CURRENT AFFAIRS

DR. PRABHA SAMPATH

Supreme Court Upholds Demonetisation

Four judges on a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on January 2 found no flaw in the process adopted by the government to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1000 currency notes through a gazette notification on November 8, 2016. It was a 4:1 majority verdict. The sole woman judge, Justice B.V. Nagarathna, on the Bench disagreed with the majority, saying the demonetisation exercise, undertaken on the government’s initiative and based on a mere notification in the official gazette instead of a plenary legislation in the Parliament, was plainly unlawful and vitiated.

Justice B.R. Gavai, delivering the majority judgment of the Bench, supported by Justices S. Abdul Nazeer, A.S. Bopanna, and V. Ramasubramanian, said the court can exercise only a limited judicial review in matters of economic policy. It cannot supplant the views of the experts. The government had argued that demonetisation was a “transformational economic policy step” which led to a phenomenal growth in digital transactions while choking the evils of black money, terror funding and counterfeiting. It had claimed that demonetisation was a “critical” part of a policy push to “expand formal economy” and thin the ranks of the informal cashbased sector.

BJP has hailed the majority verdict, while opposition parties have supported the dissenting judge.

INDIAN-AMERICAN WOMAN SWORN IN AS JUDGE IN U.S. COURT OVER VIDEOCALL FROM KERALA

Juli A. Mathew, an Indian-American from Thiruvalla who has been elected as a judge of the Fort Bend County Court in the United States for the second consecutive time, was sworn in as the judge through video conference from her in-law’s house in Kasaragod, Kerala. A Democratic candidate, she is the first Indian-American to be elected to the bench.

Ms. Mathew told reporters that 2023 was turning out to be a great year for her. Earlier, there were no female judges on the bench before her entry four years ago. “My selection will instill confidence in people, especially Indians and other people from the Asian community, that it is very much possible,” she said. Ms. Mathew was the Associate Municipal Judge in Arcola, Texas, and a practising attorney for 15 years with experience in mass tort, civil litigation, probate, and criminal matters in Fort Bend and surrounding counties. She was voted as the Administrative Judge for the County Courts by her peers and also headed the first Juvenile Intervention and Mental Health Court.

Digital Economy Poised For Strong 2023

India’s digital prowess will grow in 2023 and over the next five years, driven by technology, startups, semiconductors, electronics and computing, IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said, allaying any concerns over a ‘tech winter’, and predicting spring for the country’s booming innovation ecosystem.

The comments by the minister are significant given the backdrop of slowdown headwinds in the West, recent spate of layoffs by US tech giants, global market turmoil, and talks of tech winter.

Mr. Chandrasekhar, who is the Minister of State for Electronics and IT, told PTI that global and domestic opportunities for digitisation continue to be “very strong”. He exuded confidence that India’s trillion dollar digital economy vision is “well within our grasp” and “an absolutely incontrovertible fact”.

The momentum of digital economy will continue in 2023, backed by enabling rules and laws that offer catalysing framework for technological growth and innovation, he promised. “We see no winter...if anything, it is summer and spring for the next five years,” Chandrasekhar asserted, citing India’s tech potential.

NO RESPITE FOR CHINA? BEIJING MAY SOON BE STRUCK BY XBB COVID STRAIN

The XBB strain of Covid-19 which is spreading like wildfire in several US states, including New York, is expected to enter China which has been battling with a spike in cases and trigger a new round of large-scale infections, a scientist has warned.

“It’s foreseeable that after the current wave peaks in China, XBB can enter the country to trigger a new round of largescale infections,” Peking University biochemist Cao Yunlong was quoted as saying by state-run China News Service. BQ.1.1 and XBB are the two Covid-19 variants that have been circulating in the US and Europe over the past two months. They have shown greater ability to evade immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. “As XBB.1.5 is set to become the dominant one globally very soon, it deserves our close attention,” Beijing-based news magazine People quoted Cao as saying.

China continues to grapple mounting Covid-19 cases. Hospitals overwhelmed with patients, morgues piled with bodies and long queues at crematorium are giving worrying pictures of Beijing and amid this, scientists have sounded alarms saying China will confront multiple waves of coronavirus.

Pope Emeritus Benedict Xvi Dies At 95

Former Pope Benedict XVI has died, aged 95, almost a decade after he stood down because of ailing health. He led the Catholic Church for fewer than eight years until, in 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415. Pope Benedict spent his final years at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery within the walls of the Vatican where he passed away on December 31.

His successor Pope Francis led the funeral on January 5. The Vatican had placed the body of the Pope Emeritus in St Peter’s Basilica from 2 January for “the greeting of the faithful”. Bells rang out from Munich cathedral and a single bell was heard ringing from St Peter’s Square in Rome after the death was announced. Pope Francis, at the New Year’s Eve service at the Vatican paid tribute to his “dearest” predecessor, emphasising “his sacrifices offered for the good of the church”.