Tag: moves

Tunisha suicide case: Sheezan Khan moves HC for bail and quashing of FIR

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Mumbai: Actor Sheezan Khan, arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide of his co-star Tunisha Sharma, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking bail and quashing of the case.
Khan in his petitions said to have a relationship and break-ups are normal facets of life and hence he cannot be held responsible for Tunisha’s death.
While Khan’s plea seeking bail would be heard by a single bench of Justice M S Karnik on Tuesday, his second petition for quashing of the FIR and release on interim bail is likely to be heard by a division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and P K Chavan on January 30.
Tunisha (21), who last acted in the TV serial Ali Baba: Dastaan-E-Kabul, was found hanging in the washroom on the set of the serial near Vasai in Palghar district of Maharashtra on December 24, 2022. Khan (28) was arrested the next for alleged abetment. He is currently lodged in a Thane jail.
Seeking quashing of the case, Khan said if two people are in any form of a relationship, and if the relationship is terminated either mutually or even by one of them, then the mere fact that the other person commits suicide does not justify the registration of an offence under section 306 of IPC with its consequences of arrest and custody.
The plea added that in Khan’s case, there is nothing to even suggest that he had done any act with the specific intention of compelling Tunisha Sharma to commit suicide.
“There is absolutely no mens rea (intention) pointed out or for that matter acts and deeds from which a mens rea is made out for the applicant to commit the alleged crime,” it said.
The petition said to enter into a relationship and break-up are normal facets of life.
“That the victim has also been in multiple relationships before and also the present relationship ended on a graceful note. That the break-up was mutual and approximately two weeks back and the victim had admittedly moved on, thus the breakup cannot be viewed as a direct action and proximate cause leaving the victim with no other option but to commit suicide,” it stated.

Khan and Tunisha have acted in a few television serials and were said to be in a relationship which allegedly came to an end just weeks before Tunisha was found hanging on the production set of her show.
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#Tunisha #suicide #case #Sheezan #Khan #moves #bail #quashing #FIR
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 23, 2023
Ron DeSantis moves to permanently ban Covid mandates in Florida

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Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has announced a proposal to permanently ban Covid mandates in the state.
In a press release issued earlier this week, DeSantis said that he has proposed legislation to “make permanent Covid freedoms in Florida”, adding that the “strong pro-freedom, anti-mandate action will permanently protect Floridians from losing their jobs due to Covid vaccine mandates, protects parents’ rights, and institutes additional protections that prevent discrimination based on Covid vaccine status”.
The proposal includes permanently banning mask requirements throughout the state, prohibiting vaccine and mask requirements in schools, prohibiting Covid passports in the state, and prohibiting employers from hiring or firing based on Covid vaccines, all in attempts to protect Floridians from the “biomedical security state”.
The proposal also claims to protect “medical freedom of speech” by promising to protect medical professionals’ freedom of speech, the right to disagree with the “preferred narrative of the medical community,” as well as the religious views of medical professionals.
“When the world lost its mind, Florida was a refuge of sanity, serving strongly as freedom’s lynchpin,” DeSantis said in the announcement of his proposal. “These measures will ensure Florida remains this way and will provide landmark protections for free speech for medical practitioners.”
The recent proposal follows DeSantis’s repeated criticisms of Covid mandates. In 2021, DeSantis signed a series of measures that sought to protect Floridians from pandemic mandates set forth by local governments, which he called “unscientific, unnecessary directives”.
Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, supported DeSantis’s proposal, saying: “As a health sciences researcher and physician, I have personally witnessed accomplished scientists receive threats due to their unorthodox positions.”
“However, many of these positions have proven to be correct, as we’ve all seen over the past few years. All medical professionals should be encouraged to engage in scientific discourse without fearing for their livelihoods or their careers,” he added.

Last year, Ladapo announced that Florida will formally recommend against Covid vaccinations for healthy children.
“We’re kind of scraping at the bottom of the barrel, particularly with healthy kids, in terms of actually being able to quantify with any accuracy and any confidence the even potential of benefit,” he said.
The announcement contradicted guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Food and Drug Administration.
Last December, DeSantis petitioned the Florida supreme court to have a grand jury investigate whether Floridians were misled by Covid vaccine manufacturers over the shots’ potential side effects.
The court granted DeSantis’s petition, and the grand jury will convene for a year before forming a decision.
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#Ron #DeSantis #moves #permanently #ban #Covid #mandates #Florida
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 22, 2023
‘Attack on freedom’: Israel moves to claw back state funds from critical films

