The sun rises and sets and the moon changes; but people have no idea why, or what are the relations of the heavenly bodies to the earth. No one knows anything about the natural causes of rain or drought, storms or earthquakes, famine or disease. Thus, everything is put down to mysterious influences by magic or by god and bad spirits. Such ideas cannot very well be called superstitious so long as no better explanation is available. But reason may show that they are false; and finally, when scientific knowledge demonstrates the way things really work, the ideas of magic or spirit–influence can be seen to be mere superstitions. So, as science progresses, superstition ought to grow less. On the whole, that is true. But it is surprising how superstitions linger on. If we are tempted to look down on savage tribes and other nations for holding such ideas, we should remember that even today; among the most civilized nations, a great many equally stupid superstitions exist and are believed in by a great many people. It is worth making a list of the superstitions which you know about. Some people will not sit down thirteen at table; others will not light three cigarettes from one match, or do not like to start anything important on a Friday, or refuse to walk under a ladder. Many people buy charms and talismans because they think they will bring them luck. Perhaps you yourself are inclined to believe in some of these ideas! Try to find out if there is really anything in any of them, and what reasons there may be for people believing in them. Probably the most terrible example of superstitions is the belief in witchcraft. In Western Europe, during the 16th and 17th centuries, over three–quarters of a million people were killed, after being tortured, because they were found guilty of witchcraft–something for which today we can find no scientific evidence. When people give reasons are not merely superstitions, or based on false principles.
In addition, even in civilized nations today, many actions take place and laws are made on the basis of principles which are just as much unproved assumptions as were many of the philosophies of the Middle Ages. For instance, it is often held as a principle that white people are by nature superior to people of other colors. In the same sort of way the ancient Greeks believed themselves by nature superior to the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe. The only way to see if there is anything in such a principle is to make scientific studies on numbers of white and black and brown people under different conditions of life and education and find out just what they can and cannot achieve. It is however, true that the increase of scientific knowledge does reduce superstition and also baseless guessing and useless argument and practices. Civilized people do not argue and get angry about what water is composed of: the composition of water is known, and there is no argument about it. They may be frightened at a volcanic eruption or an outbreak of plague; but they do not try to calm the anger of mysterious powers to stop the eruption, or blame the plague on the sins of their enemies or on the plotting of witchcraft.

According to the Hindu tradition the name of the dance form was derived by joining two words, ‘Bharata’ and Natyam’ where ‘Natyam in Sanskrit means dance and ‘Bharata’ is a mnemonic comprising ‘bha’, ‘ra’ and ‘ta’ which respectively means ‘bhava’ that is emotion and feelings; ‘raga’ that is melody; and ‘tala’ that is rhythm. Thus, traditionally the word refers to a dance form where bhava, raga and tala are expressed) The theoretical base of this dance form, which is also referred as Sadir, trace back to ancient Indian theatrologist and musicologist, Bharata Muni’s Sanskrit Hindu text on the performing arts called ‘Natya Shastra’. Bharata Natyam is one of the oldest dance forms of India) It traces its origins back to the Natyashastra, an ancient treatise on theatre written by mythic priest Bharata) Bharata Natyam often is used to express Hindu religious stories and devotions. It was not commonly seen on the public stage until the 20th century. The dance movements are characterized by bent legs, while feet keep rhythm. Hands may be used in a series of mudras, or symbolic hand gestures to tell a story. It was nurtured in the temples and courts of Southern India since ancient times. Later it was codified and documented as a performing art in the 19th century by four brothers known as Tanjore Quartet whose musical compositions for dance form the bulk of the Bharata Natyam repertoire even today. The art was handed down as a living traditions from generation to generation under the Devadasi system under which women were dedicated to temples to serve the deity as dancers and musicians, forming part of the elaborate rituals. These highly talented artists and the male gurus (nattuvanars) were the sole repository of the art until the early 20th century when a renewal of interest in India’s cultural heritage prompted the educated elite to discover its beauty. By this time the Devadasis had fallen upon evil days due to lack of state patronage and changed social mores. The revival of Bharata Natyam by pioneers such as E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale brought the dance out of the temple precincts and onto the proscenium stage though it retained its essentially devotional character.
Today, Bharata Natyam is one of the most popular and widely performed dance styles and is practiced by male and female dances all over India) Due to its wide range of movements and postures and the balanced mélange of the rhythmic and mimetic aspects lends itself well to experimental and fusion choreography. Degree and Post Graduate courses covering the practice and theory of Bharata Natyam as well as the languages associated with its development are available at major Universities of India)  [Extracted from websource: https://www.culturalindia)net/indiandance/classical/bharatnatyam.html]

