Justice Sanjiv Khanna takes oath as CJI. Photo Courtesy: Screenshot grab from X video
Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Monday took oath as the new Chief Justice of India, succeeding Justice DY Chandrachud.
Justice Khanna became the country’s 51st CJI.
He was recommended by Justice Chandrachud, who retired as the CJI on November 10 at the age of 65.
Justice Khanna will remain in office till May 13, 2025.
The new CJI, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2019, has been a part of benches that heard several politically-sensitive cases.
Justice Khanna was a part of the bench that granted bail to then Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, in the liquor policy case earlier this year.
He was also a part of the Constitutional benches that heard the cases like Article 370 abrogation and electoral bonds.
Vivek Ramaswamy, top Indian-American aide to President-elect Donald Trump, expressed his support for the mass deportation plan of illegal immigrants and said that the legal immigration system in the country is “broken”.
Vivek Ramaswamy. Photo courtesy: Screengrab from X
He said that those who broke the law while entering the United States have no right to stay here and they need to go.
“Do we have a broken legal immigration system? Yes, we do. But I think the first step is going to be to restore the rule of law, to do it in a very pragmatic way,” the entrepreneur-turned-politician told ABC News in an interview.
“Those who have entered in the last couple of years, they haven’t established roots in the country. Those who have committed a crime, should be out of this country. That is by the millions. That alone would be the largest mass deportation. Combine that with ending government aid for all illegals. You see self-deportations,” he said.
Ramaswamy appeared on multiple Sunday talk shows, the first after the stunning win of Donald Trump in the November 5 presidential elections. He told ABC News that he is having some “high impact” discussions on his future role in the administration, Congress of the party.
From being a rival of Trump during the Republican primaries, Ramaswamy has emerged as a staunch supporter and confidant of the President-elect.
It’s totally pragmatic to *immediately* deport illegal aliens who breached our border in the last year, anyone who is still detained, & those who committed a crime while here, while also ceasing every last dime of aid to anyone in this country illegally. No real counterarguments. https://t.co/a0MOsdUnaN
“I think he cares about uniting the country. I think that is Donald Trump’s number one focus. I do think we have to get back to a place after this election after that decisive victory, which I do think was a gift to the country. Get back to a place where ordinary Americans who might have voted differently amongst their family members or their colleagues or their neighbours, to be able to get together at the dinner table and say, we’re still Americans at the end of this, that’s very much Donald Trump’s headspace,” he said.
“He’s also learned a lot from that first term, and I think he’s going into this second term even to take to new heights some of the things he wasn’t able to accomplish in the first term, which I think is going to be a good thing,” Ramaswamy said.
The Republican Party, he said, is now a multi-ethnic working-class coalition. “You saw Black voters, Hispanic voters, young voters. That was a big one. A much younger composition of the Republican primary base came together on basic principles that really weren’t as beholden to older Republican orthodoxies, but principles like free speech, anti-censorship, meritocracy, and staying out of World War III. These are some of the common threads that bring together what is a pretty diverse and broad tent coalition to restore those basic constitutional principles,” he said.
US President-elect Donald Trump. Photo courtesy: www.instagram.com/realdonaldtrump/
“Here’s a big one. And Donald Trump talked for a long time about the deep state. But this idea of restoring self-governance is big in this new coalition. The idea that the people we elect to run the government, they haven’t been the ones actually running the government for a very long time,” Ramaswamy said.
“Donald Trump is going to be the President of the United States in the real sense of that word. Capital P President, where he is actually making the decisions with the democratic will of the people behind him, not the unelected bureaucratic class underneath him,” the Indian American said.
“That’s something that unites a common thread of even former Democrats to independents, to libertarians, to, of course, traditional Republicans as well. I think that that’s a common thread that unites us,” he said.
Trump, he said, is focused on what makes people’s lives better. “And actually, my message to Democrats out there, even those who didn’t vote for Donald Trump, is to give them a chance to actually make your life better. A lot of people across the country, even those who have bought into some false narratives about Donald Trump, are going to be pleasantly surprised to find more money in their paychecks, prices coming down in the country, and a secure border. Those are things most Americans actually care about,” Ramaswamy said.
Canadian Police arrest key organiser of Khalistani protest event in Brampton. Photo Courtesy: @ShawnBinda X page
Canadian Police have arrested a person for allegedly organising the violent demonstration at a temple in Toronto’s Brampton region where pro-Khalistan supporters attacked Hindu devotees last Sunday.
