Chief Justices have been in the minority in 13 significant judgments, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has said, standing by his recent ruling in the marriage equality case. He was speaking yesterday at the 3rd Comparative Constitutional Law discussion on ‘Perspectives from the Supreme Courts of India and the United States’, hosted by Georgetown University in Washington, DC

“I do believe it is sometimes a vote of conscience and a vote of the Constitution. And I stand by what I said,” the Chief Justice said on the Supreme Court’s October 17 judgment in which it stopped short of legalising same-sex marriages.

All the judges on the five-member Constitution bench agreed that tweaking laws to bring about marriage equality would amount to encroaching into the legislature’s domain. There was, however, a difference of opinion on the question of the right to civil union and adoption rights. Chief Justice Chandrachud and Justice SK Kaul were in favour of recognising same-sex unions. The majority of the bench took a different view, with Justice S Ravindra Bhat saying he disagreed with the court directing the State to provide for a new legal framework to formalise such relationships.

The Chief Justice also stood by the Supreme Court’s judgment of leaving the decision on marriage equality to Parliament.

“By the unanimous verdict of all the five judges on the bench, we came to the conclusion that while we have progressed a great deal in terms of decriminalising homosexuality and recognising people belonging to the queer community as equal participants in our society, legislating on the right to marry is something that falls within the domain of Parliament,” the Chief Justice said.

In his judgment in the closely-watched case, the Chief Justice had said choosing a life partner is an integral part of choosing one’s course of life. “Some may regard this as the most important decision of their life. This right goes to the root of the right to life and liberty under Article 21,” he said.

“The right to enter into union includes the right to choose one’s partner and the right to recognition of that union. A failure to recognise such associations will result in discrimination against queer couples,” the Chief Justice said, adding, “the right to enter into union cannot be restricted on the basis of sexual orientation”.

Supporting adoption rights for queer couples, he said there is nothing to probe that only heterosexual couples can provide stability to a child. “There is no material on record to prove that only a married heterosexual couple can provide stability to a child,” he said.

Israel’s military said it was preparing for “unrelenting attacks” to dismantle Hamas while former U.S. President Barack Obama warned that “any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire.”

The Palestinian health ministry said the Gaza death toll in two weeks of air strikes had topped 5,000.

Israel pounded hundreds of targets in Gaza from the air on Monday as its soldiers fought Hamas militants during raids into the besieged Palestinian strip where civilians are trapped in harrowing conditions.

Hamas on Monday said it had freed two Israeli women among the more than 200 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel in which the Islamist group killed 1,400 people. They were the third and fourth hostages to be released.

Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi issued a statement suggesting that Israel had no intention of curbing its strikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip and hinting that it was well prepared for a ground assault.

“We want to bring Hamas to a state of full dismantling,” Halevi said. “The path is a path of unrelenting attacks, damaging Hamas everywhere and in every way.

“We are well prepared for the ground operations in the south,” he added, referring to southern Israel, which abuts Gaza. “There are tactical, operative, strategic considerations that have provided additional time, and troops who have more time are better prepared, and that is what we are doing now.”

In public, the United States has stressed Israel’s right to defend itself but two sources familiar with the matter said the White House, Pentagon and State Department have stepped up private appeals for caution in conversations with the Israelis.

A U.S. priority is to gain time for negotiations to free other hostages, said the sources, who spoke before the hostage releases were announced on Monday.

Asked about the possibility of a ceasefire, U.S. President Joe Biden said: “”We should have those hostages released and then we can talk.”

Obama Warns Israel Against Civilian Casualties

Obama, in a rare comment by a former U.S. president on a foreign policy crisis, issued a written statement warning Israel not to cause so many civilian casualties in retaliating against Hamas that it would alienate generations of Palestinians.

“Any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire. Already, thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the bombing of Gaza, many of them children. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes,” Obama said in a statement posted on social media.