The World Wide Web, a network of electronically produced and interconnected (or “linked”) sites, called pages, that are accessible via personal computer, raises legal issues about the rights of owners of intellectual property, notably those who create documents for inclusion on Web pages. Some of these owners of intellectual property claim that unless copyright law is strengthened, intellectual property on the Web will not be protected from copyright infringement. Web users, however, claim that if their ability to access information on Web pages is reduced, the Web cannot live up to its potential as an open, interactive medium of communication. The debate arises from the Web’s ability to link one document to another. Links between sites are analogous to the inclusion in a printed text of references to other works, but with one difference: the cited document is instantly retrievable by a user who activates the link. This immediate accessibility creates a problem, since current copyright laws give owners of intellectual property the right to sue a distributor of unauthorized copies of their material even if that distributor did not personally make the copies. If person A, the author of a document, puts the document on a Web page, and person B, the creator of another Web page, creates a link to A’s document, is B committing copyright infringement? To answer this question, it must first be determined who controls distribution of a document on the Web. When A places a document on a Web page, this is comparable to recording an outgoing message on one’s telephone answering machine for others to hear. When B creates a link to A’s document, this is akin to B’s giving out A’s telephone number, thereby allowing third parties to hear the outgoing message for themselves. Anyone who calls can listen to the message; that is its purpose. While B’s link may indeed facilitate access to A’s document, the crucial point is that A, simply by placing that document on the Web, is thereby offering it for distribution. Therefore, even if B leads others to the document, it is A, who actually controls access to it. Hence creating a link to a document is not the same as making or distributing a copy of that document. Moreover, techniques are already available by which A can restrict access to a document. For example, A may require a password to gain entry to A’s Web page, just as a telephone owner can request an unlisted number and disclose it only to selected parties. Such a solution would compromise the openness of the Web somewhat, but not as much as the threat of copyright infringement litigation. Changing copyright law to benefit owners of intellectual property is thus ill-advised because it would impede the development of the Web as a public forum dedicated to the free exchange of ideas.

OXFORD, England — Twitter has been taunting us: When he was in quarantine from the plague, William Shakespeare wrote “King Lear.” He had an advantage, of sorts: Shakespeare’s life was marked by plague. Just weeks after his baptism at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford–upon–Avon in 1564, the register read, “Hic incepit pestis” (Here begins the plague). Mortality rates in the town were four times that of the previous, plague–free year. Shakespeare, the son of the town’s glover, survived it and many further outbreaks. Much of his work was composed, if not in lockdown, then in the shadow of a highly infectious disease without a known cure. While the theatres were closed for an epidemic in 1592–3, the fledgling playwright produced his hugely successful narrative poems “Venus and Adonis” (a piece of beautiful erotica in which the goddess Venus throws herself at the unwilling Adonis) and “The Rape of Lucrece” (a queasily voyeuristic poem about sexual assault). Again in 1603–4, when plague prevented the coronation celebrations for the new king, James I, and one in five Londoners succumbed to the disease, Shakespeare was probably writing his study of civic corruption, “Measure for Measure.” In the plague outbreak of the summer of 1606, Shakespeare may well have been working on “King Lear," given that the tragedy’s first performance was at the Palace of Whitehall, the main London residence of Tudor and Stuart English monarchs, “on St Stephen’s night in Christmas holidays” the same year. The impact of the disease on the play, though, is oblique. There are references to plague which have lost their specificity over time, but which must then have caused a shiver. Lear curses his daughter Regan and her husband Cornwall with “Vengeance, plague, death, confusion,” and berates her as “a plague–sore or embossed carbuncle / In my corrupted blood)” “Plague–sore” refers to the inflamed lymph glands that were such a feared symptom of the disease — it’s not something any parent should wish on their child) Perhaps the play’s particular violence on the younger generation allegorizes that of the plague itself: The disease was most rampant among those in their 20s and 30sShakespeare seems to have been able largely to shut out his immediate context. The plague is everywhere and nowhere in his work. In the language of “King Lear” and other plays it is ubiquitous — but otherwise it’s almost entirely absent. Men and women, to be sure, die in any number of inventive ways. In “Othello,” Desdemona is smothered in her bed) In “Titus Andronicus,” the rapists Chiron and Demetrius have their throats cut and are baked in pastry. John of Gaunt dies of old age exacerbated by the absence of his exiled son in “Richard II.” In “Hamlet,” Ophelia drowns. But no one in Shakespeare’s plays dies of the plague. Romeo and Juliet, who die because the friar’s letter is held up by quarantine measures in northern Italy, are the nearest his work comes to plague fatalities. Just as Shakespeare never set a play in contemporary London, neither did he address directly the most prominent cause of sudden death in his society. Documentary realism was not Shakespeare’s style.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said major global firms are looking at India as a major investment destination, which is reflected by a robust inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) last financial year, and through Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan‘ (SelfReliant India initiative) the country is shifting its focus from Make in India‘ to Make for world‘. He said Independent India should be ―vocal for local‖ and asked citizens to glorify Indian products to promote AtmanirbharBharat‘. Unveiling his vision of a Self-Reliant India, the Prime Minister said that the government has unveiled over Rs 110 lakh crore National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) to boost the economy and create jobs. ―In order to rapidly modernise India, there is a need to give a new direction to overall infrastructure development, he said, adding that over 7,000 projects under NIP have been already identified) ―This will be, in a way, a new revolution in the field of infrastructure. This is the time to end silos in infrastructure. There is a plan to connect the entire country with multimodel connectivity infrastructure,he said) NIP will play a crucial role in overcoming the adverse impact of Covid-19 on the economy and catapult the economy in a higher growth trajectory, he said) The government on December 31 last year unveiled the NIP with an aim to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25. The focus of the infrastructure pipeline is to accelerate growth and create employment in both urban and rural areas. Source: Excerpt from Hindustan Times, written by Rajeev Jayaswal. (Dated 15th August, 2020)

