Apex court begins hearing in Ayodhya case

Muslims have not been allowed to enter the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid structure in Ayodhya since 1934, a Hindu group told the Supreme Court and sought the control and management of the entire 2.77 acre land. Nirmohi Akhara, one of the parties to the case, said while advancing the arguments that the structure has been in its exclusive possession. The day-to-day hearing in the case started on August 6 after efforts to arrive at an amicable settlement through mediation failed. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was told by the lawyer appearing for Nirmohi Akhara that it was seeking management and possession of the area. The bench began the hearing by rejecting the plea of former RSS ideologue K.N. Govindacharya seeking recording of the Ayodhya case proceedings.

Govt unveils draft e-commerce guidelines

To protect consumers’ interest, the Centre has proposed guidelines for e-commerce firms that entail a 14-day deadline to effect refund request, mandate e-tailers to display details of sellers supplying goods and services on their websites and moot the procedure to resolve consumer complaints. The consumer affairs ministry has sought views of stakeholders on the draft guidelines on e-commerce by September 16. The government is planning to come out with a national e-commerce policy to facilitate achieving holistic growth of the sector. Among key guidelines, the e-commerce companies will also be required to ensure that personally identifiable information of customers are protected. “Such data collection and storage and use comply with provisions of the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008,” it added.

LS passes Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill

A Bill that seeks to ban commercial surrogacy was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 5 by a voice vote. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, also provides for the constitution of surrogacy boards at national and state levels, as well as that the intending couples should not abandon such a child under any condition. Responding to the debate on the Bill, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said several countries have banned commercial surrogacy. It is only legal in the state of California besides Russia and Ukraine. He assured that once the rules and regulations are in place, it would make the legislation stronger. “A rough estimates says there are about 2,000-3,000 surrogacy clinics running illegally in the country and a few thousand foreign couples resort to surrogacy practice within India and the whole issue is thoroughly unregulated,” he said.

New report maps the extent of water stress

Nearly a quarter of the world’s population lives in 17 countries facing extremely high water stress, close to “day zero” conditions when the taps run dry, according to a report. The World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas ranked water stress, drought risk and riverine flood risk using a peer-reviewed methodology. Qatar, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, UAE, San Marino, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Oman and Botswana made up the top 17. “Agriculture, industry and municipalities are drinking up 80 per cent of the available surface and groundwater in an average year” in the 17 countries. “Water stress is the biggest crisis no one is talking about. Its consequences are in plain sight in the form of food insecurity, conflict and migration, and financial instability,” said WRI CEO Andrew Steer.

Moon may have more water ice than thought

The moon and Mercury may contain significantly more water ice than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA spacecraft. The potential ice deposits are found in craters near the poles of both worlds, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. On the moon, “we found shallow craters tend to be located in areas where surface ice was previously detected near the south pole of the moon, and inferred this shallowing is most likely due to the presence of buried thick ice deposits”, said Lior Rubanenko of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In the past, telescopic observations and orbiting spacecraft have found glacier-like ice deposits on Mercury, but as of yet not on the moon. The new work raises the possibility that thick ice-rich deposits also exist on the moon.