Sept 4th, 2021, CNA:- Download PDF Here
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. GS 1 Related B. GS 2 Related POLITY 1. ‘Supreme court Collegium clears 68 names for HC judges’ C. GS 3 Related ECONOMY 1. Edible oil prices likely to ease by December: official D. GS 4 Related E. Editorials INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1. Certainly not the end of the road for the U.S. 2. Ending the forever F. Prelims Facts 1. Experts flag diversion of fresh water from Brahmani river 2. Footprints of 3 dinosaur species found in Thar desert G. Tidbits H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions
A. GS 1 Related
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B. GS 2 Related
1. ‘Supreme court Collegium clears 68 names for HC judges’
Context:
- In a recent meeting, the SC collegium tried to fast track the clearance of appointments of high court judges belonging to both Bar and Judicial services. Now, it will be reviewed by the Union Minister of Law and Justice.
Appointment procedure of HC Judges:
- Article 217 of the Constitution: It states that the Judge of a High Court shall be appointed by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice of India (CJI), the Governor of the State.
- In the case of appointment of a Judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of the High Court is consulted.
- Consultation Process: High Court judges are recommended by a Collegium comprising the CJI and two senior-most judges.
- The proposal, however, is initiated by the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned in consultation with two senior-most colleagues.
- The recommendation is sent to the Chief Minister, who advises the Governor to send the proposal to the Union Law Minister.
- Evolution of Collegium System:
- It is the system of appointment and transfer of judges that has evolved through judgments of the SC, but not by an Act of Parliament or by a provision of the Constitution.
- First Judges Case (1981): It declared that the “primacy” of the Chief Justice of India’s (CJI) recommendation on judicial appointments and transfers can be refused by the President and consultation doesn’t mean concurrence.
- Thus, the ruling gave the Executive primacy over the Judiciary in judicial appointments for the next 12 years.
- Second Judges Case (1993): SC introduced the Collegium system, holding that consultation means concurrence.
- It added that it was not the CJI’s individual opinion, but an institutional opinion formed in consultation with the two senior-most judges in the SC.
- Third Judges Case (1998): SC on President’s reference expanded the Collegium to a five-member body, comprising the CJI and four of his senior-most colleagues (for example for the transfer of HC judges).
- First Judges Case (1981): It declared that the “primacy” of the Chief Justice of India’s (CJI) recommendation on judicial appointments and transfers can be refused by the President and consultation doesn’t mean concurrence.
- It is the system of appointment and transfer of judges that has evolved through judgments of the SC, but not by an Act of Parliament or by a provision of the Constitution.
- Issues involved in appointment:
- Cumbersome Process: There are inordinate delays in the appointment of High Court judges and it leads to the pendency of cases.
- Lack of Transparency: There is no objective criteria for selection and people come to know about judges only after selection. It also promotes nepotism in the judiciary.
- Improper Representation: Certain sections of societies have higher representation whereas many vulnerable sections have nil representation.
- Attempts of Reform:
- The attempt was made to replace the Collegium with a ‘National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC)’ in 2014 through the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2014. However, the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court declared NJAC unconstitutional in 2015, citing that it violates the Basic Structure of the Constitution of India on the ground that it posed a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
Way Forward
- It is high time to think of a permanent, independent body to institutionalize the process with adequate safeguards to preserve the judiciary’s independence guaranteeing judicial primacy but not judicial exclusivity.
- It should ensure independence, reflect diversity, demonstrate professional competence and integrity.
- Instead of selecting the number of judges required against a certain number of vacancies, the collegium must provide a panel of possible names to the President to appoint in order of preference and other valid criteria. Judiciary should balance accountability as well as independence provided by the Constitution.
C. GS 3 Related
1. Edible oil prices likely to ease by December: official
Context:
- Edible oil price has reached a new high (up by 48% from the previous year) in 2021 due to various reasons. But, the prices are likely to soften by December as recent international commodity futures show a declining trend, and there is the arrival of domestic oilseed crops.
Background:
- With rising incomes and changing food habits, consumption of edible oils has been rising over some years.
- In 2019-20, domestic availability of edible oils from both primary sources (oilseeds like mustard, groundnut, etc.) and secondary sources (such as coconut, oil palm, rice bran oil, cottonseed) was only 10.65 million tonnes against the total domestic demand of 24 million tonnes.