Peel Regional Police (PRP) identified the person as 35-year-old Inderjeet Gosal of Brampton.
“On November 8, 2024, he was arrested and charged with Assault with a Weapon,” the police said in a statement.
He was released on conditions and is to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton at a later date, the release said.
Police said investigators continue to analyze hundreds of videos of the incidents and are working to identify additional suspects involved in the incident.
According to media reports, Gosal is a coordinator for the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which is a banned organisation in India.
Officials told Hindustan Times that Gosal is the principal organiser of the so-called Khalistan referendum in Canada and has been charged in connection with the attack on the Hindu temple in Brampton last week.
He reportedly replaced Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar as Sikhs for Justice’s main Canadian organizer.
Nijjar was gunned down in June 2023 in British Columbia.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday condemned the “deliberate attack” on a Hindu temple in Brampton city.
Protests erupt across the USA following Donald Trump’s recent victory. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash
Thousands of people marched in various cities across the US, including New York, to protest against Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential polls.
Trump returned to power for his second term by beating his opponent Kamala Harris who joined the presidential race after outgoing President Joe Biden stepped down earlier this year owing to his cognitive decline.
Holding banners in their hands, a large number of demonstrators gathered outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower on 5th Avenue in New York to protest against the President-elect.
In Washington DC, Women’s March participants were seen demonstrating outside the Heritage Foundation.
A similar demonstration against Trump was held in Seattle.
“March and rally to protest Trump and the two-party war machine,” posters for the protests as quoted by The Guardian, adding: “Build the people’s movement and fight war, repression and genocide!”
Republican candidate Donald Trump won Arizona on Saturday, clinching a clean sweep in all seven swing states in the recently concluded US Presidential elections.
He ensured the 11 electoral votes to the Republican column after Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Trump’s win over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris marks the 78-year-old’s second victory in Arizona since 2016.
According to the latest figures, Trump has bagged 312 electoral votes, comfortably crossing the required 270 to occupy the White House.
During his previous win in 2016, he received 304 electoral votes.
Trump has won more than half of the 50 states, including swing states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all of which voted Democratic in the last election.
He also won the battleground states of North Carolina and Nevada.
As per the last update from various US networks, Harris has managed to win 226 electoral votes after making a wild card entrant in the elections after Joe Biden decided to opt out after stumbling in his debate with Trump.
First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Denis Manturov to visit India. Photo courtesy: Russian Embassy
Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov will visit India from Monday with a meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar scheduled on the second day of his tour in New Delhi.
As part of the visit, he will take part in the plenary session of the Russian-Indian Business Forum in Mumbai.
The event is aimed at expanding cooperation ties between entrepreneurs of the two countries, an official statement said.
The forum will include thematic sessions on current areas of interaction, including industrial cooperation, transport and logistics, finance, digital technologies, and interregional ties.
It is organized by the Business Council for Cooperation with India and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
On Tuesday, Denis Manturov and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will jointly hold the 25th Session of the Intergovernmental Russian-Indian Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation in New Delhi.
As part of his visit, Manturov has several bilateral meetings planned.
Three people have been charged in connection with the death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne in Argentina, media reports said.
Liam Payne died at the age of 31 | Photo courtesy: Liam Payne Facebook page
English singer and songwriter Payne died at the age of 31 on October 16 after falling from a hotel balcony at Buenos Aires, the capital city of the country.
The prosecutors said they charged someone close to Liam, a hotel employee and a suspected drug dealer.
Payne’s body had traces of alcohol, cocaine and antidepressant at the time of death.
Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office said one who was close to Liam has been accused of “abandonment of a person followed by death”, BBC News reported.
The hotel official has been accused of supplying cocaine and the third person- a drug dealer- is charged with supplying narcotics.
The prosecutors, who have ruled out suicide, said officials analysed 800 hours of video footage.
The prosecutors said in a statement quoted by The Guardian, “The lack of defence or self-preservation reflex in the fall, together with other relevant data from his consumption, allow us to conclude that Liam Payne was not fully conscious or was experiencing a state of noticeable decrease or loss of consciousness at the time of the fall.”
“Physical intervention by a third party,” they added.
On the day of Liam’s death, Buenos Aires Police had said its team members rushed to the hotel after receiving a 911 call about an “aggressive man who could be under the effects of drugs or alcohol”.
The hotel manager had said he heard a loud noise from the back of the inn.
Police, as they claimed, discovered Liam who had fallen from the balcony in his room.
