Times Top10: Today's Top News Headlines and Latest News from India & across the World | Times of India (2024)

What

• The seventh and last phase of polls will see voting in 57 Lok Sabha constituencies, spanning seven states and one Union Territory.
• A total of 904 candidates are vying for victory in these constituencies.

Total tally

• Polling will be held in all 13 seats of Punjab; all four seats in Himachal Pradesh: three seats out of the 14 in Jharkhand; six out of the 21 seats in Odisha; 13 out of the 80 seats in UP; eight out of the 40 seats in Bihar; nine out of the 42 seats in West Bengal; and the sole seat of Chandigarh, a UT.

Key players

• In Varanasi, PM Modi seeks re-election from this high-profile constituency, aiming for a third consecutive term. Opposing him is Congress’s Ajay Rai.
• In Himachal’s Mandi, BJP’s Kangana Ranaut makes her electoral debut, as she faces Vikramaditya Singh of Congress.
• In Chandigarh, BJP’s Sanjay Tandon, stands against Congress nominee and former Union minister Manish Tewari, backed by AAP.
• In Bihar's Pataliputra, RJD fields Lalu Prasad Yadav's eldest daughter Misa Bharti against BJP candidate Ram Kripal Yadav, who joined the party ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, and has won twice before.
• In West Bengal's Diamond Harbour, Mamata Banerjee's TMC fields Abhishek Banerjee against CPI(M)’s Pratikur Rahaman and Abhijit Das of the BJP.
• In Bihar’s Patna Sahib, former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad seeks re-election from this BJP stronghold and faces a challenge from Congress candidate Anshul Abhijeet, son of former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar.

Till now

• The fate of 487 constituencies out of the total 543 has been sealed, with the conclusion of the first six phases of the Lok Sabha elections.
• The turnout in the first six phases was 66.14%, 66.71%, 65.68%, 69.16%, 62.2% and 63.36% respectively — an overall low compared to 2019.
• The results of the 2024 elections will be announced on June 4.

Boom phase

• India’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.8% in January-March 2024, compared with January-March 2023.
• The latest GDP data was released on Friday evening.
• The unexpectedly strong performance pushed up the GDP growth figure for the entire 2023-24 financial year to 8.2%, compared with 7% for the previous year.
• Both government spending and resilient consumer demand contributed to the growth.
• Economists say India’s GDP is likely to show robust growth in the current fiscal year also.

Analysts surprised

• The robust growth beat analysts’ expectations by a wide margin.
• The consensus was that the GDP would grow by 5.9-6.7% in the final quarter of financial year 2023-24, and 7.8% over the entire year.
• However, India ended the year with 8.2% growth in April-June, 8.1% in July-September, 8.4% in October-December and 7.8% in January-March.

Strong nominal GDP

• In nominal terms — without factoring in inflation — GDP grew by 9.9% in the last quarter, and 9.6% over the whole year.
• Data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) shows India’s ‘gross value added’ or GVA, which is GDP minus taxes, grew by 6.3% year-on-year in the January-March quarter.
• Some economists consider GVA a better indicator of economic growth.
• The full year’s GVA growth came to 7.2%, as against 6.7% in FY 2022-23.

World takes note

• On Wednesday, international ratings agency S&P had upgraded India’s sovereign rating outlook from ‘stable’ to ‘positive’.
• It cited robust growth, improved quality of public spending in the past five years and expectation of broad continuity in reforms and fiscal policies for raising the outlook.
• S&P also said India could see a rating upgrade in the next 24 months if it adopts cautious fiscal and monetary policies to reduce the government’s debt and interest burden.

Legal system

• India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, is poised for significant transformation over the next decades, but this progress requires a legal system that is currently slow and inefficient.

Challenges

• As of Dec 2023, the 25 high courts had over 61 lakh cases pending and the subordinate courts, more than 4.4 crore.
• The challenge is that our large population can translate into an equally large caseload necessitating hard decisions and a radical approach to get the job done.

Two critical parts

• A legal system has two critical parts: the bar and the bench. Judicial reform discussions often focus solely on the latter while neglecting lawyers, but both facets must be addressed.

Bench press

• The government has created additional capacity and reduced court workloads through administrative tribunals (such as the National Company Law Tribunal and tax tribunals) and forums like Lok Adalat.
• Additional capacity can be built by recruiting lawyers from the bar on a temporary basis and promoting specialised tribunals.

Backlog

• The bulk of pending cases involve government entities, leading to redundant legal disputes and inflated costs.
• Transformative change requires government departments to exercise litigation discretion, ensuring accountability through pre-litigation evaluation by a panel.

Streamlining

• India should adopt the UK's approach for commercial cases, enforcing firm timelines and substantial costs for delays, while courts should prioritise efficient resolutions through document-based or oral arguments when possible.

Litigation costs

• Litigation costs should be set upfront, with courts enforcing 'security for costs' and penalising non-payment, while preliminary assessments allocate costs and money recovery cases account for bank-rate interest and legal costs.

Disciplining lawyers

• Transparency and accountability are essential for lawyers to address issues like personal adjournments, fraud, baseless arguments, and inexperience, necessitating an impartial disciplinary body to handle negligence and unethical behaviour.

What else…

• Improving case disposal needs better-trained judges assigned by expertise. Discourage frivolous litigation with a centralised case registry.
• Creating specialised tribunals to enforce proceedings within six months will boost investor confidence, improve citizens' quality of life, and ensure efficient justice, which is crucial for India's global standing. More here

Historic conviction

• Donald Trump on Thursday became the first former US president ever convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty on all charges in his hush money case, months before an election that could see him return to the White House.

