Campaign to run down electric vehicles sad: Goyal
New Delhi, Sep 7 : Some companies in India are engaged in a campaign to run down electric vehicles in order to promote their hybrid cars in the country, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday, adding that it is sad that hybrid cars are being promoted at the expense of electric cars.
Addressing the Global Mobility Summit here, the Minister said that the companies pushing hybrid vehicles are actually promoting technology that is "second best".
"We saw the progression from petrol cars to hybrid cars, and it is extremely sad that there is a campaign to promote hybrid cars at the expense of electric cars. I urge those companies to quickly make electric cars instead of hawking the market with intermediate products," Goyal said.
"The sad part is that the campaign is being run by companies which don't make electric cars. To sell their hybrid cars they are willing to compromise with the best. They want us to settle for the second best just because they don't make electric cars.
"Gone are the days that India will settle for anything which is second best. We want nothing but the best," he added.
Declaring that he is the owner of two hybrid cars, the Minister said these brought "no savings whatsoever".
"So let's look for the best and move out of the psychology and psyche of subsidies and grants and government handholding everything," he said.
The Minister said that considering the cost dynamics in the country and that people deserve the best at affordable prices, the effort should be to make technology the driver of programming, "so that India moves to be a 100 per cent producer of electric vehicles by 2030".
Goyal also said the Centre has decided to bring all the logistics in the government under a common framework to enable more integrated planning under the Commerce Ministry.
"All of us, railways, road, transport, shipping and aviation are working in our own individual areas, but planning for logistics sector in a holistic manner, particularly, with the view to bring down the cost to 7-8 per cent from 12-14 per cent," he said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
36 ex-judges slam Opposition move to impeach Justice Swaminathan
New Delhi (PTI): Thirty-six former judges on Saturday gave a call to people, including parliamentarians, to denounce opposition leaders' move to impeach Madras High Court judge Justice G R Swaminathan, saying such an attempt, if allowed to proceed, would cut at the very roots of democracy and independence of the judiciary.
On December 1, Justice Swaminathan held that the Arulmighu Subramania Swamy Temple was duty-bound to light the lamp at the Deepathoon, in addition to the customary lighting near the Uchi Pillaiyar Mandapam.
The single-judge bench said that doing so would not encroach upon the rights of the adjacent dargah or the Muslim community.
ALSO READ: 55-bed free palliative care centre to open near Bengaluru’s Nelamangala
The order sparked a row, and on December 9, several opposition MPs, led by the DMK, submitted a notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to move a motion for the removal of the judge.
Taking serious exception to the move, the former judges in a joint statement said this is a "brazen attempt to browbeat judges who do not fall in line with the ideological and political expectations of a particular section of society".
"If such an attempt is permitted to proceed, it would cut at the very roots of our democracy and the independence of the judiciary," they said.
"We therefore call upon all stakeholders -- Members of Parliament across party lines, members of the Bar, civil society, and citizens at large -- to unequivocally denounce this move and ensure that it is nipped in the bud at the very inception," they added.
The statement emphasised that the judges must remain answerable to their oath and to the Constitution of India, not to "partisan political pressures or ideological intimidation".
"The message from all constitutional stakeholders must be clear and firm: in a republic governed by the rule of law, judgments are tested by appeals and legal critique, and not by threats of impeachment for political nonconformity," it said.
The statement was signed by former Supreme Court judge Krishn Murari J as well as ex-chief justices and former judges of different high courts.
The statement said the opposition party's move is not an "isolated aberration". It fits into a "clear and deeply troubling pattern" in India's recent constitutional history, where sections of the political class have sought to discredit and intimidate the higher judiciary whenever outcomes do not align with their interests, it added.
"The unprecedented bid in 2018 to initiate impeachment proceedings against then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the sustained campaigns of vilification directed at Chief Justices Ranjan Gogoi, S A Bobde and D Y Chandrachud while they were in office," the statement noted.
"The targeted attacks now being mounted against the incumbent CJI, Justice Surya Kant, whenever a judgment/remark displeases a political constituency, are all manifestations of the same trend," it said.
"This is not principled, reasoned criticism of judicial decisions; it is an attempt to weaponise impeachment and public calumny as instruments of pressure -- a practice that strikes at the heart of judicial independence and the basic norms of constitutional democracy," the statement added.