Set in a tiny village caught in the violent cross-currents of the unparalleled political and social upheaval that was the Partition of India, the novel Train to Pakistan is one of the best-known works of Indian author and journalist Khushwant Singh. Dramatised for Kalaa Utsavam 2024, this classic is an Esplanade co-production with HuM Theatre.
Ahead of the play’s premiere at Kalaa Utsavam on November 20, Daisy Irani Subaiah (executive producer and director) and Subin Subaiah (playwright, dramatist, and researcher) speak to Connected to India about why this Partition story resonates with Singapore and with the wider 21st century world. The director and dramatist are both part of the cast as well.
What does a novel published in 1956, set in the turbulence of 1947, have to offer to audiences in 2024? Daisy and Subin believe that the global conflicts raging around us show how relevant this historical novel still is.
They say, “The Partition was a singularly traumatic period in Indian/Pakistani history, but that hardly means there are no lessons to be learned from it. The geopolitical environment around us is rife with wars and conflicts that destroy societies, communities and families, much as the Partition did to the Punjab. So, really, it is no stretch of the audience’s imagination to connect Train to Pakistan with the contemporary world we live in.”
Ashie Singh as NooranShrey Bhargava as Jagga
Interesting to note that in the village of Mano Majra, where the story is set, there is very little awareness of how the Partition has come to be, who the central figures are (Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah, Mountbatten), and why the British are leaving the Indian sub-continent. Three communities — Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims — have lived here in peace for ages. But with a new country carved out of India, a train needs to cross the border into Pakistan, and that moment of passage is the story’s denouement.
“Mano Majra discovers [in the play] that the harmony of the village can be disrupted by forces outside its control. So, if there is a lesson to be learned, it is that societies are fragile and we should not take our hard-earned stability for granted,” says Subin.
Singapore, with its close ties with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and home to the Indian diaspora, has an emotional link to the Partition.
Explaining the rationale for staging this historical play, Daisy says, “It is unbelievable how many people in Singapore have historical connections with events of the Partition. Singapore is about shared histories, and if we neglect to tell stories about our minority communities (in this case, the Punjabi Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus), we will be relegating them further into the archives.
“But it is not for this reason alone that we picked Train to Pakistan. Simply put, it is a heck of a humanistic story, full of intrigue and courage and love. It makes for good theatre. HuM has always been intent on trying to present plays that do two things — entertain and help to get to know each other just a little bit better. Train to Pakistan checks both boxes.”
Daisy Irani Subaiah plays the mother of the male protagonist Jagga in Train to Pakistan. Photo: Connected to India
Train to Pakistan has a total of eight shows from November 20 to 24 at Esplanade Theatre Studio, and standard tickets are priced at SGD 65.
Cast members Subin Subaiah, Monil SJ, and Aizuddiin Nasser. Photo courtesy: HuM Theatre
For such a famous novel and with so much theatrical and cinematic potential, Train to Pakistan has not made it often to the stage and the screen. That gives the HuM Theatre production an extra touch of freshness.
“To the best of our reckoning, there haven’t been a whole lot of adaptations of Train to Pakistan out there,” says Subin, citing “one Bollywood movie and a couple of Indian language plays over the years”.
To keep their own production distinctive from the rest, Daisy and Subin “deliberately avoided watching any such material available”.
They say, “No disrespect intended, but we wanted to bring our own vision to Mr [Khushwant] Singh’s tale of this turbulent time. We relied more on the text of the novel, interviews with people who were viscerally connected to the Partition, and independent research.”
Singapore Police officers and participating banks sent over 9,000 SMS messages to more than 6,700 bank customers identified as potential scam victims. Representative photo courtesy: Pixabay/RoraHero
The Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) of the Singapore Police Force has worked together with 5 banks to foil 1,338 ongoing scams, and this collaboration has “averted potential financial losses of more than SGD 53 million”, according to a media release.
The participating financial institutions are DBS Bank, HSBC Bank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and UOB Bank. They worked with law enforcement, utilising Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology to identify victims of job, investment, fake friend call, and e-commerce scams.
The swift identification of victims enabled the police and the banks to promptly reach out to them and alert them to the scams, thereby minimising losses.
“Between 1 September and 31 October 2024, the ASC officers and participating banks sent over 9,000 SMS messages to more than 6,700 bank customers identified as potential scam victims. The detection of these potential scam victims resulted in the successful disruption of over 1,338 ongoing scams and averted potential financial losses of more than $53 million,” said the release.
