The Andhra Pradesh high court ruled that the state government does not have legislative competence to pass any resolution or law for change of capital or bifurcating or trifurcating the capital city. The YSRC government headed by Jagan Mohan Reddy had dropped the plan to develop Amaravati as the capital city after coming to office in 2019 and decided to have three capitals - maravati, Visakhapatnam, and Kurnool. The court, however, directed the state government and the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) to complete town planning schemes according to the Amaravati capital city master plan within six months. The judges held that only Parliament had the powers to enact legislation on a state capital. Interestingly, the Centre has notified Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh and represented it as such in the latest map by the Survey of India.
Karnataka college goes soft on hijab issue
The controversy in Karnataka over hijabs in classrooms risked chiselling a new fault line with a college in Bengaluru requesting a Sikh girl to remove her turban and eventually allowing her - as well as Muslim students with headscarves - after her family refused to comply. In a temporary order pending the consideration of all petitions related to the hijab row, the Karnataka High Court had restrained all students in the state from wearing saffron shawls, scarves, hijab and any religious flag within the classroom earlier this month. Authorities at the Mount Carmel PU College said they informed students about the court order when the educational institution reopened on February 16.
