National AAP; Ukraine Question; Grounding Goondas
Opinion Watch
National AAP
The Asian Age has said that the Aam Aadmi Party has gained the bargaining power within the Opposition camp after getting the national party status. The AAP won three elections in Delhi, formed government in Punjab, and made noticeable entry in the Gujarat and Goa polls last year.
The daily justified the likes of the NCP, TMC and CPI losing the national party status, noting the designation reflects the ground reality. It also underlined that the BJP remains a peerless national party with a dominant status.
Now there are just six national political parties, and still they are too many. India would do better with fewer national parties. The parties which have lost the national status too would need to reflect, for they proved to be just another brick in the wall.
Ukraine Question
The Economic Times has strongly advocated for India extending an invitation to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zalenskyy. In its Editorial, the business daily argued that the visiting deputy foreign minister of Ukraine Emine Szhaparova’s visit presented an opportunity to India to play a key role in ending the Ukrainian War.
ET underlined that India continues to extend humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. It also lent weight on claims that Ukraine accords India a hither importance in brokering peace in the region. The daily also drew a parallel between India and Ukraine sharing hostile and aggressive neighbours.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had counselled Vladimir Putin, Russian President, on the sidelines of the SCO Summit that this is not an era of war. But the world is in the midst of time where sagely words only make for newspaper headlines. The hard truth is that war will unfold and they must be fought with all the might against the aggressors. By inviting Zelenskyy to G20 Summit, India risks bartering away Global South agenda to Europe’s efforts to thrust their agenda on multilateral forum.
Grounding Goondas
The Hindu has lamented that there is an excessive detention of the people even to the extent that some are being jailed even for selling chilies. The daily faulted Tamil Nadu, which has Goonda Act, covering too many crimes.
The Chennai-based daily has also stated that while Constitution provides for preventive detention, most of the accused walk out free after the investigative agencies fail to provide substantive justification for arrests.
Indian jails are packed to over 125 per cent capacity. Three-fourth of the jail inmates belong to below the poverty line category. The police are gung ho in arresting accused of crimes, but critically lack the wherewithal to gain convictions. This calls for stringent SOPs for arrests, and compensation for victims of miscarriage of justice, which should have the value of deterrence against lazy police personnel.
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