"No one is above the law – not even the president," Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said.
The White House announced on Monday evening that Trump had fired Yates (pictured), for "betraying the Department of Justice" for refusing to enforce his executive order.
"Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration," the White House said in a statement.
JUST IN: White House appoints Dana Boente as acting attorney general, says Sally Yates "has betrayed the Department of Justice" pic.twitter.com/EW3TM2tKcT
The new acting Attorney General Dana Boente, who will work until Trump's pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, gets confirmation from Senate, is expected to enforce the immigration order.
Yates' Defiance Sally Yates, who was named deputy attorney general by former US President Barack Obama in 2015, said Monday she was not convinced that Trump's executive order to bar US entry to people from seven Muslim nations was lawful. "The Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order," she said.
In a letter to Justice Department attorneys, Yates noted that Trump's order had been challenged in court in a number of jurisdictions.
"My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is," she wrote.
"I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right."
Resistance against the order Earlier, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit challenging the executive order as illegal and unconstitutional. "No one is above the law – not even the president," Ferguson told a press briefing. "And in the courtroom, it is not the loudest voice that prevails. It's the constitution." At least three top national security officials – Defense Secretary James Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Rex Tillerson, who are awaiting confirmation to lead the State Department – reportedly said they were unaware about the details of the directive until Trump signed it. Former US President Barack Obama on Monday added his voice to a myriad of American figures criticizing President Trump's executive order. Obama "fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discrimination against individuals because of their faith or religion," the former president's spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement . Meanwhile, public protests against the "Muslim ban" continue in a number of major US cities.
(This article was first published on DW. You can read the original article here.)
शुक्रवार को डायरेक्टर संजय लीला भंसाली के साथ जयपुर में शूटिंग के दौरान हाथापाई और मारपीट हुई थी। इस फिल्म का विरोध कर रहे कुछ राजपूत समूहों की भीड़ ने जयपुर के जयगढ़ किले में लगे फिल्म के सेट के बाहर प्रदर्शन करते हुए भंसाली को थप्पड़ जड़ दिया और उनके साथ मारपीट और अभद्रता की।
हमले के बाद पूरा बाॅलीवुड भंसाली के समर्थन में उतर आए थे। लेकिन बीजेपी मंत्री गिरिराज सिंह ने चुनौती दे डाली और कहा कि फिल्ममेकर्स को हिंदू देवी-देवताओं को लेकर फिल्में बनाना आसान लगता है। अगर उनमें हिम्मत है तो पैगंबर मोहम्मद पर फिल्म बनाकर दिखाएं।
गिरिराज ने इशारों ही इशारों में फिल्ममेकर संजय लीला भंसाली पर करणी सेना के हमले को जायज ठहराया। उन्होंने कहा, ‘ऐतिहासिक तथ्यों से छेड़छाड़ का विरोध किया जाना सही है। फिल्म उनके द्वारा बनाई जा रही है जिनके लिए औरंगजेब और उसकी जैसी शख्सियत आइकन हैं। हिंदू देवी-देवताओं पर सभी तरह की टिप्पणियां की जाती हैं और पीके जैसी फिल्में बनती हैं। क्या किसी ने मोहम्मद साहब पर फिल्म बनाने की हिम्मत की?’
गिरिराज ने यह भी कहा कि लोग हिंदू नायकों का अपमान अब बर्दाश्त नहीं करेंगे और देश की संस्कृति को गलत ढंग से पेश करने वालों को सबक सिखाएंगे।
On the very day that another BJP leader was booked for hate speech, the BJP's firebrand MP, Yogi Adityanath spews venom against Muslims
The world may think what it likes but the firebrand BJP MP from Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh likes US President Donald Trump.
Addressing an election rally in Bulandshahr on Monday for the coming Assembly polls in his state, the BJP leader said, “Similar action is needed to contain terror activities in this country.”
