31 JANUARY 2016

Ø After 14 years of debates and several draft Bills, the government has said it is ready to frame a statutory law on passive euthanasia, the act of withdrawing medical treatment with deliberate intention of causing the death of a terminally-ill patient. However, it said its “hands are stayed” because of a pending litigation in the Supreme Court on mercy killing. The affidavit filed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in the Supreme Court on January 28, 2016 provides the first clear insight into whether the Government considers euthanasia as manslaughter or an act of mercy. The committee however refused on legalising ‘active euthanasia’ – an intentional act of putting to death a terminally-ill patient – on the grounds that this would lead to potential misuse and is practised in “very few countries worldwide”. The affidavit traces back to how the debate on legalising and regulating euthanasia began with a Lok Sabha private member’s Bill – The Euthanasia (Regulation) Bill, 2002 – which was examined by the Health Ministry. The debate kick-started again four years later, following the 196^th Law Commission Report on euthanasia and the drafting of the Medical Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients (Protection of Patients and Medical Practitioners) Bill, 2006.

Ø Fighting terror, visa liberalisation and improving India- Afghanistan business ties are on the agenda as Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah lands in Delhi. Dr. Abdullah’s visit comes a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unannounced visit to Kabul on Christmas day, when he had also travelled to Lahore. This is the first meeting between the Indian and Afghanistan leadership since the attacks on the Pathankot airbase and the Indian Consulate in Mazar- e- Sharif, which many officials believe were synchronised. Dr. Abdullah is down to deliver the keynote address at a counter- terrorism conference in Jaipur, which he will attend along with President Pranab Mukherjee. At least three Union Ministers — Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu — are expected to be speak at the conference, in which Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar will deliver a special lecture. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will host a dinner. The presence of the entire Indian security establishment at the conference, organised by BJP general secretary and analyst Shaurya Doval’s private think- tank India Foundation, will be closely watched for the government’s thinking on the steps after the India- Pakistan relations came to a standstill after Pathankot.

Ø A U.S. warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of an island claimed by Beijing in the South China Seas, in an operation intended to underscore America’s right to access the disputed waters, the Pentagon said. We conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea earlier tonight. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade is shipped every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. He said the operation was carried out near Triton Island in the Paracel Islands, “to challenge excessive maritime claims of parties that claim the Paracel Islands.” Mr. Davis said that the USS Wilbur was the guided missile destroyer used in the operation, and that no Chinese ships were in the vicinity at the time.

Ø The tiny Marshall Islands will, in March, seek to persuade the UN’s highest court to take up a lawsuit against India, Pakistan and Britain which they accuse of failing to halt the nuclear arms race. The International Court of Justice, founded in 1945 to rule on legal disputes between nations, announced late Friday dates for separate hearings for the three cases between March 7 and 16. In 2014, the Marshall Islands, a Pacific Ocean territory with 55,000 people, accused nine countries of “not fulfilling their obligations with respect to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. conducted repeated nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, Majuro’s representatives said in papers filed in court. In March 2014, the Marshall Islands marked 60 years since the devastating hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, that vapourised an island and exposed thousands in the surrounding area to radioactive fallout. The 15-megaton test on March 1, 1954, was part of the intense Cold War nuclear arms race and 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Bikini Islanders have lived in exile since they were moved for the first weapons tests in 1946.

Ø The Gujarat government is likely to water down “contentious provisions” in the Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime Act (GujCTOC) which has been returned by the President for clarifications on certain provisions deemed to be draconian and ripe for misuse by the police. We are yet to receive the communication from the Union Home Ministry regarding the clarifications sought. But we will water down some provisions to make it tenable. One main issue is custody of 180 days without framing charges, prone to be misused by the police. The Bill allows confessions before police officers to be admissible in court as evidence against the accused. In the past, such provisions were apparently misused in TADA and POTA, both repealed now. It also provides powers to the police for attachment and forfeiture of property of a member of an organised crime syndicate. “The word ‘terrorism’ is likely to be done away with in the Bill because terrorism is a Central subject and a State cannot pass a law on it,” the official said. The present Bill was passed by the Gujarat Assembly in March 2015, retaining controversial and draconian provisions that provide sweeping powers to the police.