War against hijab in Karnataka is sponsored by BJP, alleges SDPI

Despite the announcement of a ceasefire deal, Israel has intensified its airstrikes and artillery shelling on Gaza, especially its residential buildings, killing more than 100 Palestinians.

Gaza’s civil defense said on Friday at least 101 Palestinians, including 27 children and 31 women, have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza since the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.

The attacks have also left more than 264 injured, according to the rescue agency.

Most of the killings came in Gaza City.

The report comes as Israeli attacks have shown no sign of slowing on the ground, with dozens of strikes reported on Friday.

In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, nine members of a Palestinian journalist’s family, including women and children, were killed.

Two more Palestinians were killed in a separate Israel airstrike in the Jabalia al-Balad area, in the north of Gaza. 

Jabalia has come under fierce attack since the Gaza ceasefire announcement this week. On Thursday, at least 20 were killed in one attack in the area.

At least five others were also killed in another attack that targeted a home, east of Khan Younis City, in Southern Gaza on Friday.

To the west of Khan Younis, three people were killed in attacks on tents housing displaced people.

Another tent was targeted in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, killing one person.

That's while Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would convene his cabinet later on Friday to approve the long-awaited ceasefire.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 46,788 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 110,453 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

The ceasefire, announced on Wednesday, consists of three phases and would come into effect on Sunday over 42 days.

The truce deal stipulates that a large-scale prisoner exchange will occur, including the release of 1,000 prisoners from Gaza and hundreds of detainees serving lengthy sentences.

The first stage involves the release of 33 captives, including "children, women, female soldiers, men above 50, and the wounded and sick," as well as a gradual, partial withdrawal of invading Israeli units.

The Uniform Civil Code (UCC), a law that has faced long-standing criticism from the Opposition, will officially come into effect in Uttarakhand on January 27, making it the first state in independent India to put into effect such a law.

According to the state’s chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, the government has completed all preparations to implement the law, including getting approval of the rules for the implementation of the Act and training of officials concerned. The rationale given for the law is that it will bring about ‘uniformity in the society and ensure equal rights and responsibilities for all citizens.’

"UCC is just an offering made by our state in the great 'yagya' being performed by the Prime Minister to make the country a developed, organised, harmonious and self-reliant nation," PTI quoted Dhami as saying in a statement.

The BJP had made a promise to implement the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand in the run-up to the 2022 assembly polls.These polls saw the party storming to power for a second consecutive term, something never done by any other party in the state since its creation in 2000.

According to CM Dhami, the historic mandate was because of the party's commitment to passing the UCC.

The Uniform Civil Code journey in Uttarakhand

The Uttarakhand state cabinet cleared a proposal to form an expert panel on the Uniform Civil Code in March 2022 in the first cabinet meeting after winning the assembly elections. The panel, headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, was constituted on May 27, 2022 to prepare the draft of the UCC.

The Desai committee submitted a comprehensive draft in four volumes, prepared after one and a half years of dialogue with different sections of the state's population. It was sent to the state on February 2, 2024 and just a few days later, the Uttarakhand assembly passed the UCC bill. President Droupadi Murmu gave it her assent in March 2024, nearly two years after the initial proposal.

Another expert committee was at work after that, headed by former chief secretary Shatrughna Singh. It was formed to frame the rules and regulations for the implementation of the Act. The Sinha committee submitted its report to the state government late last year.

The state cabinet gave its approval recently and authorised the chief minister to decide a date for its implementation. Dhami decided the date to be January 27, 2025, a day after the country celebrated its 76th Republic Day.

What is in the Uttarakhand UCC?

The Uniform Civil Code Act of Uttarakhand will govern and regulate the laws relating to marriage and divorce, succession, live-in relationships and related matters.

It sets equal marriageable age for men and women, grounds of divorce and procedures across all religions, and bans polygamy and 'halala'.