Adityanath also reportedly raised the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana and promised to deal with the issue “strictly” if the BJP was voted to power. The Times of Indiareported him ascomparing the situation in Kairana to that of Kashmir over 27 years ago “Have you forgotten the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990?… If you do not wake up even now, you will also be forced to migrate to other regions,” he said. He exhorted voters to "remember the riots and the rapes" when you vote on February 11.
Meanwhile The Indian Express reported him as claiming at another rally in Sahibabad the same day that Trump sees Modi as his “political icon”.
Adityanath also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to not grant special rights to any minority community. “Whoever lives in Russia will abide by Russian laws and whoever doesn’t follow, should go where they like Shariat law”, he said at the rally. India’s self-proclaimed secular parties, he said, lacked the courage to speak the same language.
On Monday, another controversial BJP MLA Suresh Rana was booked by Uttar Pradesh police on charges of inciting hatred after he said that curfew will be imposed in Kairana, Deoband and Moradabad if he is elected again in assembly polls next month.
Voting for the state’s 403 seats will be held in seven phases and results will be out on March 11.
For a video clip of the BJP MP’s take on Kairana, click here.
लखनऊ। उत्तरप्रदेश में समाजवादी पार्टी की अखिलेश सरकार ने एक ओर अदालत से बरी हुए मुसलिम युवकों के विरुद्ध कोर्ट में अपील की, वहीं अपने और बीजेपी के बड़े नेताओं को पाक साफ कराने के लिए कोर्ट गई। एक रिपोर्ट में सामने आया है कि अखिलेश सरकार ने पिछले पांच सालों में लगभग 19 केसों को खत्म करने के लिए कोर्ट का रुख किया। ये केस राज्य के विभिन्न सीनियर नेताओं पर थे।
इन केसों में कथित अपराध, दंगे, धोखाधड़ी, अपहरण से जबरन वसूली, यहां तक कि एक पर तो गैर इरादतन हत्या की भी मामला था। समाजवादी पार्टी की सरकार ने सिर्फ अपनी पार्टी के नेताओं पर लगे केसों को खत्म करने के लिए नहीं कहा। जिन लोगों के केस खत्म करने की गुजारिश सरकार ने की उनमें सपा के 10 विधायकों के अलावा, बीजेपी सांसद राम शंकर कठेरिया और बीजेपी के सीनियर नेता और केंद्रीय मंत्री कलराज मिश्र का भी नाम शामिल है।
इंडियन एक्सप्रेस की पड़ताल में यूपी सरकार के कई अधिकारियों ने इस बात की पुष्टि की। कहा गया कि प्रशासन ने ही केस वापस लेने की अर्जी दी थी। वहीं इसकी वजह किसी ने साफ तौर पर नहीं बताई। सब चुनाव के दबाव की बात करते रहे। प्रमुख सचिव (गृह) देबोशीश पांडा ने इन केसों पर कुछ भी कहने से मना कर दिया। सरकार की तरफ से बात करते हुए सपा के कैबिनट मिनिस्टर और प्रवक्ता राजेंद्र चौधरी ने कहा, ‘मेरे पास इस बारे में कोई जानकारी नहीं है।’
जिन लोगों पर लगे केसों को हटाने के लिए राज्य सरकार ने कहा उसमें राजा भैया, सपा विधायक अभय सिंह, विजय मिश्रा का नाम शामिल है। लिस्ट में सपा के जिन नेताओं के नाम शामिल थे उनमें से विजय मिश्रा और भगवान शर्मा को छोड़कर बाकियों को अगले महीने होने वाले विधानसभा चुनाव में टिकट भी दी है। यूपी में सात चरणों में वोटिंग होगी। पहली वोटिंग 11 फरवरी को होगी। चुनाव के नतीजे 11 मार्च को आएंगे।
आपको बता दें कि यूपी में अखिलेश के पांच साल के कार्यकाल में छोटे-बड़े लगभग 500 दंगे हुए। इसके साथ ही हत्या, बलात्कार के मामले भी चरम पर रहे। सपा पर भाजपा के साथ मिलीभगत के भी आरोप लगते रहे। तमाम दंगों के बावजूद भी बीजेपी ने कभी राष्ट्रपति शासन लगाने की बात नहीं कही। जबकि कांग्रेस शासित राज्यों, उत्तराखंड और अरुणाचल प्रदेश में राष्ट्रपति शासन लगाने के लिए एड़ी चोटी का जोर लगा दिया। उत्तराखंड के मामले में भाजपा को कोर्ट की फटकार भी खानी पड़ी।
Do you sit and smile when election results are out, asked a tweet in response to the prime minister's Mann Ki Baat on education.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to students that they should reduce their stress by celebrating examinations like festivals has not gone down well.
