The Evening Wrap: Gehlot has ‘no problems’ welcoming back Pilot

The Hindu Newsletter - The Morning Filter Saturday 01, August 2020 [alt_text]( The Evening Wrap [Here are the biggest news stories of the day]( [alt_text]( Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying safe. Gehlot says he has no problem welcoming back Pilot Reversing his earlier stand, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said on Saturday that if the Congress high command forgives the rebels, which include former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, then [he will also welcome them back]( in the fold. Gehlot on earlier occasions had used harsh words for Pilot, calling him “nikamma” or useless, at a time when the Congress leadership was working hard to mend bridges with the rebel camp. Answering queries from reporters, Gehlot said if the Congress high command forgives the dissidents, he will embrace them. Gehlot was on his way back to Jaipur after an overnight stay at Jaisalmer’s Suryagarh Resort, where the Congress MLAs are staying. Congress internal rift out in open as 3 former ministers defend UPA-2 Three former Union ministers, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and Milind Deora, came out in defence of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and the UPA-II government following Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Satav’s recent comments at a virtual party meeting. During a recent meeting of the party’s Rajya Sabha members with President Sonia Gandhi, when former Union Minister Kapil Sibal remarked that the party needed to introspect, Satav had retorted that introspection should begin from the UPA-2 period, focussing on how the Congress fell to 44 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. Satav is considered close to Rahul Gandhi and his comments are seen as a symptom of the deep divide between the old guard and the young that has nearly crippled the party. Tewari, who was the Information and Broadcasting Minister in UPA-2, initiated the debate on Twitter. “BJP was out of power for 10 yrs 2004-14. Not once did they ever blame Vajpayee or his Govt for their then predicaments. In Congress unfortunately some ill-informed ones would rather take swipes at Dr. Manmohan Singh-led UPA government than fight NDA/BJP. When unity is required they divide,” he said in a tweet on Saturday. Deora applauded Tewari’s comments. Noting that while demitting office in 2014 former PM Singh had said that “[history will be kinder to me](”, he tweeted, “Could he [Singh] have ever imagined that some from his own party would dismiss his years of service to the nation and seek to destroy his legacy -- that, too, in his presence?” Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor joined in, tweeting, “UPA’s transformative ten years were distorted and traduced by a motivated and malicious narrative. There’s plenty to learn from our defeats and much to be done to revive Congress. But not by playing into the hands of our ideological enemies.” N. Ram, Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhushan move SC against Contempt of Court Act Senior journalists N. Ram and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan have jointly moved the Supreme Court [against a law that allows criminal contempt action]( to be initiated on the “incurably vague” ground that a publication may tend to or even scandalise or lower the authority of a court of law. [ The trio said the contempt law in question was unconstitutional, rooted in colonialism and produced a chilling effect on free speech and expression. ] The trio said the contempt law in question was unconstitutional, rooted in colonialism and produced a chilling effect on free speech and expression. They said the contempt law in question was unconstitutional, rooted in colonialism and produced a chilling effect on free speech and expression. Their petition focusses on the legality of Section 2(c)(i) of the Contempt of Court Act. The section holds that it amounts to criminal contempt if a person publishes, by words spoken or written or by any other act, anything “which scandalises or tends to scandalise or lowers or tends to lower the authority of any court”. “‘Scandalising the court’ is rooted in colonial assumption and objects, which have no place in legal orders committed to democratic constitutionality and maintenance of an open robust public sphere,” the petition said. A “defective” contempt petition In another development, lawyer Prashant Bhushan has approached the Supreme Court to recall the contempt action issued against him for a tweet, saying it is [based on “defective” petitions]( “illegally” listed for judicial hearing by the court’s own Secretary General. The petition said the action of the Secretary General to “unilaterally” list the case before a Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra amounted to the “usurpation” of the role of the Chief Justice of India as the ‘master of the roster’. The “defective” contempt petition was filed by Mahek Maheshwari against Bhushan’s tweet on a photograph of Chief Justice Sharad A. Bobde on a motorbike. This tweet and another one by Bhushan about the Supreme Court led to Justice Mishra Bench initiating suo motu contempt proceedings against him on July 22. Two days later, on July 24, the same Bench resumed hearings in a 2009 contempt case. This case concerned Bhushan’s remarks about the judiciary during an interview with Tehelka magazine. Bhushan wants both these orders to be recalled, or, in the alternative, be heard as and when physical court hearings resume. Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh passes away Rajya Sabha MP and former Samajwadi Party leader [Amar Singh]( has died in Singapore where he was undergoing treatment. Singh, 64, had undergone kidney transplant in 2011 and was not keeping well for a long time. [ Amar Singh. ] Amar Singh. “Saddened to know about the death of senior leader and parliamentarian Amar Singh,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted. Earlier in the day, the former Samajwadi leader had posted messages on Twitter, paying tributes to Bal Gangadhar Tilak on his 100th death anniversary and also wishing people on Eid. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of [coronavirus]( cases reported from India stood at 17,33,580 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 36,982. Signalling that things are getting better, the Centre has decided to allow the export of indigenously made ventilators. The decision was taken as India continues to maintain a progressively declining low rate of fatality among Covid-19 patients, which currently stands at 2.15 per cent. “[This] means fewer numbers of active cases are on ventilators”, the Union health ministry said in a statement. [ A health official collects a nasal swab sample from a woman to test for coronavirus, in Amritsar on July 31, 2020. ] A health official collects a nasal swab sample from a woman to test for coronavirus, in Amritsar on July 31, 2020. In Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, seeking directions to LG Anil Baijal to allow hotels and weekly markets in the city. Sisodia’s letter comes a day after Baijal rejected the Arvind Kejriwal government’s decision to allow hotels and weekly markets to reopen in the national capital, saying the Covid-19 situation continues to be “fragile” and the threat is still “far from over“. Meanwhile, as countries across the world debate whether to reopen of schools, a new study has found that children younger than five years with mild to moderate Covid-19 have much higher levels of the novel coronavirus genetic material in the nose compared to older children and adults. The findings, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, shed light on the possibility that the youngest children transmit the virus as much as other age groups. In Brief: Auto sales may finally be getting back on track. The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki, which accounts for nearly 50% share of the passenger vehicle market, has posted 1% growth in wholesale sales in July. However, India’s second largest passenger car maker Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) has reported a decline in domestic sales of 2% year-on-year (YoY) as compared to the corresponding month last year. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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