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@Noon: ⚖️UP's Unlawful Conversions Act Gets Into Action
1. 🧑⚖️First conviction under UP's 'love jihad law'
A 25-year-old man named Mohammed Afzal has been convicted by an UP court.
What for? He was accused of concealing his religious identity to trap a minor girl in a relationship for the purpose of her conversion.
Afzal posed as Armaan Kohli and a Lord Shiva devotee to trap the 16-year-old girl in a relationship.
He made her elope with him, away from the guardianship of her parents, from UP to Delhi.
He did all of this to forcefully convert her to his religion.
The district court of Amroha sentenced Afzal to five years in prison with a fine of Rs 40,000.
Swarajya reporting: “We wish he got a longer jail term,” Sharad Agarwal, father of the girl, told us.
Significance: This is the first conviction under the state’s anti-conversion law that came into effect in November 2020.
The ‘love jihad law’ makes it an offence when someone carries out unlawful conversion by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by fraudulent means, or by marriage.
In the case of interfaith marriages, it is mandatory for the couple to present an affidavit in front of the magistrate weeks prior to the conversion. The waiting period varies from state to state.
If a minor girl or a woman from SC or ST is converted through the said unlawful means, the jail term is minimum of three years and can extend to 10 years with a fine of Rs 25,000.
Bottom line: Cases like this one follow a pattern of crimes which has been given the name ‘love jihad’ by Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and tribal groups.
Swarajya has reported hundreds of such crimes of the same pattern, with several testimonies of victims sharing traumatic experiences.
2. 🚢Indian Navy to get a lot more BrahMos missiles
We are talking 38 additional BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles for the Navy's frontline warships.
Context: The Defence Ministry signed a Rs 1,700 crore deal with BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, an India-Russia joint venture, just yesterday.
The missiles will be used in both anti-ship and land attack roles.
Over the years, the Defence Ministry has signed deals worth Rs 38,000 crore for the missile.
A mighty weapon? BrahMos has evolved into a ‘brahmastra’ over the last 20 years, its makers say.
It has become a critical component of the Indian armed forces' offensive firepower.
It has given the Indian Army, Air Force, and Navy a precision-strike option and the ability to hit enemy targets from stand-off ranges.
Pushing the envelope. In May this year, the BrahMos missile was test-fired from a Su-30 MKI fighter of the IAF.
This was the first time the new 450-km range BrahMos missile was tested from air.
With this test, "IAF has achieved the capability to carry out precision strikes from Su-30MKI aircraft against a land/sea target over very long ranges," the Ministry of Defence said.
Worry for China. Su-30MKI, equipped with the new version of BrahMos, can hit warships and vessels entering the Indian Ocean through the various choke points in the east.
This includes the Malacca Strait, a narrow maritime passage between Malaysia and Singapore that links the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.
A large part of China's trade, including nearly 80 per cent of its oil supplies, passes through this narrow 500 nautical-mile waterway.
More and more made in India. By 2018, the missile had already reached 65 per cent indigenisation by value from 10-12 per cent in early years.
In January this year, India tested an improved version of the BrahMos, which had around 70 per cent indigenous content.
3. 😯India, US closer than ever before?
This is what the Pentagon had to say.
Context: The India-US relationship today is more closely aligned than ever before, a senior Pentagon official told a group of reporters and think-tank experts.
Apparently, the US is focused on the long game despite "bumps in the road along the way."
Unsurprisingly, part of this focus is on "supporting India's ability to shape a favourable balance of power in the Indo Pacific."
The "bumps" in question. This in reference to different approaches on issues like Russia and Pakistan.
Dr Ely S Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, put the different approaches down to "different histories, different strategic environments," and said "we have to work together to manage through those differences.”
According to Ratner, their top priority is "bolstering India's military capability and its deterrent capability and supporting its rise as a defense industrial power.”
He says they are achieving "previously unimaginable" levels of cooperation in the maritime domain and navy-to-navy ties.
Next up: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is scheduled to meet the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on Monday.
4. 🎒🏢More opportunities for Kannadigas in education, jobs
A new bill in Karnataka proposes beneficial measures for Kannadigas.
The bill was introduced by Kannada and Culture Minister V Sunil Kumar in the assembly yesterday.
It provides reservation to Kannadigas in higher education and professional courses
There's an element of concessions or grant-in aid for industries with jobs for locals.
The rough recurring expenditure is estimated to be Rs 3.21 crore.
Who's a Kannadiga? A person — or their parents or, in their absence, their legal guardian — who is/are a resident of Karnataka for not less than 15 years and knows how to read and write Kannada, as per the bill.
What the bill says. Despite being Karnataka's official language, Kannada hasn't been properly implemented in that vein in the state.
Quote. "The Kannada Language has been introduced as one of the Language subjects in Schools but there is no proper provision for learning of Kannada Language in the Higher or Technical or Professional Education," the bill states.
It notes that there's been a failure to use and implement the language in offices, shops, establishments, and industry.
Kannada push. Some features of the bill are:
Kannada will be taught in higher, technical, and professional education courses.
Reservation is proposed for students who have studied in the Kannada medium from Class 1 to 10 or in the Kannada medium in other states.
Reservation for Kannadigas is necessary to avail concessions related to land or tax or grant-in aid by private organisations.
Kannada teaching units will be set up to teach the language to non-Kannada speakers in industry and state or central government offices with more than 100 employees.
Kannada shall be used for all official and administrative purposes and correspondences in the state.
5. 🏁The 'Grand Prix of Bharat'
The MotoGP world championship, the pinnacle of two-wheel racing, will be held in India for the first time next year.
The championship will be held from 2023-24 to 2030-2031 and will be called 'Grand Prix of Bharat'.
The race will be held at the Buddh International Circuit in Noida.
Organisers are reportedly targeting a slot on the 2023 calendar.
"India is key to our scheme of taking MotoGP to new frontiers,” Dorna M D Carlos Ezpeleta has said.
"We look forward to gaining a wider fan base in India with the Grand Prix of Bharat," he added.
6. 🛰️Clearest view of Neptune's rings!
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first images of Neptune.
What's revealed: The clearest view of the distant planet's rings in more than 30 years.
In addition to several bright, narrow rings, the Webb image clearly shows Neptune's fainter dust bands.
Also captured are seven of Neptune's 14 known moons.
A very bright point of light seen in Webb’s images is Neptune's large and unusual moon, Triton.
NASA's Voyager 2 was the first spacecraft to observe Neptune during its flyby in 1989.
Neptune, quick facts. The planet is located 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth.
It orbits in the remote, dark region of the outer solar system.
It is characterised as an ice giant due to the chemical make-up of its interior.
Compared to the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune is much richer in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
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