“Do not make these exams about pressure,” the prime minister said during his Mann Ki Baat radio show on Sunday. “Appear for them with a smile.” Exams, he claimed, “have nothing to do with life’s success or failure”.
The response to the prime minister’s statements started coming in almost as soon as the programme ended. Many pointed out that it was difficult to relax when board exam results determined admission to most colleges and so were crucial for the lives and careers of students. “College administrations want over 90% [minimum marks for admission],” said one social media user. “Yeh sab pleasure se thodi milega.” Surely, you can’t get such marks purely from pleasure.
Exam stress is near universal and Twitter users said it was wrong to play it down.
Disconnect between words, actions
Several listeners said Modi’s words did not match his government’s policy decisions that had made the year-end test the most important feature of school education, and added to the list of examinations students already face. One of these decisions has been to restore the public Class 10 board exam, which will return in 2018 for all schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education. The board-based exam had been made optional in 2011, allowing students to instead sit for school-based exams.
In addition, the government is keen on scrapping the no-detention policy – whereby schools cannot fail any child till Class 8 – under the Right to Education Act, 2009. If this happens, even primary-level exams would become serious business as it would enable schools to make struggling children repeat a class. None of this helps battle exam stress.
Education activists pointed out that the government’s decision to restore the public board exam and its intention to amend the no-detention clause would render the policy of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation, introduced in 2009 under the education law, pointless. Under this policy, teachers record the progress of children – in scholastic and non-scholastic areas – over time, taking away the tyranny of the year-end exam.
“The Mann Ki Baat speech is all rhetoric,” said Rama Kant Rai of the National Coalition for Education, an umbrella group of organisations working on the right to education. “In the new system, examinations have been made everything. This, despite there being considerable research on stress caused by examinations.”
According to Rai, scrapping the no-detention clause will lead to more stress. “The CCE [Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation] and no-detention policies made the system responsible, and doing away with them will put the pressure back on parents,” Rai explained. “The states have done nothing to ensure CCE worked – teachers were not recruited in sufficient numbers, they were not trained. Now it will once again be up to the parents to do whatever they can to make sure their children pass their exams.”
One Twitter user said, “[We] need more tolerance to failure, better accommodation for different learning levels, plus, exams should not be competitive.”
A dig at Modi
With the prime minister making education the subject of his Mann Ki Baat, the quips on his own qualifications were inevitable.
Modi’s bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science, have been the subject of speculation by political rivals, especially the Aam Aadmi Party, which accused him of faking his educational credentials. The university, on its part, has resolutely refused to furnish documents in response to several right to information queries. Earlier this month, a commissioner in the Central Information Commission was transferred days after he ordered Delhi University to disclose the records of BA degrees in 1978 – the year in which Modi is said to have received his degree. The commissioner had also fined a university official for not complying with his order.
