The Evening Wrap: Centre frowns upon same-sex marriage in Supreme Court

The Centre in the Supreme Court frowned upon same-sex marriage while invoking the “accepted view” that a marriage between a biological man and woman is a “holy union, a sacrament and a sanskar” in India. “The institution of marriage has a sanctity attached to it and in major parts of the country, it is regarded as a sacrament, a holy union, and a sanskar. In our country, despite statutory recognition of the relationship of marriage between a biological man and a biological woman, marriage necessarily depends upon age-old customs, rituals, practices, cultural ethos and societal values,” the Centre said in a 56-page affidavit filed on March 12. The affidavit came in response to the Court’s decision to examine petitions to allow solemnisation of same-sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act. Any “deviation” from this “statutorily, religiously and socially” accepted norm in “human relationship” can only happen through the legislature and not the Supreme Court, the government said. The government argued that the Court had only decriminalised sexual intercourse between same-sex persons in its 2018 judgement in Navtej Singh Johar, and not legitimised this “conduct”. It said a same-sex marriage cannot be compared to a man and women living as a family with children born out of the union. Registration of marriage of same-sex persons would also result in violation of existing personal as well as codified law provisions. It said statutory recognition of hetrosexual marriage was the norm throughout history and is “foundational to both the existence and continuance of the state”. The government said there was a “compelling interest” for the society and the state to limit recognition to heterosexual marriages only. PM Modi inaugurates Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 118 km-long 10-lane expressway between Bengaluru and Mysuru and laid the foundation stone for four-lane highway between Mysuru and Kushalnagar. The Expressway reduces the travel time between Bengaluru and Mysuru from three hours to about 75 minutes. The access-controlled Expressway built at a cost of ₹ 8,480 crore encompasses a portion of National Highway 275 comprising four rail overbridges, nine significant bridges, 40 minor bridges and 89 underpasses and overpasses. Later, speaking at a public function at Gejjalagere in Mandya district, PM Modi emphasised the need for a ‘double engine’ government in Karnataka if the State were to make rapid progress. He said infrastructure projects like highways will not only provide facilities for transport and connectivity, but also attract investment, generate employment and create sources of income. All members enjoy unhindered right to express their views in Parliament, says Om Birla All members enjoy “unhindered right” to express their views in Parliament, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said during his address at the 14th Assembly of Inter-Parliamentary Union. Speaking on the topic of “promoting peaceful co-existence and inclusive societies: fight against intolerance” Birla said, “In India we have a robust participatory democracy and a vibrant multiparty system where hopes and aspirations of the citizens find expression through the elected representatives. All members enjoy the freedom to express their views and thoughts in Lok Sabha.” The Congress has attacked the Lok Sabha speaker for expunging 18-portions of party leader Rahul Gandhi’s speech delivered on February 6. Gandhi, in his speeches across the country, has said that he was not allowed to speak in the Lok Sabha and that his microphone was muted on multiple occasions. The global issues, Birla said, should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. “Parliament of India has always held extensive and meaningful debate and deliberations on contemporary global challenges such as climate change, gender inequality, sustainable development and COVID-19 pandemic.” He also stressed the need for reform in the United Nations Security Council which could not be delayed any further. India was ready to fulfil its global obligations, Birla siad, highlighting the country’s role in articulating the Global Climate Action Plan. Rishi Sunak, Joe Biden, Anthony Albanese to meet in San Diego to finalise AUKUS deal U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is heading to San Diego on March 12 to finalise the AUKUS deal, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. that will provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. The partnership was announced in September 2021 as part of the U.S. and U.K.’s strategies to more deeply deal with the Indo-Pacific, largely to counter Beijing’s assertiveness in the region, including what Canberra has described as Beijing’s “economic coercion“. “I am travelling to the United States today to launch the next stage of the AUKUS nuclear submarine programme, a project which is binding ties to our closest allies and delivering security, new technology and economic advantage at home,” Sunak said in a statement. He will have meetings on March 12 and March 13 with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.S. President Joe Biden. Albanese, who has just wrapped up a visit to India, announced on Twitter that he had arrived in the U.S. along with Australia’s Navy chief, Mark Hammond. The White House said Biden will fly to San Diego on Monday and will hold bilateral talks with Albanese and Sunak, in addition to AUKUS discussions. Currently only six countries have nuclear-fuelled submarines: India, the U.S., the U.K, France, Russia and China. Australia, whose fleet consists of six diesel-powered Collins-class submarines will be the seventh, once the AUKUS fleet is deployed. Canberra could acquire up to five Virginia-class submarines from the U.S., in the 2030s, under AUKUS, according to a Reuters report. It would also work with the U.K. to design a new generation of submarines, using American technology. These would likely not be ready until the 2040s. Finding COVID-19’s origins is a moral imperative: WHO’s Tedros Discovering the origins of COVID-19 is a moral imperative and all hypotheses must be explored, the head of