Author: Prachi Mittal

On October 14, Saturday, Israel issued an ultimatum of 24 hours to around one million Palestinians from northern Gaza to relocate to the besieged coastal part of Gaza in order “to preserve your safety” amidst an expected ground invasion in the strip. Israel’s military is urging the evacuation as it says that they plan to target the members of the Hamas organization and to find out their hideouts in Gaza City. As the people in the densely populated area of northern Gaza adhere to the deadline, already 70 of them (mostly women and children) have been killed as Israeli airstrikes…

A Colorado jury, consisting of 7 men and 5 women, mostly whites, arrived at a split decision where Randy Roedema, one of the five people convicted in the case, has been declared guilty on account of “criminally negligent homicide and a third-degree assault”. Mr. Roedema faces charges of four years in prison and will be sentenced in January. He would also have to pay a fine, as directed by the 12-person jury who mulled over the matter for 16 hours for 2 days before reaching the verdict. However, Jason Rosenblatt, Roedema’s colleague who was tried together with him, and was…

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize was awarded to Goldin “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labor market outcomes” Claudia Goldin, an American economic historian, is a Harvard University professor and has been awarded the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking work in advancing one’s understanding of the outcomes of women’s labor market. Around 200 years of data on the US workforce has been studied and analyzed in order to understand the gender gaps in both occupation and education and how that has changed over a period of time, answering the question as to why women work less and get paid less…

Prabir Purkayastha’s residence and office were raided by the officials of the central agency, on an alleged violation of receiving foreign funds that are in direct violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) on Wednesday, October 11. He was recently arrested by the Delhi Police on account of allegedly running “anti-national” propaganda on his news portal and was receiving the money from China for the same.  The following statement by the news portal of the NewsClick has been released, which states that the current “search and seizure operation” by the CBI is going on at the residence of Mr.…

Israel-Hamas war continues for another day as Israel responds to the Hamas militants On October 7, 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group, launched a surprise attack on Israel, infiltrating Israeli cities and causing a massive rocket barrage, killing hundreds of people. Many civilians and soldiers were also taken as hostages as this operation by Hamas, called ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’, came into effect. The infiltration is said to have happened after weeks of considerable tension along the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave along the Mediterranean coast. In 2007, Hamas seized control of the territory of Gaza. However, for 16 years, Israel…

What is liquor policy and why was it scrapped? On November 17, 2021, the AAP government introduced a new liquor policy in which the government aimed to withdraw from the retail sale of liquor and allowed stores to run using private licensees. The city was divided into 32 zones and each zone was allotted 27 vends at max. The government stated that this policy is being introduced to increase government revenue and also to combat black marketing. Around 849 vends were awarded to private companies and no individual licenses were permitted. The policy allowed the liquor stores to stay open…

Cricketer Shikhar Dhawan married Melbourne-based kickboxer Aesha Mukherjee in 2012, who is 12 years older than him, and has two daughters from her previous marriage. The couple had a 10-year-old son, Zoraver Dhawan, in 2014. However, in September 2021, the pair decided to part ways with each other and filed for a divorce, after 11 years of marriage. On October 4, 2023, the family court in Patiala House Complex in Delhi, granted divorce after hearing to both the parties, stating that Mr. Dhawan went through “immense agony and trauma” after living apart from his son for years.  Why did Shikhar…

What does the Survey Report reveal? The Bihar Government, in light of the upcoming general elections in 2024, published a report titled ‘Bihar Jaati Adharit Ganana’ (Bihar caste-based survey) on October 2, 2023, in order to understand the composition of the population on the basis of caste. The report revealed that Hindus comprise 81.9986% of the population while 17.7088% form the Muslim population in the state. With caste being one of the 17-point socio-economic parameters, the Other Backward Class (OBC) population in the State stands at 27.1286%, the Scheduled Caste population is at 19.6518%, the Scheduled Tribe population is at 1.6824%…

The Law Commission sheds light on the impact of lowering the age of consent as it can have a negative influence on the fight against human trafficking and child marriages. What does the law state? In India, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), the legal age for consent to sexual intercourse is set to 18 years. However, in December last year, Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India, prompted the Parliament to address the issue of increasing concerns around and about the age of consent. In his statement, he said, “The POCSO Act criminalizes all sexual…

In September 2023, in the Karimganj district of Assam, three men were arrested for allegedly murdering a 17-year-old girl and for engaging in sexual acts with the corpse afterwards. It is a confirmed case of necrophilia and three men who are suspected behind this incident have been identified as Biplab Paul (25), Rahul Das (27) and Shubro Malakar (27). Rahul Das, a newly recruited fourth-grade employee of the railways, is proven to be the mastermind behind the event. Rahul Das had been in a relationship with the teenage girl and had been consistently pushing her to establish physical relationships with…