Table of Contents
Question of equality
- Supreme Court has an opportunity to reconsider its 2013 order criminalising gay sex
- SC upheld the validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises gay sex.
- Verdict in Suresh Kumar Koushal
- Having sexual intercourse “against the order of nature”
- LGBT community was just a “minuscule fraction” of the population
- Nine-judge Bench judgment in the „right to privacy‟ case- K.S. Puttaswamy
- The right to privacy and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.
- Fresh hope that the Delhi HC judgment of 2009, which read down Section 377 to decriminalise
- National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (2014), concerning the rights of transgender persons, questioned the Koushal reasoning
- Court must not confine itself to the issue of privacy, but also address the discrimination inherent in Section 377 on the basis of sexual orientation- Article 14, which protects the right to equality.
Avoiding roadkill
- Roads must be kept out of wildlife corridors to protect tigers and other animals
- Bor reserve in Maharashtra- building unsuitable roads through wildlife habitats has a terrible cost
- Tiger in its prime to a Hit-and-run accident is an irony- Most protected species.
- It is inevitable that new roads are built,
- But good scientific advice to keep them out of wildlife corridors is mostly ignored.
- The sensible response to the growing number of roadkills should be to stop road construction in wildlife habitat and reassess the impact.
- After all, protected areas are just 4% of the land
- Wildlife Institute of India states that tigers in at least 26 reserves face the destructive impact
of roads and traffic. - Insist on modification of existing roads to provide crossings for animals at locations
- National highway could block •Flow of genes between regions
- WildlifeAction Plan 2002-2016 announced by Atal BihariVajpayee
- Centre should order the modifications without delay wherever they are needed.
Prelims Focus Facts-News Analysis
- Page-1-The Supreme Court onTuesday modified its November
30, 2016, interim order and made it optional for cinema halls to play the 52-second
national anthem before every show - Home Ministry has appointed a 12-member inter-ministerial committee,
which will take a •final call on the playing of the national anthem in cinema halls and public places. - The committee, led by Additional Secretary B.R. Sharma
- Page-1,10-India, U.K. to ink illegal migrants pact
- India will sign a pact with the United Kingdom for a return of illegal Indian migrants within a month of their being detected by authorities.
- The U.K. has consistently raised the issue of return of illegal migrants — said to number in thousands — with India.The memorandum of understanding comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi‟s proposed visit in March.
- Page-1-No viable alternative to hanging, Centre tells court
- Supreme Court has sought less painful means of execution
Page-11-PIOs make „mini-world Parliament‟
- “First PIO Parliamentarian Conference”,
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