the Waqf Board and the resignation of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Minister for Waqf and Housing Zameer Ahmad Khan.

The BJP MLAs, MLCs, MPs gathered in the premises of Freedom Park and staged a protest under the leadership of Leader of Opposition R. Ashoka and slammed the state government.

MLA T.S. Srivatsa led the protest in Mysuru and hundreds of party workers and farmers staged the protest under the leadership of former MP Pratap Simha in Kodagu.

Former MP Sumalatha Ambareesh led the agitation in Mandya.

This was the first time that Sumalatha took part in the party’s programme after the Lok Sabha elections.

State President B.Y. Vijayendra claimed, “The Congress government in Karnataka is issuing notices to farmers claiming the ownership of their lands to the Waqf Board and pushing them on the streets overnight.”

In the first week of December, three teams formed by the BJP will travel across the state and record the grievances of farmers.

“The state government is attempting to snatch away the lands belonging to temples as well,” Vijayendra alleged and added that the teams would comprise all senior leaders of the BJP.

Meanwhile, the police have taken Sri Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthalik into custody while staging a protest march to the office of Zameer Ahmad Khan in Bengaluru.

Muthalik along with Hindutva activists was planning to lay siege to Zameer’s office over the Waqf row.

The police stopped Muthalik and requested him to submit the memorandum by reaching the minister’s office in a vehicle. However, Muthalik refused to go with the police and continued his footmarch. The police took him into custody following arguments.

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