New Zealand PM Ardern vows never to say Christchurch gunman's name
Christchurch: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised on Tuesday that the man responsible for last week's deadly mosque massacres would face "the full force of the law", as she vowed never to utter his name.
"He sought many things from his act of terror, but one was notoriety -- that is why you will never hear me mention his name," Ardern said in an emotional address to a special meeting of parliament, which she opened with the Arabic greeting "as salaam alaikum" -- 'peace be upon you'.
"I implore you: Speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them," she told the gathering in Wellington, four days after the massacre in the southern city of Christchurch.
"He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless," she said.
Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, was captured by police and has been charged with one count of murder, but Ardern assured parliament other charges would follow.
"He will face the full force of the law in New Zealand," she said.
Ardern has promised reforms to New Zealand gun laws which allowed Tarrant to legally purchase the weapons he used in the attack, including semi-automatic rifles.
And she announced a full review of how the Australian -- an avowed white supremacist -- was able to plan and carry out the attacks in New Zealand under the radar of security services.
"The person who committed these acts was not from here. He was not raised here. He did not find his ideology here. But that is not to say that those very same views do not live here," she said.
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Madras HC strikes down TN order limiting maternity leave for third child
Chennai: The Madras High Court has set aside a Tamil Nadu government order restricting maternity leave for a third pregnancy to 12 weeks, holding the move to be contrary to established legal principles.
A division bench comprising Justices R Suresh Kumar and N Senthil Kumar ruled that there was no justification to treat third pregnancies differently from the first two, observing that the physical and medical requirements of childbirth remain the same irrespective of the number of pregnancies, as reported by The News Minute.
According to a report published by Live Law, the court was hearing a petition filed by Shayee Nisha, a staff member of the district judiciary in Villupuram, whose request for maternity leave from February 2026 to February 2027 had been curtailed to three months by authorities citing the March 13, 2026 government order.
Quashing the decision of the Principal District Judge and related directions asking her to resume duty, the bench directed that she be granted maternity leave on par with that provided for earlier pregnancies, allowing up to 365 days.
The court noted that both the Supreme Court of India and earlier rulings of the High Court had consistently held that maternity benefits cannot be denied for a third child. Holding the restriction to be unsustainable, the court directed authorities to process maternity leave applications without discrimination based on the number of pregnancies.
It also pointed out that a similar issue had been addressed by a division bench earlier this year, which had disapproved denial of maternity leave in such cases and directed that its ruling be circulated among judicial officers. Despite this, the state issued the impugned order, the bench observed.