How does RPA technology prevent scams?
“The adoption of RPA technology streamlined the sharing and processing of information, enabling the police to swiftly reach out to potential scam victims through SMSes,” said the release.
“The SMS alerts notified the potential scam victims to the suspicious transfers [that] the scammers had instructed them to perform, and advised them against effecting further transfers. Upon receiving the SMSes, most victims would realise that they had fallen prey to a scam and would come forward to lodge a police report,” it added.
The Singapore Police Force has urged members of the public to “ACT” against scams. ACT stands for: Add security features; Check for signs; and Tell the authorities and others about scams.
● ADD – Add security features such as the ‘ScamShield’ application and two-factor authentication for personal accounts, such as banks, social media, and Singpass accounts. Transaction limits for Internet banking, including PayNow, could also be set up to limit the amount of funds that can be lost in the event of a scam.
● CHECK – Check for potential signs of a scam by asking questions, fact-checking requests for personal information and money transfers, and verifying the legitimacy of online listings and reviews. Take the time to pause and check. If it is too good to be true, it is probably untrue, and a scam.
● TELL – Tell the authorities and others about scam encounters by reporting to the bank, ScamShield, or by filing a police report. Tell others about common scams and the preventive steps they can take. Report the fraudulent pages and/or monikers to the respective platforms.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamshield.gov.sg or call the ScamShield Helpline at 1799. Anyone with information on such scams may call the Police Hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/i-witness. All information will be kept strictly confidential.
Justin Trudeau admits presence of Khalistani elements in his country. Photo Courtesy: Justin Trudeau Instagram page
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has admitted that Khalistani supporters are present in his country but said they do not represent the entire Sikh community of the nation as a whole.
He made the comment at a time when the ties between India and Canada had touched a new low leading to retaliatory expulsion of diplomats.
“There are many supporters of Khalistan in Canada, but they do not represent the Sikh Community as a whole. There are supporters of the Modi government in Canada, but they do not represent all Hindu Canadians as a whole,” Trudeau said in his address to the Indian community during Diwali celebrations at Ottawa’s Parliament Hill as quoted by India Today.
A recent standoff between New Delhi and Ottawa was triggered after Justin Trudeau accused Indian officials of being involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
India-Canada standoff over Khalistani row
India responded sharply after Canada called the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats “persons of interest” in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Growing tension within Canada
Triggering fresh tensions, a large number of suspected Khalistani supporters last week attacked Hindu devotees outside a temple in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
The Canadian Prime Minister has called the attack on the temple “unacceptable” and asserted everyone has the right to practise their religion “freely and safely”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday condemned the “deliberate attack” on a Hindu temple in Brampton.
PM Modi also slammed the attempt to “intimidate” Indian diplomats in Canada, calling the situation ‘appalling’ and urging the Canadian government to ensure justice.
In a strongly worded post, PM Modi said: “I strongly condemn the deliberate attack on a Hindu temple in Canada. Equally appalling are the cowardly attempts to intimidate our diplomats. Such acts of violence will never weaken India’s resolve. We expect the Canadian government to ensure justice and uphold the rule of law.”
Russian government planning to set up a Ministry of Sex. Photo Courtesy: Pixabay
The Russian government is planning to set up a Ministry of Sex to deal with the falling birth rate in the country.
Putin-loyalist Nina Ostanina, 68, chairwoman of the Russian parliament’s committee on Family Protection, Paternity, Maternity and Childhood, is scrutinising a petition demanding such a move, reported The Mirror.
Russian government officials are coming up with weird proposals to combat the challenge of declining demographics in the country, it said.
One unusual proposal that has been made is to stop the internet and turn off the lights between 10pm and 2am to encourage couples to have sex.
Another idea is for the state to pay stay-at-home women raising children for doing housework, and to include this in their pension calculations. One more notion is that the state should pay for first dates – up to the value of 5,000 roubles [£40], reported The Mirror.
Another proposal is that public cash should fund wedding nights in hotels for couples up to a value of 26,300 roubles [£208] in the hope this stimulates pregnancies.
It is still not clear who initiated the proposal of setting up the Ministry.
Several regions in the country have initiated their plans to encourage couples to have children.
Female students in Khabarovsk region aged 18 to 23 are to be paid £900 on the birth of a child under a new initiative, the Mirror report said.
In Chelyabinsk, students will be paid £8,500 for the birth of their first child.