the World Health Organization said, in his strongest comments yet that the U.N. body remains committed to finding how the virus arose. A U.S. agency was reported by the Wall Street Journal to have assessed the pandemic had likely been caused by an unintended Chinese laboratory leak, raising pressure on the WHO to come up with answers. Beijing denies the assessment. “Understanding #COVID19’s origins and exploring all hypotheses remains: a scientific imperative, to help us prevent future outbreaks (and) a moral imperative, for the sake of the millions of people who died and those who live with #LongCOVID,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted. He was writing to mark three years since the WHO first used the word “pandemic” to describe the global outbreak of COVID-19. In 2021, a WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan, China where the first human cases were reported and said in a joint report that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but further research was needed. In Brief: Second leg of Budget session from March 13; government says priority to pass Finance Bill The second leg of the Budget session will commence on March 13 with the government asserting that its priority is to pass the Finance Bill and the Opposition planning to raise issues like the action of central agencies against the BJP’s political rivals and allegations against the Adani group. The Opposition parties will meet on March 13 morning to evolve their strategy in both Houses of Parliament after protests by them on the Hindenburg-Adani issue overshadowed most of the first half of the Budget session. Qatar spied on former Swiss prosecutor probing FIFA: media Qatar spied on a former Swiss attorney-general and bugged his secret meeting with the FIFA chief, amid fears it could be stripped of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, according to media reports. An intelligence operation commissioned by Qatar bugged an informal meeting six years ago between Switzerland’s top prosecutor at the time Michael Lauber and FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, the NZZ am Sonntag weekly reported. The paper said its months-long investigation had revealed that the covert meeting in Bern on June 16, 2017, which after it was revealed cost Lauber his job, had been secretly recorded on behalf of Qatar. Qatar had denied the allegations, while Lauber’s lawyer told the paper his client was not aware of being spied on and had not been blackmailed. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 12 March 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]( Same-sex marriage case | Marriage holy union between man and woman, Centre tells Supreme Court The [Centre in the Supreme Court frowned upon same-sex marriage]( while invoking the “accepted view” that a marriage between a biological man and woman is a “holy union, a sacrament and a sanskar” in India. “The institution of marriage has a sanctity attached to it and in major parts of the country, it is regarded as a sacrament, a holy union, and a sanskar. In our country, despite statutory recognition of the relationship of marriage between a biological man and a biological woman, marriage necessarily depends upon age-old customs, rituals, practices, cultural ethos and societal values,” the Centre said in a 56-page affidavit filed on March 12. The affidavit came in response to the Court’s decision to examine petitions to allow solemnisation of same-sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act. Any “deviation” from this “statutorily, religiously and socially” accepted norm in “human relationship” can only happen through the legislature and not the Supreme Court, the government said. The government argued that the Court had only decriminalised sexual intercourse between same-sex persons in its 2018 judgement in Navtej Singh Johar, and not legitimised this “conduct”. It said a same-sex marriage cannot be compared to a man and women living as a family with children born out of the union. Registration of marriage of same-sex persons would also result in violation of existing personal as well as codified law provisions. It said statutory recognition of hetrosexual marriage was the norm throughout history and is “foundational to both the existence and continuance of the state”. The government said there was a “compelling interest” for the society and the state to limit recognition to heterosexual marriages only. PM Modi inaugurates Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway [Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 118 km-long 10-lane expressway between Bengaluru and Mysuru]( and laid the foundation stone for four-lane highway between Mysuru and Kushalnagar. The Expressway reduces the travel time between Bengaluru and Mysuru from three hours to about 75 minutes. The access-controlled Expressway built at a cost of ₹ 8,480 crore encompasses a portion of National Highway 275 comprising four rail overbridges, nine significant bridges, 40 minor bridges and 89 underpasses and overpasses. Later, speaking at a public function at Gejjalagere in Mandya district, PM Modi emphasised the need for a ‘double engine’ government in Karnataka if the State were to make rapid progress. He said infrastructure projects like highways will not only provide facilities for transport and connectivity, but also attract investment, generate employment and create sources of income. All members enjoy unhindered right to express their views in Parliament, says Om Birla [All members enjoy “unhindered right” to express their views in Parliament]( Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said during his address at the 14th Assembly of Inter-Parliamentary Union. Speaking on the topic of “promoting peaceful co-existence and inclusive societies: fight against intolerance” Birla said, “In India we have a robust participatory democracy and a vibrant multiparty system where hopes and aspirations of the citizens find expression through the elected representatives. All members enjoy the freedom to express their views and thoughts in Lok Sabha.” The Congress has attacked the Lok Sabha speaker for expunging 18-portions of party leader Rahul Gandhi’s speech delivered on February 