- As a result of this, India currently imports about 60% of its edible oil needs, needs, leaving the country’s retail prices vulnerable to international pressures.
Reasons for soaring edible oil prices:
- Edible oil is also used for making biofuel and many countries are pursuing biofuel policy. This leads to aggressive edible oil purchase sourcing from palm oil (Malaysia and Indonesia) and soybean (U.S). These two oils make up 50% of India’s domestic consumption.
- Another reason includes the excessive buying of edible oil by China. Thus, it has created a supply-demand mismatch in the market.
- Lastly, the Government has maintained high import duty (including cess) to manage the fiscal resources strained due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Steps taken to contain edible food oil price:
- Recently the government has launched a scheme called National Edible Oil Mission-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), for self-reliance in edible oil involving an investment of over Rs. 11,000 crore (over a five year period).
Aims of the scheme:
- To rein in domestic edible oil prices that are dictated by expensive palm oil imports.
- To raise the domestic production of palm oil by three times to 11 lakh MT by 2025-26.
- This will also involve raising the area under oil palm cultivation to 10 lakh hectares by 2025-26 and 16.7 lakh hectares by 2029-30.
Features:
- The special emphasis of the scheme will be on India’s north-eastern states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands due to the conducive weather conditions in the regions.
- Under the scheme, oil palm farmers will be provided financial assistance and will get remuneration under a price and viability formula.
Conclusion
High dependence of edible oil on import makes both the country and the citizens venerable to international trends. It also hinders the manoeuvrability of foreign policy as last year India was forced to import palm oil from Malaysia even after having strained relations with the country. Hence being Atmanirbhar in edible oil should be the first priority of both central and state governments.
D. GS 4 Related
Nothing here for today!!!
E. Editorials
Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. Certainly not the end of the road for the U.S.
The article talks about the future of the United States after its withdrawal from Afghanistan. It highlights that despite a disastrous exit of the U.S. from Afghanistan, its role in the country continues.
Background:
- The terrorist bombing of 9/11 was a game-changing global experience.
- It transformed the geopolitics of the world.
- While until 9/11, the geopolitics centred along the size of the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear-weapon states, post the horrific event, the most powerful country in the world that had the capacity to destroy the world many times over, became powerless before a few terrorists, who had only knives and forks as weapons.
- The theories of the balance of power, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons superiority toppled.
- The U.S hence wanted to retaliate by overthrowing the Taliban regime and hunting out and killing Osama bin Laden
Benefits of the U.S. presence:
- The U.S. accomplished its mission within a short period. However, it could not withdraw because the Afghanistan government was unable to withstand the onslaught of the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
- Even neighbouring countries, including India, were strongly in favour of continuing the American presence in Afghanistan.
- Americans were invited to provide a certain stability for Afghanistan.
- Pakistan, on the one hand, was a partner to the U.S. and an adversary on the other.
- The result of the U.S presence meant relative peace in the region except that Pakistan fed up the Taliban with American offerings.
- While the cost of presence in terms of American money and lives was high, the benefits of the American presence should not be underestimated considering that terrorism has endured in the broader West Asia/Middle East and the attacks and victims worldwide are much higher annually than in 2001 (9/11).
- That the U.S. succeeded in containing the dangers of terrorism for two decades must not be forgotten.
Change in Presidency in the U.S:
- As the Presidency in the U.S changed in 2021, Mr. Biden was to take steps to reverse certain decisions taken by his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
- The challenges before him were to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic and racism in the country and to recover its position in the centre of the world that the Chinese were hoping to grab. He returned to the Paris Agreement, expressed interest in resuming the dialogue on the Iran nuclear deal and reassured America’s traditional allies that the U.S. would stand by them.
- A clear signal was given to China and Russia that no confrontation would be tolerated, but cooperation, wherever possible, would be pursued.
The Afghan exit:
- The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was yet another unfinished agenda inherited from Mr. Trump’s Presidency.
- Biden followed up the agreement reached with the Taliban and announced a deadline, in the expectation that the Afghan forces trained and equipped by the Americans and the Kabul government would step into the vacuum.
Conclusion:
- According to the author, it is unfortunate that it is concluded that the U.S. itself lost its place in the world on account of its failure to have a wise leader or a competent Commander-in-Chief.