इलाहाबाद। यूपी विधानसभा चुनाव में एक भी मुस्लिम कैंडिडेट को टिकट न देने पर चौतरफा घिरी बीजेपी ने सफाई दी है। बीजेपी के राष्ट्रीय प्रवक्ता शाहनवाज हुसैन ने पार्टी का बचाव करते हुए कहा कि पार्टी सभी धर्मों का बराबर आदर करती है। टिकट दें या नहीं, इससे कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ता। वैसे भी हमें जीतने लायक 20 मुस्लिम कार्यकर्ता भी मिलते तो विचार करते। हमारी नजर और नजरिया सही है। हम धार्मिक चश्में से लोगों को नहीं देखते।
इलाहाबाद में सिटी वेस्ट सीट से चुनाव लड़ रहे पार्टी के राष्ट्रीय प्रवक्ता सिद्धार्थनाथ सिंह के समर्थन में चुनाव प्रचार करने यहां पहुंचे शाहनवाज ने कहा कि हमारी पार्टी चींटी से पहाड़ तक सबकी चिंता करती है। हमारे घोषणा पत्र में ट्रिपल तलाक को लेकर भी आयोग बनाने की बात कही गयी है क्योंकि हम धार्मिक आधार पर किसी के साथ भेदभाव नहीं चाहते।
उन्होंने कहा कि अगर डर से भारी संख्या में लोग अपना घर बार छोड़कर भागते हैं तो यह किसी भी जिम्मेदार राजनीतिक पार्टी के लिए चिंता का विषय है। इस समस्या को धार्मिक जुड़ाव के चश्मे से नहीं देखें। उन्होंने राज्य के मुस्लिम बहुल कैराना से हिंदुओं के भारी संख्या में पलायन का जिक्र करते हुए यह कहा।
गौरतलब है कि बीजेपी नेता शाहनवाज हुसैन ने रविवार को यह कह कर एक विवाद छेड़ दिया था कि पार्टी ने उत्तर प्रदेश विधानसभा चुनाव में किसी मुस्लिम उम्मीदवार को नहीं उतारा है क्योंकि उसे इस समुदाय से जीतने लायक कोई उम्मीदवार नहीं मिला।
उन्होंने राजस्थान के कोटा में संवाददाताओं से कहा कि बीजेपी ने उत्तर प्रदेश में किसी भी विधानसभा सीट के लिए मुसलमान को टिकट नहीं दिया है क्योंकि पार्टी को एक भी ऐसा उम्मीदवार नहीं मिला, जो जीत सुनिश्चित कर सकता हो। उन्होंने कहा था कि चुनाव में जाति आधार पर टिकट बंटवारा अनिवार्य था।
उन्होंने कहा कि जब आरक्षण जाति के आधार पर दिया जा सकता है, तो पार्टी का टिकट जाति के आधार पर क्यों नहीं बांटा जा सकता? हालांकि, सिंह के साथ हुसैन ने संयुक्त प्रेस कॉन्फ्रेंस में कहा कि बीजेपी के द्वारा पार्टी के टिकट का वितरण सिर्फ योग्यता आधारित है।
Perhaps it’s time that we appreciate the exasperation that many Muslims feel when they are constantly called upon to defend the decency of their faith to the West. They have been doing it for a very long time
Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com
It is a practice that has become all too familiar in recent years: in the wake of a terrorist attack Muslims scramble to distance their faith from the violent acts being carried out in its name. They feel compelled to defend Islam from accusations that it is inherently violent or anti-modern.
This tendency to explicitly connect Islam with violence has had very real consequences, most recently with Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from multiple Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. This act has caused outrage among Muslims across the globe as they again reiterate that Islam is not the cause of extremism.
But this phenomenon is hardly a recent one. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, writers from across the Islamic world felt the need to defend Islam to a European audience.
This period saw the popularisation of supposedly scientific explanations for the racial and cultural superiority of Europe. Muslim writers of the time vigorously challenged the prevailing sentiment among many European thinkers that Islam was backwards and incompatible with reform.
These Muslim writers were part of a generation of modernisers that emerged across the Islamic world in the 19th century who believed that their societies would benefit most from reform along broadly European lines. Yet they maintained that this did not require a rejection of their Islamic identities. Like their counterparts today, these writers knew that whatever their personal beliefs about religion, to accept this narrative of Islam’s inherent backwardness would be to accept a narrative of European supremacy.
