LEAD

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves for the BRICS (a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in Johannesburg on Tuesday, all eyes are on a possible meeting between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It would be their first scheduled bilateral meeting since the border standoff began in May 2020. Saying that the schedule is “still evolving”, officials did not rule out a meeting between the two leaders.

On former Prime Minister and Congress icon Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary, the grand old party today announced the names of members of its top decision-making body. Sachin Pilot, the sulking Rajasthan leader, has found a place in the Congress Working Committee ahead of assembly elections in the state later this year. The party has been trying to placate the former Rajasthan deputy chief minister, who has recently, openly embarrassed his own party's government in the state headed by his nemesis Ashok Gehlot.

Sachin Pilot, Shashi Tharoor (who went against Mallikarjun Kharge in the Congress President poll last year), Deepa Das Munshi, and Syed Nasser Hussain are new entrants to the CWC.

Article 370 cannot be said to have assumed the state of permanence in the constitutional fabric, the Supreme Court observed on Thursday, as it disagreed with an argument raised by petitioners who have challenged the 2019 abrogation of the provision that granted the region special status and the restructuring of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union territories.

According to a bench led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, the issuance of constitutional orders between 1957 and 2019 go on to show that Article 370 was in force and so was the specific clause under the constitutional provision that empowered the President to make Article 370 cease to exist on the fulfilment of certain conditions.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud has said the real strength of the judicial system is granting access to justice to the citizens and a sense of confidence that an arbitrary arrest or threatened demolition "must find solace and a voice in judges of the Supreme Court".

Speaking at the Independence Day celebrations organised on Tuesday by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) at the apex court lawns, the CJI stressed the greatest challenge before the Indian judiciary is to eliminate barriers to accessing justice and make sure that the judiciary is inclusive and accessible to the last person in the line.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech on Tuesday, presented the demography of the country as its biggest strength, and said the time was ripe to embrace "development centred around values" to make India a developed country by 2047.

The speech was both a message to the international community ahead of the G-20 leaders summit to be hosted by India next month and also an outreach to different social groups in the run-up to the big 2024 polls.