Medaram Jatara is a festival of tribal origin in Telangana.
It is a festival of honouring the goddesses Sarakka celebrated in the state of Telangana.
The festival is held every two years at in Medaram Village in the heart of the thick forests of Jayashankar Bhupalpally district.
The festival honors tribal folk goddess Sammakka and Saralamma.
It has become a major pilgrimage in the recent decade and is believed to attract the largest number of devotees in the country after Kumbha Mela.
Removal of High Court Judge
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra recommended the impeachment of Justice Shri Narayan Shukla, judge of the Allahabad High Court.
The action was taken based on the in-house panel report setup by the CJI.
His orders in the cases of blacklisted private medical colleges in Lucknow had come under the scanner.
A judge of High court can be removed by the order of the President.
The President can issue the removal order only after the Parliament’s address presented to him.
The grounds of removal are two- proven misbehavior and incapacity.
The Judges Enquiry Act, 1968 regulates the procedure relating to the removal of judge.
Indus script
Scientists at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences have figured out a way to computationally estimate whether a language is written from left to right or otherwise.
As a part of the study, the found that the Indus script was written from right to left.
However in some long seals the Boustrophedon method of writing was adopted.
Boustrophedon writing is the way of writing in the reverse direction in alternate line.
Paleolithic sites
The study of over 7,200 stone artefacts collected from the archaeological site at Attirampakkam in the Kortallayar river basin (Tamilnadu) throws light over the transition period from lower to middle Paleolithic period
The Paleolithic/Old stone age period extends from 2.6 million years ago to 10000 BC
The period is divided into Lower, Middle and Upper phases
Res extra commercium
It is Latin phrase meaning ‘outside commerce’.
The doctrine dates back to the Roman period.
If applied, the doctrine gives authorities more leeway to impose restrictions.
e.g The Supreme Court’s application of the doctrine to alcohol in the 1970s paved the way for at least two Indian states to ban it completely and allowed courts to take a stricter stance while regulating liquor.
The Indian government is now pushing the Supreme Court to use this doctrine to the tobacco industry’s legal right to trade.
With an aim to curb tobacco consumption,the government has recently raised tobacco taxes, started smoking cessation campaigns and introduced laws requiring covering most of the package in health warnings.
But a court in Karnataka recently quashed the labelling rules holding them as “unreasonable” and as violative of the right to trade.
So the government is pushing the courts to use the doctrine to deter tobacco companies from challenging tough new regulations.
Source: The Hindu, BusinessLine, Business Standard
