Week ahead: New CJI, Bihar floor test, Asia Cup

1. Bihar Floor Test

Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar will conduct a floor test in the Bihar Assembly on Wednesday, two weeks after taking oath as the chief minister for the eighth time. The majority test is essentially a formality as the newly formed Grand Alliance, or the Grand Alliance led by the JD(U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), appears secure with the support of 164 MLAs (including outside support from the Left). among others), well above the required majority mark of 122. It will be interesting to watch the friendship between Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav, who is now his deputy, with the son of friend-turned-enemy Lalu Yadav. Meeting.

The alliance has provided a booster shot to faltering opposition parties that were desperate to challenge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which recently swept to power in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, the BJP will prepare for its new role as the opposition party in Bihar in view of the 2024 general elections.

2. New CJI

Justice UU Lalit will take over as the 49th Chief Justice of India on Saturday, a day after NV Ramana stepped down.

Lalit was appointed a judge in the Supreme Court directly from the Bar in 2014 and will now be the second Chief Justice with such a record.

However, his tenure will be brief as he is due to retire on November 8 after only 74 days. In the course of his promotion, Lalit gave interviews to the media on his plans for his short stint.

He told NDTV that he would focus on the administrative side and wanted to achieve “maximum production through limited resources”.

Lalit has been a part of several landmark decisions and in the coming few months, he will hear important matters like the challenges of demonetisation of 2016, law on electoral bonds and abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.

3. Covid surge

A fresh Covid-19 surge has created fear in the past few weeks, especially in areas like the national capital Delhi. India on Saturday recorded 11,539 new infections and 34 deaths, of which Delhi accounted for 1,109. While the city is no longer reporting more than 2,000 daily cases as it was in the first two weeks of August, its test positivity rate remains above 10%. The weekly test positivity rate had reached 15.3% on 12 August. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said last week that 90 per cent of Covid patients admitted to the hospital have not received a booster dose of the vaccine. Maharashtra and Karnataka also reported higher infections on Saturday at 1,855 and 1,713 cases respectively. Health experts suspect another type of virus to be behind the rise in Covid cases. However, the number of hospitalizations suggests that most cases are mild.

4. Agneepath in Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court is set to hear petitions challenging the Centre’s revised Army recruitment scheme, Agneepath, on Thursday.

The scheme announced by the Center in June envisages recruiting soldiers for a period of four years against the earlier norm of 17 years for the lowest rank. This led to large protests by army candidates in many parts of the country, some of which turned violent.

Several petitions were filed against the scheme in the High Courts of Kerala, Patna, Punjab and Haryana and Uttarakhand, the states which saw the biggest opposition to the scheme. The Supreme Court last month made the Delhi High Court the main forum to examine the validity of the scheme and the option of other high courts to transfer their cases to Delhi or keep their hearings pending and allow the petitioners to intervene in the Delhi High Court. Gave. Court hearing.

5. Asia Cup

The 15th edition of the Asia Cup will begin in the UAE from Saturday. The tournament will be played in T20 format and the final match will be held on September 11. The tournament, which was first played in 1983, will see six countries participate in the upcoming edition. These included five direct qualifiers: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Hong Kong, Kuwait, Singapore and UAE are pitted against each other in the qualifiers and the winning team will earn sixth place in the main tournament.

see full image

There is a lot of discussion on social media regarding the tournament, but Indian cricket fans are eagerly waiting for the match between arch-rivals India and Pakistan on Sunday. Indian captain Rohit Sharma said that the Indian team is playing differently this time after their defeat against Pakistan in Dubai last year.

first article