One of the most well-known examples of this was an article in May 1883 by the Muslim thinker Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani in the French Journal des Débats. It was in response to a lecture delivered by the French scholar Ernest Renan in which he stated, among other things, that Islam was incompatible with science. In his response, al-Afghani pointed to the scientific advances of the early Islamic period, arguing that rigid orthodoxy could be overcome through education and development.
The answer isn’t always Islam
But this was just one example of a common trend during this period as Muslim writers worked to respond directly to European writers who were critical of Islam.
One such figure was the Ottoman intellectual Ahmed Rıza, a member of the Young Turk movement that opposed Sultan Abdülhamid II in the late 19th century. Rıza was a positivist who believed in the supremacy of rational and scientific knowledge, but strongly defended Islam and its compatibility with reform. He criticised those European writers that blamed Islam for all of the problems of the Islamic world. He felt that the Ottoman Empire could fully embrace reform without rejecting its essential Islamic character.
Rıza echoed many of the same points made by commentators today in an 1896 article La Tolérance Musulmane. He asked why European writers insisted on solely blaming Islam for violence in the Ottoman Empire, but refused to see Christianity as a cause for violence in their own countries. He also blamed the European press for fanning the flames of anti-Islamic prejudice to serve their own interests.
Like many of his contemporaries, Rıza highlighted the accomplishments of Muslim scientists and intellectuals and the important contributions made by Islamic civilisation over the centuries. He also pointed out the Islamic roots of consultation and representation that underpinned many Ottoman reforms in the 19th century.
The colonial context
In French North Africa in the early 20th century similar defences were presented by the Algerian essayist Ismael Hamet and the Tunisian writer and politician Abdelaziz Thaalbi. Both refused to accept that their countries’ Islamic character presented a barrier to full equality with France.
In his 1905 book, L’Esprit Libéral du Coran, Thaalbi declared that the idea of tolerance was the leitmotif of the Qur’an. Like commentators today he stressed the importance of the political context that produced certain actions done in the name of Islam. For him, the “wars of early Islam had purely political reasons”. Islam itself was not inherently violent or opposed to modernisation and was, as he showed, perfectly compatible with the values of pluralism and tolerance.
Hamet held the same beliefs and saw education as the key. In Les Musulmans Français dans le Nord de l’Afrique in 1906 he stressed that Islam was not the problem. Rather, the problem lay in the manipulation and distortion of Islam by certain religious leaders. Superstition and ignorance had warped Islam beyond recognition. Only through education and equality could these elements be eliminated.
Talking in circles
All of these writers sincerely believed in the benefits of societal reform and they refused to accept the characterisation of Islam as fundamentally opposed to this aim. A final quote from Thaalbi highlights how, in many ways, we are still having the same conversation today as we were in 1905:
At the moment when the railroad, the post and the telegraph create bonds between all peoples, at the moment when men are sympathetic to the pains of other men, at the moment when universal peace is demanded and demanded by society as a whole, to bring all the elements of humanity closer together, will this hateful, intolerant, anti-liberal and fanatical interpretation of the Qur’an be a cause that will prevent this universal rapprochement?
Perhaps it’s time that we appreciate the exasperation that many Muslims feel when they are constantly called upon to defend the decency of their faith to the West. They have been doing it for a very long time.
(David Beamish is PhD Candidate, Modern Middle East History, SOAS, University of London).
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is likely to offer additional tax breaks to the salaried class, increase government spending to boost flagging demand and prepare the ground for the launch of basic universal income for some proportion of Indians who live below the poverty line–172 million at last count–while presenting his fourth budget on February 1, 2017.
A worker grinds a metal gate inside a furniture factory in Ahmedabad. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s challenges, as he presents his fourth budget, centre on the agriculture sector struggling to emerge from a two-year drought; a seven-year decline in sales of manufacturing companies and a slowdown in the construction and textile sectors after demonetisation.