6. Gandhi, in his speeches across the country, has said that he was not allowed to speak in the Lok Sabha and that his microphone was muted on multiple occasions. The global issues, Birla said, should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. “Parliament of India has always held extensive and meaningful debate and deliberations on contemporary global challenges such as climate change, gender inequality, sustainable development and COVID-19 pandemic.” He also stressed the need for reform in the United Nations Security Council which could not be delayed any further. India was ready to fulfil its global obligations, Birla siad, highlighting the country’s role in articulating the Global Climate Action Plan. Rishi Sunak, Joe Biden, Anthony Albanese to meet in San Diego to finalise AUKUS deal [U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is heading to San Diego on March 12 to finalise the AUKUS deal]( a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. that will provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. The partnership was announced in September 2021 as part of the U.S. and U.K.’s strategies to more deeply deal with the Indo-Pacific, largely to counter Beijing’s assertiveness in the region, including what Canberra has described as Beijing’s “economic coercion“. “I am travelling to the United States today to launch the next stage of the AUKUS nuclear submarine programme, a project which is binding ties to our closest allies and delivering security, new technology and economic advantage at home,” Sunak said in a statement. He will have meetings on March 12 and March 13 with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.S. President Joe Biden. Albanese, who has just wrapped up a visit to India, announced on Twitter that he had arrived in the U.S. along with Australia’s Navy chief, Mark Hammond. The White House said Biden will fly to San Diego on Monday and will hold bilateral talks with Albanese and Sunak, in addition to AUKUS discussions. Currently only six countries have nuclear-fuelled submarines: India, the U.S., the U.K, France, Russia and China. Australia, whose fleet consists of six diesel-powered Collins-class submarines will be the seventh, once the AUKUS fleet is deployed. Canberra could acquire up to five Virginia-class submarines from the U.S., in the 2030s, under AUKUS, according to a Reuters report. It would also work with the U.K. to design a new generation of submarines , using American technology. These would likely not be ready until the 2040s. Finding COVID-19’s origins is a moral imperative: WHO’s Tedros [Discovering the origins of COVID-19 is a moral imperative and all hypotheses must be explored]( the head of the World Health Organization said, in his strongest comments yet that the U.N. body remains committed to finding how the virus arose. A U.S. agency was reported by the Wall Street Journal to have assessed the pandemic had likely been caused by an unintended Chinese laboratory leak, raising pressure on the WHO to come up with answers. Beijing denies the assessment. “Understanding #COVID19’s origins and exploring all hypotheses remains: a scientific imperative, to help us prevent future outbreaks (and) a moral imperative, for the sake of the millions of people who died and those who live with #LongCOVID,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted. He was writing to mark three years since the WHO first used the word “pandemic” to describe the global outbreak of COVID-19. In 2021, a WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan, China where the first human cases were reported and said in a joint report that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but further research was needed. In Brief: Second leg of Budget session from March 13; government says priority to pass Finance Bill The [second leg of the Budget session will commence on March 13]( with the government asserting that its priority is to pass the Finance Bill and the Opposition planning to raise issues like the action of central agencies against the BJP’s political rivals and allegations against the Adani group. The Opposition parties will meet on March 13 morning to evolve their strategy in both Houses of Parliament after protests by them on the Hindenburg-Adani issue overshadowed most of the first half of the Budget session. Qatar spied on former Swiss prosecutor probing FIFA: media [Qatar spied on a former Swiss attorney-general and bugged his secret meeting with the FIFA chief]( amid fears it could be stripped of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, according to media reports. An intelligence operation commissioned by Qatar bugged an informal meeting six years ago between Switzerland’s top prosecutor at the time Michael Lauber and FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, the NZZ am Sonntag weekly reported. The paper said its months-long investigation had revealed that the covert meeting in Bern on June 16, 2017, which after it was revealed cost Lauber his job, had been secretly recorded on behalf of Qatar. Qatar had denied the allegations, while Lauber’s lawyer told the paper his client was not aware of being spied on and had not been blackmailed. 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. [Subscribe Now!]( Today’s Top Picks [[Talking Politics with Nistula Hebbar | Karnataka elections | Why is there a scramble for Lingayat vote in Karnataka?] Talking Politics with Nistula Hebbar | Karnataka elections | Why is there a scramble for Lingayat vote in Karnataka?]( [[Under fire for Rahul’s comments, Cong. to seek support of Opposition parties to take on BJP] Under fire for Rahul’s comments, Cong. to seek support of Opposition parties to take on BJP]( [[Government to ensure net zero waste from buildings] Government to ensure net zero waste from buildings]( [[Ind vs Aus fourth Test | Shades of Sachin Tendulkar's epic 241 at Sydney in Virat Kohli's century] Ind vs Aus fourth Test | Shades of Sachin Tendulkar's epic 241 at Sydney in Virat Kohli's century]( Copyright @ 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. If you are facing any trouble in viewing this newsletter, please [try here]( If you do not wish to receive such emails [go here](