One thing struck us as a major difference between the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its predecessor. The earlier national policies on education (NPE) from 1986 and 1992 presented themselves as attempts to consolidate and build on earlier efforts, particularly the NPE, 1968. The new NEP 2020 policy, on the other hand, is very keen to establish that it is different from everything in the past, including in its name. Nowhere does this attitude come across as starkly as it does in the section on higher education. It comes across fairly clearly on how the higher education ecosystem will be by 2040. By this time — if the policy has its way — the Indian higher education ecosystem will be populated with higher education institutions (HEI). These will comprise Universities and Colleges and the public and private sectors, all of which will be ‗multi-disciplinary‘, with each populated by more than 3,000 students, with at least one ―in or near every district‖. Universities will conduct research and post-graduate and under-graduate teaching, some research-intensive and others teaching-intensive. Colleges will largely teach at the under-graduate level, with a number of them having their medium of instruction in either bilingual or local / Indian languages. The colleges can manifest in clusters around universities as constituent colleges or may be standalone autonomous ones. Ideally, all HEIs will eventually become ―independent self-governing institutions‖ with considerable ―faculty and institutional autonomy. They will have complied with a series of regulatory exercises that are ―light-but-tight‖ and will be operated by a large number of private accreditors, overseen by a new set of regulatory institutions at the national level. Source: Excerpt taken from downtoearth.org.in, written by Nitin Mehta &Gagan Mehta) (Dated 14th August, 2020)

The bench of Dr DY Chandrachud and MR Shah, JJ has refused to transfer to CBI the criminal cases lodged against Republic TV Editor in-Chief Arnab Goswami for alleged defamatory news show telecast on April 21 in connection with the Palghar mob-lynching case. It also quashed all FIRs against Arnab Goswami except one which was filed in Nagpur and which has been transferred to Mumbai via order dated 24.04.2020. Delivering the verdict, Justice Chandrachud said, ― Article 32 of the Constitution constitutes recognition of the constitutional duty entrusted to this Court to protect the fundamental rights of citizens. The exercise of journalistic freedom lies at the core of speech and expression protected by Article 19(1)a). The petitioner is a media journalist. The airing of views on television shows which he hosts is in the exercise of his fundamental right to speech and expression under Article 19(1)a). India‟s freedoms will rest safe as long as journalists can speak truth to power without being chilled by a threat of reprisal…Free citizens cannot exist when the news media is chained to adhere to one position. Yuval Noah Harari has put it succinctly in his recent book titled “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”: “Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.” [Excerpt from Arnab Ranjan Goswami vs Union Of India on 19 May, 2020]