Charged

• After deliberating for over 11 hours across two days, the 12-member jury unanimously found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a payment to silence p*rn star Stormy Daniels.

The hush money case

• Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election, when her claim to have had sex with him could have proved fatal to his campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Released without bail

• The 77-year-old Republican, who was released without bail, is now a felon — a historic and startling first in a country where the president is frequently described as the most powerful man in the world.
• Trump now could, in theory, be sentenced to four years in prison for each count but is more likely to receive probation.

Trump’s defiance

• "I'm a very innocent man," Trump told reporters, vowing that the "real verdict" would come from voters on election day.
• He branded the trial "rigged" and a "disgrace."

What next

• For now, he faces no formal campaign restrictions, and remains highly competitive in polls.
• But his sentencing on the New York convictions is approaching July 11, the other cases are still looming, and the Constitution and US law have clear answers for only some of the questions that have arisen and may still arise, reports NYT.

Other legal troubles

• Trump also faces federal and state charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Biden, and for hoarding secret documents after leaving the White House.
• However, those trials — on far weightier alleged crimes — are unlikely to get underway before the presidential election.

Clue 1: It was first televised in 1946
Clue 2: Kids are given two minutes to form a word
Clue 3: Since 1999, 28 of the last 34 national winners have been Indian American

Scroll below for answer

What

• Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday issued a show-cause notice to Air India for inordinate delays in two of its international flights.
• The airline allegedly failed to take care of passengers in the sweltering heat.
• DGCA’s notice said AI’s Delhi-San Francisco flight was delayed on May 30 and its Mumbai-San Francisco flight was delayed on May 24.

24-hour delay

• On Thursday, Air India’s Delhi-San Francisco flight was delayed by more than 24 hours.
• Instead of taking off at 3.20 pm on Thursday, it departed at 7 pm on Friday.
• Passengers complained they were made to board even though the air conditioning was not on. Some of them were said to have fainted.

Recurring drama

• DGCA pointed out that incidents of passengers facing discomfort on Air India flights had repeatedly come to its notice.
• It said Air India is not complying with DGCA provisions on facilities that should be provided to passengers if they are denied boarding, or a flight is cancelled or delayed.

Flyers complain

• “People were made to board the plane and sit without AC. Then deplaned and not allowed to enter the terminal because immigration was done,” Abhishek Sharma, a passenger, wrote on X.
• He said they were taken to a hotel and rooms were provided by 2am on Friday. Then, new boarding passes were given with the departure time of 11am, but even this flight was cancelled.
• Tagging Air India, another person wrote: “My parents got stuck in this flight due to your delay of more than 8 hours with no AC working and the flight was changed to 20 hours later with an additional aircraft change. Is this how you treat people, especially senior citizens?” More here

What

• Justice MS Sonak of the Bombay High Court on Friday gave his consent for an ‘End of Life Care (EOLC) will’ at a function in Goa.
• With this, Goa became the first state in the country to implement and operationalise the living will facility in the true letter and spirit of the Supreme Court's directives, the judge noted.

Landmark execution

• Under a 'living will', a person can give directions about his or her end-of-life treatment choices by executing such a document.
• Dr Sandesh Chodankar and Dinesh Shetty acted as witnesses, with Dr Medha Salkar, chief medical officer at the Directorate of Services Goa, officiating the process as a gazetted officer at the function held near Panaji.

Promoting awareness

• Justice Sonak urged individuals to familiarise themselves with the complexities of living wills to make well-informed decisions regarding their end-of-life preferences.
• The event, organised by the Goa branch of the Indian Medical Association and the Goa State Legal Services Authority, aimed to raise awareness about Advance Medical Directives.
• A booklet on the subject was also released during the occasion.

A reform

• Dr Salkar noted that the apex court, through its judgement in 2023, facilitated the End of Life Care will, which he described as a boon for terminally ill patients.
• He shared his personal experience, mentioning that his father endured prolonged suffering because the option of executing a living will was unavailable at that time.
• The Supreme Court through its 2023 judgement modified an earlier ruling to make the implementation of Advance Medical Directives easier.

What

• The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday took suo motu cognisance of deaths due to heat wave and stated that there is a need to declare heat waves as a ‘national calamity’.
• So far five people have died in the state due to the ongoing heat wave conditions, according to the Rajasthan government.

What the court wants

• The single-judge bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand has directed the state government to provide proper compensation in case of deaths due to heat waves.
• The judge said that on December 18, 2015, the central government had introduced the Death Prevention and Cold Wave Bill 2015 in Rajya Sabha, but this has still not come into effect.
• Wants state authorities to sprinkle water on roads that see heavy public movement, and to build cooling stations to offer suitable hydration to workers who work in the open.

Claiming lives

• In Bihar, 14 people, including 10 polling personnel, have died due to heatstroke in Bihar in the last 24 hours.
• Delhi, where the temperatures reportedly crossed 50 degrees, recorded its first heat-related death this week, with the passing away of a 40-year-old labourer, on Wednesday.
• At least four people died of sunstroke in Jharkhand on May 31, while 1,326 others were admitted to hospital in Jharkhand.
• Reports indicate that over 50 people have died across North India due to the heat last week.

Some respite

• The prevailing heat wave conditions over many parts of North, Northwest and Central India will abate gradually during the next two to three days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has assured.

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