It was not immediately clear whether Obama coordinated his statement with Biden, who was his vice president. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis,” he added.

“It could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region,” he wrote in the statement published in Medium that also condemned Hamas’ attack and reiterated his support for Israel’s right to defend itself.

On Monday, Gaza’s health ministry said 436 people had been killed in bombardments over the last 24 hours, most in the south of the coastal enclave next to which Israeli troops and tanks have massed for a possible ground invasion.

The Israeli military said it had struck more than 320 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, including a tunnel housing Hamas fighters, dozens of command and lookout posts, and mortar and anti-tank missile launcher positions.

At least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in two weeks of strikes, including 2,055 children, the health ministry said.

The Israeli bombardment was triggered by the Oct. 7 assault, the bloodiest episode in a single day since the state of Israel was founded 75 years ago.

With Gaza’s 2.3 million people running short of basics, European leaders looked set to follow the United Nations and Arab nations in calling for a “humanitarian pause” in hostilities so aid could reach them.

A convoy of humanitarian aid trucks delivered water, food and medicine to the Gaza Strip on Monday – the third since aid began flowing on Saturday – but the United Nations said fuel was not included and reserves will run out within two days.

The U.N. said desperate Gazans also lacked places to shelter from the unrelenting pounding that has flattened swathes of the Hamas-ruled enclave.

The conflict meanwhile was escalating beyond Gaza.

Israeli aircraft hit positions in south Lebanon held by Hezbollah which, like Hamas, is a group allied to Israel’s long-time foe Iran. The Israeli army and Palestinians clashed in the occupied West Bank and Hamas fired more rockets into Israel.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters engaged with an Israeli force that infiltrated southern Gaza, destroying two bulldozers and a tank and forcing the raiders to withdraw. Israel made no comment on the incident.

Shocking images and videos have captured the moment a JetBlue plane tipped back onto its tail Sunday night at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. Notably, the incident occurred when JetBlue Flight 662 had just landed from Barbados around 8:30 p.m. local time and passengers were in the process of disembarking, New York Post reported. 

Visuals going viral on social media showed the front wheels of the plane, which had just arrived from Barbados, rising into the air.  While the front of the plane lifted up, the tail stayed on the ground.

See the images here:

Images show JetBlue plane tipping backward at JFK Airport gate after “shift in weight and balance” pic.twitter.com/CaOryopewx

— Tourzy ? (@tourzynet) October 23, 2023

Here’s the video:

2015 built Jetblue Airbus A321-231 aircraft (N959JB) tipped on its tail while parked at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) on 22 October. The aircraft had arrived from Bridgetown (BGI) via flight B6662.

Last flight : https://t.co/3ID8MnZaPO#aircraft #airport #aviation pic.twitter.com/PlLZLlkgK6

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) October 23, 2023

”It felt like the plane was about to do a backflip. Everybody kind of screamed and was grabbing for seats. Anybody who was standing was grabbing for seats,” passenger Sinead Bovell told CBS News. According to Bovell, the plane and jet bridge were damaged. 

”On Sunday, October 22, JetBlue flight 662 landed as scheduled at New York’s JFK Airport from Bridgetown, Barbados. Once at the gate, due to a shift in weight and balance during deplaning, the tail of the aircraft tipped backward causing the nose of the aircraft to lift up and eventually return back down,”  JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrowski told PEOPLE in a statement

”No injuries were reported. Safety is JetBlue’s first priority; we are reviewing this incident, and the aircraft has been taken out of service for inspection,” the statement continued. 

Ed Libassi, the CEO of A&P Aircraft Maintenance, Inc. explained what he thinks might have caused the plane to tilt.

”Now the situation that JetBlue had yesterday, I’ve seen it in my 51-year career — too much baggage was left in the air cargo compartment. Maybe all of the people had gotten off already, or maybe everything up front was taken off quickly — everything from baggage to fuel in the wings while they flew from Barbados,” Mr Libassi said.