Hyderabad: As we bid adieu to 2019 and usher in 2020, here's a quick roundup of some of the most significant events, decisions, happenings, and discoveries, that stood out in 2019.
Politics:
A lot happened in India's political sphere, with the country witnessing a fiercely fought general election to the 17th Lok Sabha.
Despite Congress putting strenuous effort to defeat BJP, with Rahul Gandhi leading the way, the saffron party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerged victorious for a second consecutive term with a bigger mandate. It won 303 of the 436 Lok Sabha seats contested by it in the 545 member Lower House of Parliament. Congress won 52 seats, a distant second.
BJP had won 282 seats of 543 Lok Sabha seats in 2014.
Let's come to Maharashtra assembly elections now. The making of a government in this western Indian state witnessed twists and turns that would put an edge-of-the-seat Bollywood movie at shame, and the climax had the Shiv Sena, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party work out an unlikely alliance to form the government.
BJP had secured 105 seats, Shiv Sena bagged 56, Nationalist Congress Party had won 54, followed by Congress which secured 44 seats in the 288 member state assembly.
When it comes to political drama, the southern state of Karnataka is not far behind Maharashtra, with the BJP managing to topple the 14-month-old Congress-JD (S) coalition government in the state.
Saffron party's B. S. Yediyurappa took oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka on July 26 after Congress-JD (S) coalition lost the trust vote in the assembly by 105 votes to 99 in a House of 225, forcing HD Kumaraswamy to resign.
The high-voltage intense power struggle, which lasted for over three weeks, was triggered by a raft of resignations by 17 rebel lawmakers from the Congress-JD (S) camp.
Socio-politics:
Apart from the country's political realm, several developments took place in the socio-political domain of the country as well.
One such development was the nullification of Article 370, thereby revoking the special status of Jammu Kashmir on August 5. It was followed by the Parliament's decision to pass the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019, which led to the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Before taking the controversial step, the centre had, on the night of August 4, placed the then Union territory under lockdown, deployed massive numbers of additional security forces, detained or put under house arrest almost all influential local as well national Kashmiri political leaders, and suspended internet services on cellphones, which still stands suspended.
Hence, silencing all voices of dissent from the Valley.
On August 31, the contentious final National Register of Citizens list was published, excluding 19,06,657 people of the 3.29 crore people who had applied for it from Assam, leaving a big question mark over the fate of those who did not make it to this register.
The National Register of Citizen (NRC) is till date the biggest drive to verify citizenship in India. It is aimed at identifying illegal immigrants who entered and settled in Assam, primarily from Bangladesh, after March 25, 1971, and deport them to their native country.
The NRC was followed by the passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Parliament on December 11, thereby transforming it into an Act.
The amendment, thus made to the Citizenship Act, 1955 will grant citizenship to immigrants from six religious minority communities including Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist, Jains and Parsis excluding Muslims, who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh after facing religious persecution.
Millions of people have taken to the streets across India against the piece of legislation. Critics are of the view that the Act when coupled with nationwide NRC - is a step closer towards India's transition into a majoritarian country, as the Act differentiates based on religion while according to citizenship.
Court judgement:
The Indian judiciary also had an action-packed year and it passed several significant judgements this year.
Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi passed a slew of key landmark judgments before demitting office on November 17.
The crucial among all was the judgement in the long-festering Ayodhya land dispute case, wherein the Apex Court on November 9 called for setting up of a trust for building a temple at the disputed site while ordering the sanctioning of a five-acre land parcel to Muslims to build a mosque within Ayodhya.
On November 13, Gogoi, heading a Supreme Court constitution bench, passed a judgement which expanded the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) applications to the Supreme Court and the CJI's office.
On November 14, a Supreme Court bench headed by Gogoi referred the Sabarimala issue - with regards to the temple’s practice of barring the entry of women between the ages of 10 and 50 - to a larger, seven-member bench after hearing pleas seeking a review of its decision to allow women of all ages into the temple.
The Supreme Court on December 18 dismissed the mercy petition filed by one of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, seeking review of its 2017 judgement upholding his death penalty.
A Delhi Court on December 20 sentenced expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar to life imprisonment for raping a minor girl in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao in 2017.
Crime against women:
Several heinous incidents of crime against women were also reported from across the country.
On December 7, a 20-year-old woman, who survived a brutal gang rape, died after being set ablaze in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao by two of the five accused out on bail. The woman suffered 90% burns. Meanwhile, police have arrested all five men involved in the crime including the main accused Shivam Trivedi.
On November 27, a 26-year-old veterinary doctor from Shamshabad in Hyderabad was brutally gang-raped and murdered allegedly by four men, who have been accused of smothering her and later burning her body. All four suspects were, on
December 6, killed in a police encounter. While some hailed the state police for gunning down the suspects, critics, however, accused it of orchestrating the encounter without giving a chance to the suspects to prove their innocence.
Economy:
Let's shift our focus now to the Indian economy which as put my Nobel Prize winning Indian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee is in a "tailspin" and "doing very badly".
India's annual growth in gross domestic product fell to 4.5% for the quarter ended September 30, down from 5% in the previous three months and 7% for the corresponding period of 2018. The GDP growth seen in the last quarter was slowest in more than six years.
The central government, however, has been evading questions on India's economic slowdown.
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Despite the economic slowdown, India decided to walk out of the biggest regional trade partnership the world could have seen. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership could have given - possibly it still can - almost unrestricted access of each other’s markets to the members.
Some experts, in addition to the government, have maintained that the reason for the walkout is India’s adverse trade balance.
However, many critics view this as a protectionist step.
Ever surging price of onions - an Indian staple root vegetable - is adding to the woes of the general public. The retail price of Onions is between Rs 130 and Rs 140 per kilogram, the wholesale rate varies as per the variety.
Onions imported from Turkey and Afghanistan are being sold at Rs 40 to Rs 60 per kilogram. However, the Indian onion - primarily from Nasik - is being sold at a whopping Rs 95 per kilogram.
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