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Israel’s culture minister is attempting to revoke state funding from two documentary films dealing with the occupation of the Palestinian territories, increasing concerns that the country’s new hard-right government will follow through on promises to crack down on dissenting voices.
The minister, Miki Zohar, of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, has pledged to “revoke funding that promotes our enemy’s narrative” and withhold grants from films that “present Israeli soldiers as murderers”. He has also said he will require film-makers to sign a declaration they will not use state funds to create content that “harms the state of Israel or IDF soldiers”.
The minister says he wants the producers of two films, both currently screening in festivals and viewable on Israeli cable networks, to return government-funded grants. One, called H2: Occupation Lab, tracks the history of Israeli control over the West Bank city of Hebron. The second, Two Kids a Day, explores the arrests and interrogations of Palestinian children.
Israeli cinema, including its high-profile documentary industry, is heavily reliant on the state through grants administered by a group of government-paid film funds.
David Wachsmann, the director of Two Kids a Day, said: “These two films are in the eye of the storm, but this is an attack on freedom of expression in Israel, on culture and on every Israeli artist.”
The film explores the arrests and interrogations of four children from the Aida refugee camp who were held – in one case for four years – on accusations of stone-throwing. Human rights organisations have documented hundreds such arrests annually. Most take place in the middle of the night when the children are sleeping.
“Israel has decided to turn culture into propaganda,” said Noam Sheizaf, who directed H2: The Occupation Lab along with Idit Avrahami. Their film tracks the history of Hebron, where military rule and a far-right takeover by Jewish settlers have turned the once-bustling centre of the Palestinian city into a dystopian ghost town.
It argues that the mechanisms of control first developed in Hebron – “Jewish supremacy in its most blatant and unapologetic form”, says Sheizaf – are replicated throughout the Palestinian territories and will increasingly reach Israel.

Both films drew the ire of Shai Glick, a far-right activist known for targeting artists and cultural institutions he believes sully Israel’s reputation. His organisation, Betsalmo, launched pressure campaigns to get local authorities to cancel screenings – succeeding on one occasion when a public screening of H2 was canceled by the Israeli town of Pardes Hanna.
Glick’s efforts reached the culture minister, who has asked the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, to investigate whether the government can retroactively revoke grants made to the films.
“Our film argues that not only the [Palestinian] territories, but also Israel is going through a process of ‘Hebronization’,” Sheizaf said. “What’s crazy is that the process that’s at the heart of the film happened to the film itself.”
The culture ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time an Israeli culture minister has targeted Israeli productions dealing with the occupation. Miri Regev, the firebrand politician who held the post from 2015-2020, worked to withdraw state support from critical productions. She also created the “Samaria Film Fund” for Jewish settlers to counter what she claimed was a leftwing bias in the industry. However, her bill that would have made state funding conditional on “loyalty” to the state, died in parliament.
But under the current government – the most right wing in Israel’s history – artists worry that the guardrails that existed just a few years ago are about to come down. A proposed legal overhaul would gut the independence of the judiciary and of legal advisers, who have occasionally served as a check on similar efforts. The reforms to the judiciary have been the subject of mass protests in Israeli cities in recent weeks.
At the same time, the government’s communications minister has vowed to dismantle the country’s public broadcaster, which, alongside its news operation, funds scores of television and documentary productions.
“The feeling is that this is happening in the context of a watershed moment,” Sheizaf said. “If all of these things come to pass, this will be a very different country, overnight.”
Wachsmann said that the controversy had resulted in more public discussion of Israel’s practices. “That’s the plus in all of this – there’s been a focus on Palestinian children. They’re the issue here.”
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#Attack #freedom #Israel #moves #claw #state #funds #critical #films
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 21, 2023
Gujarat company MD moves court for pre-arrest bail in Morbi bridge collapse case

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Morbi: Managing Director of Ajanta Manufacturing Ltd, the firm which was given contract for operation and maintenance of a suspension bridge in Gujarat’s Morbi town that collapsed on October 30 last year killing 135 people, has moved a court here for anticipatory bail fearing arrest in the case.
Jaysukh Patel, moved the anticipatory bail plea in the sessions court in Morbi fearing arrest in the bridge collapse case, sources said.
The plea is likely to be heard on Saturday, they said.
Nine persons, including four employees of Ajanta Manufacturing (Oreva Group), have been arrested so far in the case. They included two managers and an equal number of ticket booking clerks of the Oreva Group that was managing the British-era bridge.
Patel’s name was not included in the first information report (FIR) filed by the police soon after the tragedy.
Police sources said they will file a charge-sheet in the case before January 30.
The suspension bridge on the Machchhu river was being maintained and operated by the Oreva Group as per an agreement signed with Morbi municipality.
Patel’s move comes even as the Gujarat government has issued a show-cause notice to the local municipality asking why it should not be dissolved for failing to discharge its duties that led to the tragedy.

A government-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) had cited, among other things, several lapses on part of the Oreva Group in repairs, maintenance and operation of the carriageway.
The lapses cited by the special probe team included no restriction on the number of persons accessing the bridge, no curb on sale of tickets, leading to unrestricted movement on the bridge and carrying out repairs without consulting experts.
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#Gujarat #company #moves #court #prearrest #bail #Morbi #bridge #collapse #case
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 20, 2023