Jaitley’s challenges centre on the agriculture sector, on which 58% rural households depend, still recovering from a two-year drought–vast swathes of the south, as we reported, are now enduring the worst northeast monsoon in 140 years; a seven-year decline in sales of manufacturing companies; and a slowdown in, among others, the construction and textile sectors–the biggest employers after agriculture, 69 million combined–after the government scrapped 86% of India’s bank notes, by value, on November 8, 2016. Put together, these economic indicators jeopardise attempts to provide employment to young Indians–the failure to meet aspirations has set in motion a series of protests and agitations by various caste groups nationwide.
The budget is also likely to set the stage to end a 150-year colonial-era tradition of following the April-March financial year and switch to January-December, in line with the country’s monsoons and harvest, IndiaSpendreported in December 2016. Jaitley is also likely to break tradition and move away from plan and non-plan budget allocations–a method of accounting that considered five-year plans, which began in 1952 and ended in 2014–to budgeting by annual capital and revenue expenditure.
The government rides on falling oil prices, but the economy is struggling
The National Democratic Alliance government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has benefitted from declining global crude oil prices since 2013-14, saving the government over Rs 2.7 lakh crore ($39 billion) in 2015-16, IndiaSpend reported in February 2016. The savings have not been passed on to consumers, who have paid greater taxes on petroleum products; excise duties on petrol and diesel now account for over 50% of excise revenue, T N Ninan wrote in Business Standard on January 20, 2017.
While the Modi government has accepted the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission to increase the share of states in central taxes to 42% from 32%, money given to states could actually be between 26% and 39% lower, IndiaSpendreported on March 4, 2015.
Jaitley increased allocations to agriculture by 84% in 2016, but after adjusting for costs, an Indian farmer’s income effectively rose 5% per year over a decade (2003-2013), IndiaSpend reported in March 2016, calling into question Jaitley’s declaration of doubling farmers’ income over the next five years.
Rabi crops have been sown on nearly 63 million hectares, 6% more than last year (2014 and 2015 were drought years) and around 34% more than the average of the last five years, Business Standardreported on January 20, 2017.
The worry, however, is that the retreating northeast monsoon–usually unnoticed in India owing to the singular importance of the larger southwest monsoon–in 2016 was the worst ever over the last 140 years, according to Indian Meteorological Department records, IndiaSpendreported on January 10, 2017.
While the Tamil Nadu government has already drought in the state, south India’s combined reservoir levels are now at 30% of capacity, according to data from the ministry of water resources.
The industry scene is also worrying for the government. While the index of industrial production increased 5.7% in November 2016 compared to the previous year, rising non-performing assets and sluggish economic growth sparked a 60% decline in corporate borrowing over the last six years, IndiaSpend reported on January 13, 2017.
Some industrial recovery was apparent over the last two years, but notebandi–as the demonetisation exercise is referred to colloquially–set that back.
Notebandi and its impact on budget
The Rs 17-lakh crore demonetisation of the economy (click here to read our full coverage) slowed the growth rate to 7.1% from the earlier estimate of 7.6%, according to the December 2016 monetary policy statement by the Reserve Bank of India.
Growth for the second quarter (July-September) of the current financial year (2016-17) was down to 7.1% from 7.3% in the first quarter (April-June), according to November 2016 data from the ministry of statistics.
Direct-tax collections (income tax, corporate tax) increased over 12% to Rs 5.5 lakh crore for the nine-month period April-December, 2016, over the previous year, while indirect-tax collections (excise, customs) increased 25% to Rs 6.3 lakh crore, according to finance ministry data, belying some slowdown fears, although many sectors are now reporting slowdowns.
Jaitley had presented a budget of Rs 19.8 lakh crore for the year 2016-17, an increase of 11% over the 2015-16 budget estimate of Rs 17.8 lakh crore–equivalent to the cash in circulation before the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, 2016.
With only two years to go for the general elections in 2019 and the mid-point of the Modi regime, the grand challenge will remain generating over a million jobs per month, amidst worrying education levels and health indicators, both important factors in preparing India to cater to a working-age population of about a billion people in 2020.