26 Apr 2019: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

Context

• A federation of 25 Himas or Khasi kingdoms have plans of revisiting the 1948 agreements that made present-day Meghalaya a part of India.

Details

• The revisiting in consultation with legal experts and academicians is aimed at safeguarding tribal customs and traditions from Central laws in force or could be enacted, such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.
• The idea is to hold series of meetings to come to a conclusion on how best they can insulate their customs and traditions from overriding central rules and policies
• Though the Constitution has provided self-rule to a considerable extent through tribal councils, there has been an increasing demand for giving more teeth to the Khasi states.

Background

• The 25 Khasi states had signed the Instrument of Accession and Annexed Agreement with the Dominion of India between December 15, 1947, and March 19, 1948.
• The conditional treaty with these states was signed by Governor General Chakravarty Rajagopalachari on August 17, 1948.
• During the British rule, the Khasi domain was divided into the Khasi states and British territories.
  • At that time, the British government had no territorial right on the Khasi states and they had to approach the chiefs of these states if they needed land for any purpose.
  • After independence,
    • the British territories became part of the Indian dominion but the
    • Khasi states had to sign documents beginning with the Standstill Agreement that provided a few rights to the states
  • The Khasi states, though, did not sign the Instrument of Merger unlike most other states in India.

B. GS2 Related

Context

• According to figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO), despite immunisation being one of the most successful and cost-effective means to help children grow into healthy adults, worldwide 12.9 million infants — nearly 1 in 10 — did not receive any vaccination in 2016.
• Immunisation prevents illness, disability and death from vaccine-preventable diseases including cervical cancer, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, polio, rotavirus diarrhoea, rubella and tetanus.

Some facts as reported by WHO

• Global vaccination coverage remains at 85%, with no significant changes during the past few years
• An additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided if global immunisation coverage improves.
• Over the years, the positive trend is about increasing uptake of new and underused vaccines. In fact, according to WHO in 2017, the number of children immunised – 116.2 million – was the highest-ever reported.

Issue Area

• Despite these gains, all of the targets for disease elimination — including measles, rubella, and maternal and neonatal tetanus — are behind schedule, and over the last two years, the world has seen multiple outbreaks of measles, diphtheria and various other vaccine-preventable diseases.
• Most of the children missing out are those living in the poorest, marginalised and conflict-affected communities

C. GS3 Related

Context

• The country’s first project to research on cell-based meat, also called clean meat, would be taken up at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) deciding to give Rs. 4.5 crore for the two-year work as the initial grant.

Details

• The National Research Centre on Meat, which has a unit at Chengicherla abattoir, would partner with the CCMB in the pioneering work to develop cultured meat,
• Cell-based meat is nutritionally equivalent to conventional animal meat, and tastes, smells, looks and feels exactly the same. Its only difference lies in the method of production
• Clean meat would be produced through cellular agriculture with cells sourced from animals and cultivated into meat.

Structure

• The Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) of the CCMB has been partnering with the Humane Society International (HSI) to develop and promote the clean meat sector.
• The AIC and HSI have also announced the launch of ‘Centre for Predictive Human Model System’ (CPHMS), which would be dedicated for promoting the new approach of scientific research using non-animal models. The facility would propagate non-animal methodologies in life sciences research in India as it has been happening in the West.
• The fledgling centre would facilitate training courses in research, conduct workshops, offer fellowship programmes, develop a network of scientists to promote the paradigm shift in research and funding, and support Ph.D students in their research.

Significance

• It promises to revolutionize the food system by providing protein without harming the environment
• This new method of producing meat shows strong promise of revolutionising the food system in terms of tackling pressing global issues such as food security, environmental sustainability and animal welfare.

Context

• Farmer groups have alleged that Bt brinjal, a genetically modified variety, is being cultivated illegally in Haryana

Background

• In 2010 the government placed an indefinite ban on commercial release of Bt brinjal, developed by Mahyco, and called for more independent scientific studies to establish its biosafety as India is a centre of diversity for brinjal, both domesticated as well as wild.
• The genetically modified brinjal is a suite of transgenic brinjals (also known as an eggplant or aubergine) created by inserting a crystal protein gene (Cry1Ac) from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the genome of various brinjal cultivars.
• The insertion of the gene, along with other genetic elements such as promoters, terminators and an antibiotic resistance marker gene into the brinjal plant is accomplished using Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation.
• The Bt brinjal has been developed to give resistance against lepidopteron insects, in particular the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodes orbonalis)(FSB).
  • Upon ingestion of the Bt toxin, the insect’s digestive processes are disrupted, ultimately resulting in its death.
  • it will reduce the farmers’ dependence on pesticides and enable higher yields
• Mahyco, an Indian seed company based in Jalna, Maharashtra, has developed the Bt brinjal.

Concerns

• This is clearly a failure of the government agencies concerned that illegal Bt brinjal is being cultivated in the country.
• This is not the first time this is happening. Bt cotton was approved in India after large-scale illegal cultivation was discovered in Gujarat.
• In late 2017, when illegal GM soy cultivation was discovered in Gujarat and a complaint lodged with GEAC, the response was quite slow and dangerously lackadaisical.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Editorial Analysis:

• Experts opine that unlike Parliament, the Supreme Court lacks the conventional legitimacy derived from securing membership to its judges through elections.
• The court’s command is derived from, and grounded in, a general acceptance of its status as an impartial referee of disputes and as an unbiased interpreter of the law.
• Predictably, its sense of esteem and its sense of moral authority, which together constitute its most important assets, are immanently fragile.
• Any degradation of the court’s acceptance amongst the public of its reputation as an equitable body will, therefore, impair its authority irredeemably.