- A superpower does not sink or rise on account of a single leader.
- The U.S. is still the most powerful economic and military power.
- The free world has a responsibility to maintain the American leadership of the world till a wiser and more benign alternative is found.
Context:
- President Joe Biden has strongly defended his position on pulling American troops and civilians out of Kabul vowing that the era of meddling in the politics of other nations had ended.
- He has announced the end of an era of major American military intervention abroad, suggesting that Washington needed to move on from narrow counter-terrorism goals and nation-building abroad to broader threats to US primacy from the likes of China and Russia.
Details:
- The U.S withdrawal from Afghanistan is widely regarded as disastrous.
- President Biden is facing sharp criticism for a poorly planned exit which was followed by deadly terror attacks near Kabul airport.
- Since the withdrawal, U.S. polls suggest that nearly twice as many people disapproved of his management of the end of the long war as those who approved.
- 56% of surveyed individuals disapproved of his performance on foreign policy.
- His overall job approval rating hit a new low of 44%.
- It is widely opined by the Americans that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was a failure.
- It is believed that the messy withdrawal of troops was anything other than one step in another round of the classic historical cycles in Afghanistan – of foreign occupation, regime change, abandonment and fall into lawlessness, orthodoxy, and temporary involvement with terror outfits in the neighbourhood.
The United States interventionism:
- The United States has been involved in numerous foreign interventions throughout its history.
- The U.S. has a rich history of shaping or toppling foreign governments and seeking to influence forces made abroad that had an impact on American shores.
- In the early 20th century, the centre of gravity of such secretive operations was in the North American hemisphere, and it included the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.
- In the post-Second World War and post-Cold War periods, it included the likes of Iran, Indonesia, and Venezuela, including alleged interference in the elections of Italy, the Philippines and Japan.
The U.S Non-interventionism:
- The question before Mr. Biden is whether a new era of U.S. non-interventionism is possible or likely.
- The answer depends on the extent to which the U.S. believes it can manage the forces of international terrorism from afar, without deploying its troops on the ground.
- It also partly depends on the strategic role of Pakistan, China, and Russia in the South Asia region.
The United States Non-interventionism is referred to as the foreign policy eventually applied by the United States between the late 18th and the first half of the 20th centuries whereby it sought to avoid alliances with other nations to prevent being drawn into wars not related to direct territorial self-defense.
Conclusion:
- With Donald Trump’s presidency, the U.S. has been on a path towards a more inward-focused paradigm of policymaking, putting “America First” and reconsidering certain elements of the rules-based international order.
- But historically in America, the demands for nativist populism has always coexisted to an extent with the temptation to meddle with other nations. It is opined that the impulses of the Biden administration may only lead to a temporary pause in this disturbing trend.
- Additionally, with a foreign policy elite and intelligence community deeply accustomed to habitually meddling in the politics of other nations for at least a century, it has to be seen if the policy of interventionism will change.
F. Prelims Facts
1. Experts flag diversion of fresh water from Brahmani river
Environmentalists expressed concern over the massive diversion of freshwater from the Brahmani river basin, which could pose a grave threat to the famous mangrove vegetation in Odisha.
About Mangroves:
- A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water.
Proportionate freshwater flow from the Brahmani river basin and the Kharasrota river keeps the salinity level of the water along the shore down. The brackish water becomes ideal for the mangroves to grow and stay healthy.
About Brahmani
- The Brahmani is a major seasonal river in the state Odisha of eastern India. The Brahmani is formed by the confluence of the Sankh and south Koel. Together with the river Baitarani, it forms a large delta before emptying into the Bay of Bengal at Dhamra.
2. Footprints of 3 dinosaur species found in Thar desert
- Footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district, proving the presence of the giant reptiles in the western part of the State, which formed the seashore to the Tethys Ocean during the Mesozoic era. The footprints, made in the sediment or silt of the seashore, later became permanently stone-like.
- They belong to three species of dinosaurs Eubrontes cf. giganteys, Eubrontes glenrosensis and Grallator tenuis.
- The giganteus and glenrosensis species have 35 cm footprints, the footprint of the third species was found to be 5.5 cm. The footprints were 200 million years old.
- The dinosaur species are considered to be of the theropod type, with the distinguishing features of hollow bones and feet with three digits.
