Expresso Top National and International Headlines of the Week on 16 March 2024

In top national news: Three of the top five poll bond donors to political parties between 2019 and 2024 are companies which have bought bonds even as they face ED and Income Tax probes. These include lottery company Future Gaming, infrastructure firm Megha Engineering and mining giant Vedanta. The No. 1 purchaser of electoral bonds in the data released by the Election Commission Thursday is Future Gaming and Hotels Pvt Ltd run by Santiago Martin. The lottery company has purchased bonds worth Rs 1,300 crore between 2019 and 2024. Notably, ED began a money laundering probe against Future Gaming in early 2019. By July of that year, it had attached assets worth over Rs 250 crore belonging to the company.

Out of the 47 political parties which gave their opinion to the Ram Nath Kovind-led panel on simultaneous elections, 32 supported the idea, whereas 15 opposed it. Of the parties which backed simultaneous polls, only two are national parties — the BJP and the Conrad Sangma-led National People’s Party, which is part of the BJP-led NDA. All the other four parties recognised as national by the Election Commission — the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and CPI(M) — opposed simultaneous polls. The panel had sought opinion from 62 political parties in all, and held in-person interaction with 18 parties.

A Class 10 board exam supervisor of a school in Gujarat’s Ankleshwar was shunted out after he allegedly instructed invigilators to remove the hijab of Muslim students during the Maths exam on Wednesday. The district education officer of Bharuch on Wednesday ordered an inquiry into the incident after receiving a complaint from the parents of one of the students whose hijab was removed. Bharuch District DEO Swati Raulji told The Indian Express that the incident occurred during the Senior Secondary Certificate (SSC) board exam at Lions School in Ankleshwar and the invigilators went around and “collected the veils” of students.

Moving on: India’s ranking on the United Nations Human Development Index improved by one position in 2022 to 134 out of 193 countries ranked compared to 135 out of 191 countries in 2021. On the Gender Inequality Index 2022, India has been ranked at 108 out of 193 countries with a score of 0.437. Its rank was 122 out of 191 countries with a score of 0.490 in the GII-2021. This shows a significant jump of 14 ranks on the GII-2022 vis-a-vis the GII-2021, the women and child development ministry said.

In top international news: The United States on Thursday said it is concerned about the notification of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in India and is closely monitoring its implementation. “We are concerned about the notification of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act on March 11,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at his daily briefing. “We are closely monitoring how this act will be implemented. Respect for religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities are fundamental democratic principles,” Miller said in response to a question. The Indian government implemented the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 on Monday.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry on Thursday said international law and the rights and interests of other countries must be respected, responding to a question about China’s demarcation earlier this month of a baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin. China’s government delineated the baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin, known in Chinese as Beibu Gulf, using straight lines far from the coast, a move it said was by international law. Baselines are used to determine limits to territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and are a sensitive subject in the South China Sea, where China, Vietnam and other states in the region have some conflicting claims.

In other news: At least 50 people travelling in a LATAM Airlines flight from Sydney to Chile via Auckland suffered injuries on Monday after a “technical problem” caused a “strong movement”, the New Zealand Herald reported, citing the airline. It landed at Auckland airport as scheduled on Monday afternoon, according to FlightAware. The newspaper quoted a passenger who said she experienced a “quick little drop” during the flight. One person is in serious condition while the rest had suffered mild-to-moderate injuries, a spokesperson for healthcare services firm Hato Hone St John, which treated roughly 50 people at the airport, said.

Lastly: Japan’s bar on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, the high court in the northern region of Sapporo said, the first such ruling by an appeals court on a matter that has divided the lower levels of the judiciary. While Japan is the only Group of Seven nation without legal protection for same-sex unions, the ruling by the Sapporo High Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim for damages from the government. “I thought the ruling might be a conservative one, but it ended up exceeding my expectations,” one of the plaintiffs, who did not disclose his name, told reporters after the ruling. “I couldn’t help but cry.”