Doon University Vice Chancellor Surekha Dangwal, who was part of the panel that drafted the UCC and was among those who framed the rules for its implementation, described to PTI the provisions aimed at bringing about gender parity in matters of marriage, divorce and succession, treating all children as legitimate including those born of void or voidable marriages, simplifying the process of preparing a will and regulating live-in relationships as the most outstanding in the UCC. She termed gender parity across all religions as the spirit of UCC.

According to Duggal, the UCC makes registration of all marriages and live-in relationships mandatory. She also said that the government has created facilities to help people register their marriages online so that they do not have to run around government offices for it.

"Another remarkable feature of the UCC is that it treats all children as legitimate. We have in fact totally done away with the term illegitimate in the context of children," she said. The UCC also makes a special provision for defence personnel called "privileged will" which can be made both in writing or by word of mouth.

Any soldier or air force personnel engaged in an expedition or actual warfare or a mariner at sea can make a privileged will for which rules have been kept flexible.

UCC criticism

Opposition leaders have criticized the UCC, arguing that it may lead to societal division along religious lines and might be impractical and overly ambitious.
The debate surrounding the UCC extends beyond Uttarakhand, as Article 44 of the Indian Constitution advocates for a uniform civil code across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has referenced the Supreme Court's direction on the need for a common code, stressing that fulfilling the vision of the Constitution's framers remains a national goal.

Uttarakhand's implementation of the UCC is likely to set a precedent, with other states potentially following suit. The success of the law's implementation will depend on its ability to balance individual rights and social harmony.

As Uttarakhand stands at the forefront of this legal revolution, the coming weeks will offer a clearer picture of how the UCC will be received, both in the state and across India. The state's experience with the UCC will undoubtedly shape the future of personal law reform in the country.

What is the implementation process?

Shailesh Bagauli, secretary (home), stated that the government will issue two notifications: one for the implementation of the UCC and another for the rules and regulations, officially launching the UCC in the state.

Dhami had promised to implement the UCC if re-elected during the 2022 state polls. After becoming CM, he appointed a five-member committee led by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai to draft the code, which received feedback from over 2.3 lakh people, representing nearly 10% of Uttarakhand's families.

The 740-page draft was presented to the chief minister on February 2, 2024, approved by the cabinet on February 4, tabled in the assembly on February 6, and passed the following day. Governor Lt Gen Gurmit Singh (retd) approved the bill on February 28 and President Droupadi Murmu subsequently signed it on March 11.

President Donald Trump’s pick for the United States ambassador to the United Nations has become the latest administration nominee to voice the belief that Israel has “biblical” dominion over the occupied West Bank.

Elise Stefanik’s comment came during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. 

At the hearing, Elise Stefanik pledged to continue the US’s defense of Israel and advance Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.

Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, further said that she supports the claims made by the far right in Israel that Jews have the “biblical right” to take land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Stefanik was definitive when asked if she shared the view of far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and former hawkish minister Itamar Ben Gvir that Israel has a “biblical right to the entire West Bank”.

She responded with one word, “Yes.”

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen further asked Stefanik whether she supported Palestinians' right to self-determination.

Stefanik refused to answer the question directly, saying, “I think they deserve more than the failures that they have suffered under the leadership of terrorists.”

Representative Stefanik was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2014, the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time, at just 30 years old, and represented New York's 21st Congressional District.

She is known to be a staunch advocate of Israel supports its decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 

Stefanik is an advocate of claims by Zionists that that Israeli regime is justified in killing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their lands and homes.

She made headlines in 2024 by questioning the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about what she claimed was antisemitism on college campuses.

At the time, US students at university campuses all across the country were protesting Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

After positioning herself as a champion in the fight against the alleged rise in antisemitism, Rep. Stefanik began receiving large donations from Republican Jewish donors.

Stefanik has long been one of most ardent defenders Israeli occupation and annexation policy. 

In June 2024, US-Israeli billionaire Miriam Adelson reportedly donated $100 million to Trump for his presidential campaign in exchange for a promise to allow Israel to annex the West Bank. 

Israel's occupation and Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 have brought the Palestinian Christian community to the brink of extinction.