New Delhi, Sep 28: The Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognisance of recent cases of rape and sexual assault reported in Delhi-NCR, including the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl at a park near Delhi’s Kalkaji Mandir and the alleged sexual assault of a minor inside a moving sleeper bus.

A Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran expressed concern over the recurring incidents of sexual offences in the National Capital Region and directed the apex court registry to register a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) on the issue and list it for hearing.

The Justice Pardiwala-led Bench observed that the incidents, considered alongside other recent reports of sexual offences across Delhi-NCR, raised serious concerns regarding the functioning of law-enforcement and public administrative authorities responsible for ensuring public safety.

The Supreme Court stressed that the right to live with dignity and without fear of violence forms an intrinsic part of the fundamental right to life and personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

It further observed that public spaces, including parks, roads, buses, metro stations, subways and footbridges, cannot be allowed to become high-risk zones because of inadequate lighting, surveillance, patrolling or other preventable administrative deficiencies.

The top court called for a measurable response from the authorities and stressed the need to fix accountability on those entrusted with the prevention of crime, maintenance of public order and protection of vulnerable persons.

The Supreme Court’s intervention comes amid a series of sexual offences reported in Delhi and the adjoining National Capital Region in recent weeks.

In the latest incident that triggered concern, a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by three men posing as policemen at a park near Kalkaji Mandir in Delhi.

According to police, the girl had gone to Kalkaji Mandir with a male friend on September 22 and later entered a nearby park. The three accused allegedly approached them, claimed to be police personnel, threatened them and took their mobile phones.

The survivor later told police that two of the men took her towards an isolated part of the park, where she was allegedly sexually assaulted. She also alleged that one of the accused, identified as Asif, displayed a firearm while threatening her.

Following a PCR call, police reached the spot. Asif was subsequently apprehended after an encounter and sustained a gunshot injury. Efforts to trace the other two accused were underway.

The Supreme Court’s suo moto proceedings also cover the alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl inside a moving sleeper bus in the Greater Noida-Delhi region.

The incident, reported in August, involved a girl from Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri who had travelled towards Noida and later boarded a sleeper bus after missing her stop.

The driver and conductor of the bus allegedly sexually assaulted her and later abandoned her near Kashmere Gate in Delhi.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had earlier taken suo motu cognisance of the incident and issued notices to the Police Commissioners of Delhi and Gautam Buddha Nagar and the Superintendent of Police, Mainpuri, seeking reports on the investigation and compensation, if any, provided to the survivor.

Police arrested the driver and conductor and seized the sleeper bus for forensic examination. Investigators also collected CCTV footage along the route to establish the movement of the vehicle and the sequence of events.

New Delhi, Sep 28: Union Minister J.P. Nadda on Monday hit out at Congress and the INDIA bloc, accusing them of lacking policies and vision and alleging that they were now devising new ways to spread confusion and anarchy across the country.

Speaking to reporters, Nadda said that while 140 crore Indians were working tirelessly to realise the vision of a developed India and the country’s reputation was growing globally, Congress and the INDIA bloc were frustrated with the country’s progress.

“Today, when 140 crore Indians are proving the resolve of a developed India through their tireless hard work, and India’s fame is echoing on the global stage, unfortunately, Congress and the entire INDIA bloc are frustrated and hopeless seeing this progress of the country,” he said.

Nadda claimed that allegations made by the Opposition had repeatedly been countered by facts.

“All the fabricated allegations of the Opposition have been repeatedly shattered on the touchstone of facts. From the Election Commission to the highest courts of the country, the air has been blown out of every single one of their lies,” he said.

He alleged that the Opposition was attempting to create confusion in the country in the absence of policies and a clear vision.

“When they lack policies and vision, they now plot new schemes to spread confusion and anarchy across the country. We all saw a few days ago how an uproar was created across the nation over a fabricated piece of news,” Nadda said.

Referring to the ongoing political controversy surrounding the Election Commission, he accused the Opposition of attempting to undermine constitutional institutions.

“Now, when all members of the Election Commission exposed every lie they levelled, they are trying to ruin the atmosphere anew from scratch. Rahul Gandhi, listen with open ears: repeating a lie a hundred times does not make it the truth, nor does the truth get defeated,” he said.

Nadda further alleged that the ‘sole agenda’ of Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Akhilesh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee was to ‘defame and weaken’ the country’s autonomous and constitutional institutions.

“This is the same toolkit mentality, which creates a new conspiracy every morning. Accuse, deteriorate the atmosphere of the country, and run away. This is their way of working. They don’t care about the people or the country’s pride. They only want to get into power,” he said.

His remarks came amid protests by Congress and other INDIA bloc leaders over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has been at the centre of the political controversy surrounding the Election Commission of India. It was reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised concerns over certain decisions of the poll body, particularly those related to the SIR exercise. This was, however, denied by the ECI, saying all decisions were approved unanimously.

New Delhi, Sep 27: Indian Army chief General Dhiraj Seth on Sunday called a land victory the only “tangible factor” of success in a war, despite increasing technological innovations in the defence sector.

In his address at the media Defence Summit 2016, General Seth said: “We see salvo after salvo in today’s social media covering warfare across the globe, where information narratives and warfare are being fired to fog the real battle picture, creating uncertainty and confusion…However, I strongly feel, through all this clutter, one reality that does not change: land will always be the one and only tangible and useful factor of success.”

“Victory was, is, and will always be measured in territorial terms and that territory will be occupied, secured, and defended only by the force,” he asserted.

“Every capability must address one question: how does it help that soldier who puts his boots or tracks on the ground? That is why I would place him at the heart of the capability development that you’re looking at…”

Recalling a photograph taken on December 16, 1971 that depicted Pakistan surrendering at the end of the Bangladesh Liberation War, the army chief said: “The reason I allude to this today is that that photo gave us a very defining moment, because that was the precise moment when the war came to an end. But there is no demarcating moment; there is no termination point which indicates an end to the hostilities.”

He noted that conflict timelines are becoming “increasingly indefinite”, with intermittent spikes of intense fighting.

“Technology is certainly shortening the battles, but it is not necessarily shortening the war. These millennium wars can best be described as wars with pause. Pause, in fact, is becoming a part of military strategy, with the pause representing not the domination of conflict but merely a change in its intensity and manifestation,” General Seth added.

Underlining that there is no substitute for self-reliance, he said when crisis becomes prolonged, being ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) will mark the winning factor between the victor and the vanquished.

“Atmanirbharta must be about ensuring that we have the capability to endure without being constrained by what others can or cannot provide. That gives us a good reason to take a hard look at the very pathways of our indigenous capability,” he said.

However, the Army chief advised caution regarding “indigenous obsolescence”.

“The challenge is not just to reduce dependencies on others but also to ensure that what we develop indigenously does not become outdated by the time it is dumped. I would like to term it as indigenous obsolescence or that kind of a trap that can get created,” he said.

According to the government, the value of India’s indigenous defence production increased from Rs 46,429 crore in 2014-15 to a record Rs 1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26.