Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud has announced the return of a special bench to hear taxation cases in the Supreme Court. The dedicated bench is likely to sit every Wednesday and Thursday. In 2015-16, a tax bench comprising Justices Rohinton Nariman and A K Sikri would sit and help in speedy disposal of tax cases. Similar special benches were set up then for environment and social justice issues. While successive CJIs disbanded special benches, the tax bench is back. Studying Hard A five-member team from New Zealand visited the office of National Commission for Minorities chairperson, Sardar Iqbal Singh Lalpura, on Tuesday. On their agenda was to learn more about the status of minorities in India. With a sizable population of minorities in New Zealand, the delegation, including three officials of Indian origin, wanted to discuss how India deals with its minorities and related issues. Lalpura says New Zealand has traditionally approached different domestic issues, including that of minorities, with studious research. He then recalls his days as SSP Kapurthala, when a New Zealand team had gone there more than two decades ago to study and learn about Sikh weddings — they stayed in the city for a fortnight, attending as many Sikh weddings as they could. During the current visit, too, the delegation is expected to visit the Golden Temple as well as numerous other gurudwaras. Amchi Goa Outside the main venue of the International Film Festival of India in Goa is an exhibition organised by Sanskar Bharati, a cultural organisation aligned with the RSS, on the contribution of Indian film personalities to the freedom movement. On Lata Mangeshkar's role in Goa’s liberation, it focusses on a 1954 concert in Pune, which she was part of to raise funds for an armed liberation movement against the Portuguese. She is also hailed as being the youngest member of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's 'inter-caste dinner squads', and giving voice to his poems.