On 7th May 2020, a major leakage of Styrene gas was reported from the plastics manufacturing plant 'LG Polymers' located on the outskirts of the Visakhapatnam city. The accident took place when the cooling system of a polymers plant got clogged due to the mismanagement of factory workers and resulted in turning the city into a gas chamber. The gas which leaked was styrene gas, which is a ‗hazardous chemical‘ under Rule 2(e) plus Entry 583 of Schedule I of the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemical Rules 1989.
Principle 1: Polluter Pays Principle The 'Doctrine of Polluter Pays' is a well-established principle of environmental law, which places an obligation of compensating the damage to the people who ought to reimburse it and also have the capacity to disburse it. The principle explicitly affirms that the person who damages or destructs the environment has the absolute obligation to bear the cost of ameliorating the environment. In Enviro Legal Action v. Union of India case, the Apex Court of India held that the polluter is legally responsible to reimburse the individual sufferers as well as pay for the revitalization of the damaged environment.
 Principle 2: Principle of Strict Liability The principle of Strict Liability was established in the year 1868 in the case of Rylands v. Fletcher, where the Court held that any person who uses his/her land in an 'unnatural manner' and who keeps any 'hazardous substance' on such premises would be held liable under the principle of strict liability for any 'damage' occurred on the 'escape' of such perilous substance. However, the person is liable only when there is non-natural use of land; the principle also restricts liability when the escape is due to an act of strangers, Act of God, for example a natural calamity; due to the person injured or when it happens with the consent of the person injured or with statutory authority.
Principle 3: Principle of Absolute Liability The absolute liability is a stringent form of Strict Liability as it is devoid of any exceptions that were mentioned under the earlier principle. for the first time in the case of M.C) Mehta v. Union of India) This principle implies that whenever an enterprise is engaged in any dangerous or hazardous activity that threatens the people working in the enterprise and those living nearby, it owes an absolute and non-delegable duty to the community that no harm will be caused) If harm is indeed caused, the enterprise will have to compensate for damages, and can‘t use exceptions provided in the case of strict liability. The enterprise can‘t claim that the harm has not been caused due to negligence (absence of due care) or that it had taken all reasonable precautions.

Principle : Whoever, intending to take dishonestly any movable property out of the possession of any person without that person’s consent, moves that property, is said to commit theft. Whoever commits theft, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.                          
Facts: Raju sees a cell phone belonging to Ram laying on the table in Ram’s house. Raju hides the cell phone in Ram’s house in such a place where Ram could not find it ever, due to the fear of immediate search and detection. Raju did this with the intention of taking away the cell phone from the hidden place when Ram forgets about and then sell it away.

Principles : An “insider” in relation to any company is any person who is an employee, director, or holder of more than 10% or more of that company’s shares, or who is in possession of, or has access to, unpublished information that may affect the price of that company’s shares on the market (such information is called “unpublished price sensitive information”).
No insider in possession of unpublished price sensitive information shall communicate, provide, or allow access to any unpublished price sensitive information, relating to the company in relation to which they are an insider, or its shares, to any person, including other insiders, except where such communication is in furtherance of legitimate purposes, performance of duties or discharge of legal obligations. Any insider that does so shall be guilty of the offence of insider trading.
No insider may buy and then sell, or sell and then buy the shares of any company in relation to which they are an insider, within a six-month period. Any insider that does this shall be guilty of committing a contra trade.
 Facts : Sam works as a secretary in Super Cement Company Limited (the “Company”). He has been in the Company’s employ for over seven years, but only as a secretary, and does not usually have access to any sensitive information at the Company’s offices. Sam’s wife, Suhani, is a share trader, and makes her living buying and selling shares on the stock market. One day in February, Sam returned home and left his bag on the table. Suhani noticed a piece of paper that had fallen out of the bag, and while picking it up, she saw that the paper described certain important plans that the company was about to put into motion to expand its business dramatically by taking huge loans. Sam saw the paper in Suhani’s hands, and asked her to put it away; his boss, a director of the Company, had asked Sam to proof-read the paper and give it back to him the next day. He had also told Sam that the paper contained secret information that should not be revealed to anyone.
The next day, Suhani sold all the shares she owned in the Company. Sam’s boss owned 15% of the Company’s shares, and he sold all his shares that same day.
In November of the same year, the Company’s shares were trading at a price much lower than they were in February. Suhani and Sam’s boss bought a number of the Company’s shares in November, at the lower price.

Compassionate appointment is an exception to the general rule of appointment which is a way
of providing employment to the family of the deceased employee on compassionate grounds.
The objective is only to provide solace and succour to the family in difficult times and, thus,
its relevancy is at that stage of time when the employee passes away. The mere death of an
employee in harness does not entitle his family to such source of livelihood. The authority
concerned has to examine the financial condition of the family of the deceased, and it is only
if it is satisfied that, but for the provision of employment, the family will not be able to meet
the crisis that the job is offered to the eligible member of the family. It was further asseverated
in the said judgment that compassionate employment cannot be granted after a lapse of
reasonable period as the consideration of such employment is not a vested right which can be
exercised at any time in the future. It was further held that the object of compassionate
appointment is to enable the family to get over the financial crisis that it faces at the time of
the death of sole breadwinner. Thus, compassionate appointment cannot be claimed or offered
after a significant lapse of time and after the crisis is over.