- Eubrontes could have been 12 to 15 m long and weighed between 500 kg and 700 kg, while the height of the Grallator is estimated to have been 2 m, as much as a human, with a length of up to three meters.
G. Tidbits
Nothing here for today!!!
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to IUCN “Red List of Threatened Species”:
- It is a comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of animal, fungus and plant species.
- It defines the extinction risk of species assessed classified into seven categories.
- Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) and Vulnerable (VU) species are considered to be threatened with global extinction.
Which of the given statements is/are INCORRECT?
- 1 only
- 2 and 3 only
- 1 and 2 only
- 2 only
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: d
Explanation:
- IUCN “Red List of Threatened Species” is a comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of animal, fungus and plant species.
- It defines the extinction risk of species assessed classified into nine categories.
- Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) and Vulnerable (VU) species are considered to be threatened with global extinction.
Read more on: IUCN Red List
Q2. Which of the following is/are the likely impacts of an increase in atmospheric aerosols?
- Destruction of stratospheric ozone
- Affect the rainfall patterns
- Reduce solar energy generation from photovoltaic and rooftop solar installations
Options:
- 1 and 3 only
- 2 and 3 only
- 2 only
- 1, 2 and 3
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: d
Explanation:
- Aerosols are minute particles suspended in the atmosphere.
- Aerosols also can act as sites for chemical reactions to take place. These reactions can lead to the destruction of stratospheric ozone.
- Aerosols serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and thus have a substantial effect on cloud properties and the initiation of precipitation. Large concentrations of human-made aerosols have been reported to impact rainfall as a result of their radiative and CCN activities.
- Aerosols reduce the speed of winds near the earth’s surface, thus leading to a reduction in rainfall. The more is the aerosol pollution, the greater the reduction in rainfall.
- Recently, a team of Indian and international researchers have found that aerosols, dust, and clouds reduce solar energy generation from photovoltaic and rooftop solar installations resulting in substantial economic impact through financial losses.
Q3. Which of the following statements with respect to the SAMARTH Scheme is/are correct?
- It intends to provide skill development and placement-oriented training across the entire textiles value chain including spinning and weaving in the organised sector.
- The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
Options:
- 1 only
- 2 only
- Both 1 and 2
- Neither 1 nor 2
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: d
Explanation:
- It intends to provide skill development and placement-oriented training across the entire textiles value chain excluding spinning and weaving in the organised sector.
- The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Textiles.
Samarth Scheme – Scheme For Capacity Building In Textile Sector (SCBTS)
Q4. Which of the given statements with respect to the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) is/are correct?
- It is a statutory body set up for maintaining financial stability, enhancing inter-regulatory coordination and promoting financial sector development.
- The Council is chaired by NITI Aayog Chairman.
- RBI Governor and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman are among its members.
Options:
- 1 only
- 2 and 3 only
- 3 only
- 1, 2 and 3
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: c
Explanation:
- It is an apex-level body that was constituted through an executive order in 2010 and works under the Ministry of Finance.
- It is not a statutory body.
- It was set up for maintaining financial stability, enhancing inter-regulatory coordination and promoting financial sector development.
- The Council is chaired by the Union Finance Minister.
- Its members are the Governor of Reserve Bank of India; Finance Secretary and/or Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; Secretary, Department of Financial Services; Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance; Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India; Chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority and Chairman, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority. It also includes the chairman of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board (IBBI).
Q5. If a particular plant species is placed under Schedule VI of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, what is the implication? [UPSC 2020]
- A license is required to cultivate that plant.
- Such a plant cannot be cultivated under any circumstances.
- It is a Genetically Modified crop plant.
- Such a plant is invasive and harmful to the ecosystem.
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: a
Explanation:
- The Indian Parliament enacted the Wildlife (Protection) Act in 1972, which provides for the safeguard and protection of the wildlife (flora and fauna) in the country.
- Schedule VI of WPA 1972 contains the plants which are prohibited from cultivation and planting. Cultivation of specified plants without a licence is prohibited.
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions
- Discuss the importance of Russia’s Far East region to India on the strategic and the economic front. (15 Marks, 250 Words) [GS-2 International Relations]
- Diversion of fresh water from the Brahmani River could pose a grave threat to the famous mangrove vegetation. Examine.(10 Marks, 150 Words) [GS-3, Environment]
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Sept 4th, 2021, CNA:- Download PDF Here
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