The Threat the Court faces today:  

• Currently, the explicit threat that the Supreme Court faces is that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) faces allegations of sexual harassment. .

The story so far

• The complainant, who joined work in the Supreme Court in May 2014 as a Junior Court Assistant, and who worked in the court of the present CJI, Ranjan Gogoi, from October 2016, alleges not only that she is a survivor of sexual harassment, but also that she was unfairly dismissed from service.
• What is more, on her dismissal, she claims that she and her family were foisted with a series of false criminal cases and were subjected to abuse at the hands of the police.
• She sent her complaint, in the form of a sworn affidavit, to 22 judges of the Supreme Court on recently, and on the same day, four magazines, Scroll, The Wire, Caravan and The Leaflet, sent a questionnaire to the CJI.
• In response, the court’s Secretary General denied the allegations, terming them “scurrilous”, and claimed that it was “also very possible that there are mischievous forces behind all this, with an intention to malign the institution”.
• Minutes after the story was published online, the CJI convened an extraordinary hearing by a Bench comprising himself and two other judges to hear what was termed “In Re: Matter Of Great Public Importance Touching Upon The Independence Of Judiciary”.
• These proceedings were initiated suo motu, i.e. on the court’s own motion, without awaiting a formal prompting from a party.
• Critics opine that this hearing disregarded every ordinary precept of due process; not only was no notice given to the complainant, calling upon her to appear, but her allegations were effectively dismissed outright as a product of a larger conspiracy.

A Look at the order issued after the hearing:

• In a brief order that was issued at the end of the hearing (which, critics allege, bizarrely, wasn’t signed by the CJI, despite his participation in the proceeding), the court said it was leaving it to the “wisdom of the media to show restraint”, to decide what should or should not be published, since “wild and scandalous allegations undermine and irreparably damage” the judiciary’s independence.
• Since then, the CJI withdrew himself from the case, but a new Bench that he assembled has now ordered a probe by a former Supreme Court judge, Justice A.K. Patnaik, to examine whether these allegations spring out of a plot to overthrow the judiciary.

A Brief Look at the Past:

• When one looks back at January 2018, one realizes that this was a time when the four senior-most judges of the court, including the present CJI, called an unprecedented press conference to mark their disapproval of the then CJI, Dipak Misra’s arbitrary choices as master of the roster.
• Despite those public expressions of dissent, nothing, it appears, has really changed.
• Critics allege that the CJI continues to enjoy unquestioned authority over allocation of judicial work and over selection of Benches, even in cases where a conflict of interest is to be presumed.

Hewart’s dictum:

• That justice should not only be done but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done is an aphorism often attributed to Lord Chief Justice Hewart of the King’s Bench.
• It is important to note that natural justice, has always stood on delicate ground. But as principles go, it is so axiomatic to the rule of law that courts around the world have repeatedly stressed on Hewart’s dictum.
• That justice should be open has also been immortalised in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “all persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals,” that everyone “shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law”.
• Not only is India a party to this treaty, but its Constitution also guarantees to every person equality before the law.
• Critics assert that much as the Supreme Court has relied on these codes to invigorate its own sense of power, as it has repeatedly shown in recent times, it’s just as capable of renouncing its grand declarations when one of its own is in a difficult situation.

Back to basics

• Now, prompted perhaps by resolutions passed by various bar associations, a committee — comprising Justices S.A. Bobde (the senior most judge on the rest of the court), N.V. Ramana (who was replaced by Justice Indu Malhotra after he recused himself) and Indira Banerjee — with the apparent support of the full court, was formed to conduct an administrative probe into the charges made against the CJI.
• The committee’s creation is, at the least, an acknowledgement of some kind that the complaint deserves an inquiry.
• But doubts persist over the committee’s legality, over whether it can at all scrutinise allegations made against the CJI, and over whether its composition lacks a moral base in that no external members have been included.
• Besides, it’s also difficult to countenance how the parallel proceeding, to be headed by Justice Pattnaik, can continue even before the administrative inquiry into the complaint has been completed.
• These are no doubt extraordinary circumstances, but to advance the cause of justice, it’s important that basic procedural norms are respected.

Concluding Remarks:

• Given the absence of a proper, institutional mechanism, it’s likely that any mode adopted to judge the charges made will prove indiscriminate.
• But that’s precisely why the Supreme Court needs to step up, to collectively show us that it can establish an ethical precedent.
• The assertions made may or may not be veracious, and they may impugn only the CJI. But ultimately the court’s institutional integrity is at stake here. It’s therefore imperative that the court articulates and espouses a commitment to the rule of law.
• It needs to show that the principles of due process that it holds applicable to all of us are just as applicable to one of its own. That due process isn’t merely a poetic homily, to be discharged on convenience, but that is integral to the court’s foundations and to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

2. Has the Supreme Court been discredited?

Q1. Which of the following is not part of Antarctic region?

Q2. Which country recently had imposed ‘Garbage Emergency’?

Q3. Which of the following pairs are correctly matched?

Q4. Consider the following about CJI