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Supreme Court’s Role in Tackling Delhi’s Pollution: Impactful Measures or Questionable Intervention

(CTN News) – While the pollution issue in Delhi, India’s capital, has recently garnered international attention, it is far from new. The highest court in the land has deliberated the matter at length for nearly forty years, sometimes issuing rulings that have drastically altered daily life in Delhi.
In early November, the Supreme Court demanded “immediate action” in response to the dangerously low air quality in the nation’s capital, marking its most recent intervention.
The Delhi government’s efforts to address the situation were discussed in court. These included a plan to limit the use of motor vehicles on certain days based on the last digit of license plates, as well as a reduction in stubble burning in neighboring states of Punjab and Haryana.
Last Monday, the court reprimanded authorities for what it deemed a “gross breach of assurances” in failing to implement its directions to distribute funding for a rapid rail system, even though it left the discretion of developing these policies to the government.
The project’s goal is to reduce traffic congestion by linking Delhi to nearby cities via high-speed rail tracks.
The top court criticized the state government of Punjab for its inaction in preventing stubble burning and for the negative portrayal of farmers in the state as a result.
The Supreme Court has been a pioneer in air pollution measures in Delhi, issuing directives such as limiting the types of cars allowed on city streets, forcing the transfer of thousands of polluting companies, and closing off polluting businesses.
Despite its reluctance, it has also received praise for compelling the administration to take action.
The effectiveness of the court’s rulings has been questioned by detractors, who also accuse it of frequently interfering with presidential actions. Some have noted that the capital’s pollution levels have increased over the last four decades despite efforts to address the issue.
A renowned lawyer named Shyam Divan recently wrote that the highest court in India fulfills the several roles of “policymaker, lawmaker, public educator and super administrator” simultaneously.
Americans have the US Congress, the EPA, and a plethora of funds to safeguard the environment. “This is where our Supreme Court is located,” he declared.
But many who support the court see it as a watchdog and a place where people can work out their differences.
In 1984, environmentalist MC Mehta brought several complaints to the attention of the highest court over pollution in Delhi, specifically regarding the increasing pollution caused by vehicles in the city, the effects of this pollution on the world-famous Taj Mahal, and the contamination of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna.
The court has been adding additional issues to these pending petitions; for example, in 2017, it combined a request regarding the smog problem in Delhi with an ongoing case over vehicle pollution.
The court has also occasionally taken very extreme action.
The government mandated 1998 that all diesel-powered public vehicles, numbering an estimated 100,000, convert to compressed natural gas (CNG) by 2001.
Court fines and the threat of contempt kept everyone in compliance, even if the government was against the change.
For example, the court froze the licenses of tuk-tuk drivers for over a decade, and it has also gotten into smaller details like what types of vehicles should operate in Delhi.
The actions yielded results, but only temporarily. Research confirms that switching to CNG helped improve air quality in Delhi.
Nevertheless, according to experts, these benefits have been overwhelmed by the surge in private vehicles in the city.
Millions of people, including tuk-tuk drivers and others in the public transportation industry, were negatively impacted by the ruling, according to lawyer Anuj Bhuwania’s book Courting The People. These people were never allowed to state their case in court.
Once hailed as one of the “most powerful weapons” to effect social change, he claims that a small group of attorneys and plaintiffs in India’s public interest litigation system have taken control and are pushing for reforms at the expense of low-income people.
“At this point, if they [the court] washed their hands off it, we may not be worse off because they’ve done so much damage,” said Mr. Bhuwania.
However, some judges think the court should step in, and they have a track record of success.
A former chief justice, PN Bhagwati, who presided over environmental cases and helped bring the court into policymaking, predicted that “judicial activism” would be unavoidable.
Although the court’s rulings have inconvenienced many, another former chief justice, KG Balakrishnan, stated that the judges’ willingness to take “unpopular decisions” to clean up the environment was demonstrated by the initial success of the CNG order.
While the court’s goal of improving the city’s air quality has been admirable, some legal experts have raised concerns about the soundness of some of its rulings.
A federal court ordered the installation of smog towers—large-scale air purifiers—in the nation’s capital in November 2019.
According to multiple experts who spoke with the BBC, there wasn’t enough proof at the time that these towers would reduce air pollution. Even the capital’s pollution control board reviewed the towers four years later and said they were useless.
But not everyone thinks things have become worse because of the Supreme Court.
According to environmental lawyer Shibani Ghosh, there have been some tangible benefits from the court’s involvement.
It “has to allow the government to take the lead,” she continued when it comes to implementing policies and new legislation.
According to environmental law expert Ritwick Dutta, specialty tribunals or lower courts could be crucial in upholding current environmental legislation.
India has enacted many additional regulations during the past forty years to curb deforestation, wildlife poaching, water contamination, and noise pollution.
“Even the Supreme Court, which has taken the lead in Delhi, listens to the case only when pollution is at its peak in the city” , said Mr. Dutta.
“But the moment the air quality improves, the cases are once again put on the backburner.”

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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