Reinventing Marriages; Home Weapons; Bhopal Gas
Opinion Watch
Reinventing Marriages
There is a unanimity among the newspapers in slamming the government affidavit on same sex marriage in the Supreme Court, which will hear the matter next month. The Indian Express had loathed “the outdated ideas of Sanskar”, which guided the government affidavit opposing same-sex marriage.
The Asian Age has said that India has a “great opportunity to take a secular view on marriages” than the existing religion-ordained heterosexual union of couples. The daily said that while 133 countries have decriminalized homosexuality, including India, only 32 of them recognize gay marriages.
The Hindu, The Economic Times and others have also stuck similar stance. The English newspaper commentaries are banking on liberalism. They are even calling for legislation by courts on the matter. Legislature — Parliament and Assemblies — has sole right to legislate. The advocacy of haste as argued by dailies may apply on several other civil matters, and therefore Parliament alone should deal with the issue. Interesting indeed will be to look at the Editorials of Hindi and vernacular newspapers.
Home Weapons
India bought 11 per cent less weapons from abroad during 2013-17 and 2018-22, said The Economic Times in an Editorial, while adding that exports of missiles and light attack helicopters have added a new dimension to the Indian defence industries.
The business daily also stated that the military technology incubator; Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) has already delivered a host of solutions. The daily called for enhanced support of the startups for accelerated gains in efforts to indigenize defence productions.
The Ukraine War theatre has revealed that the NATO nations are testing their future weaponry, which are high on technology. It will be incumbent on India to break off from the old mindset to look askance at Russia and the West for defence technology.
Bhopal Gas
The Pioneer has said that the government should draw comfort from the fact that the Bhopal Gas tragedy chapter is now closed. In June 2010, a Bhopal court had convicted all the eight accused in the gas tragedy, which had killed several people.
The Manmohan Singh government had constituted a ministerial committee, said the daily, adding that an additional demand of Rs 7844 crore was made for settlement, which had been done in 1989. The daily said that the apex court rightly ruled that reopening of the case would open a Pandora’s Box and could be detriment to the victims.
Wounds of Bhopal Gas tragedy are still fresh, but the issue of enforceability of the judgment is out there. The company which took a rebirth as a multinational IT consultancy firm from Union Carbide has businesses across the world, including India, with assets running into hundreds of billions of dollars. If the Union Carbide escaped the full might of the law in 1989, the Supreme Court should not limit itself to the history and let the due course of law catch the butchers of Bhopal now, even if that means holding their successors accountable to adequate compensation.
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