Supreme Court identifies four ways to improve collegium system

Focus on transparency, eligibility, a secretariat to assist collegium, dealing with complaints against candidates

Less than three weeks after it struck down a government move to create a constitutional authority to select the nation’s top judges, the Supreme Court on Tuesday identified four areas—including transparency—that it said needed discussion in order to improve the present collegium system of selection.

The collegium, which comprises the Chief Justice of India and four seniormost judges, selects judges to the high courts and the Supreme Court—a system that has drawn criticism for its lack of transparency.

On 16 October a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck down the Constitution Amendment Act, which introduced a six-member panel called the National Judicial Appointments Commission. Declaring the earlier system of judicial appointments as revived, the court then asked for responses from various stakeholders on whether the collegium system required improvement.

Justice J.S. Khehar, heading the five-judge bench hearing the case, said improvements to the system had to be within the parameters of earlier practices.

On Tuesday, the court, acknowledging the public discourse, asked lawyers involved in the case to consider four possible areas of improvement: transparency, an eligibility criteria, a secretariat to assist the collegium and dealing with complaints against persons being considered for appointment.

The court said it received many suggestions that were “diverse” in purpose and intent.

Among those who gave inputs was the government, which, however, clarified its suggestions are subject to its “reservation about the correctness of the judgment” of 16 October. In its written note, the government said “to ensure public confidence and credibility”, the collegium system of judicial appointments needed to be “efficient, transparent and accountable”.

The government has suggested a three-step process of appointments, based on justice Madan B. Lokur’s part of the 16 October ruling. The first is judges may be appointed by way of applications or nominations. Further, apex court nominations may be made not just by the collegium, but also other judges of the court, the prime minister, president and the attorney general.

The centre also said the appointment process has to be “truly participatory” and seek inputs from a “committee of eminent citizens”, which would not be restricted to the legal fraternity. All shortlisted applications and nominations should be forwarded to this committee, according to the government.

A member of this panel ought to be a part of the panel that will interview would-be judges in the last stage of the selection, the government suggested. It said the “entire file with all views recorded in writing must be sent to the executive for its views on the antecedents, character, integrity and relevant facets” to determine if the candidate was suitable for the post of a senior judge.

The government supported the need for the collegium to have a “permanent and proper” secretariat that would collect background information and “assess the judicial worth of a particular candidate”.

Senior lawyer Fali S. Nariman told that court that the collegium had to be receptive to suggestions from responsible members of the lawyer community.

The court will hear the case next on 5 November, when there will be a debate on how to introduce the system, and whether collegium discussions need to be kept secret. The court will also hear suggestions on a permanent secretariat, complaint mechanism and eligibility criteria of judges. Lawyer Arvind Datar and additional solicitor general Pinky Anand will collate the suggestions and present them to the court.

On the eligibility criteria, one suggestion was to ensure a regional balance is maintained with adequate representation, including women. A lawyer pointed out that out of 611 appointments, only 62 had been women in recent times. “This system doesn’t remain a collegium system—it’s an alternative system of judicial appointments the government is suggesting,” said M.P. Singh, a constitutional expert and former vice-chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences.

“If the judiciary follows this, it will need a huge office. Before this, the collegium would take inputs for appointments to the high courts and Supreme Court. That process must be open and have the possibility of relevant people to give suggestions. England has a system of applications and shortlisting, but that will result in a complete change in the collegium system,” he added.

Green revolution needs a reset India’s agricultural growth rate has hovered around 2-3% annually, when in fact it should be at least 5%

Green revolution needs a reset

India’s agricultural growth rate has hovered around 2-3% annually, when in fact it should be at least 5%

India’s agriculture became moribund decades ago, and shows no sign of uplift for the long haul. Indeed, the rain gods have played havoc with Indian farmers. But not just the gods, Indian states have done precious little to tackle the problem head-on. The government’s solution is to give financial sops to farmers to buy peace from time to time. It is equally unfortunate that farmers just accept the sops and go away, only to return when hard times hit them again.

India’s agricultural growth rate has hovered around 2-3% annually, when in fact it should be at least 5%. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh repeatedly said Indian agriculture must grow at least at 4%, without which there will be no real rural poverty alleviation and no relief to distressed farmers. India’s green revolution is fatigued and needs a scientific and technological boost.

The irony is that the key to modern and technology in agriculture is with the ministry of environment, which has no expertise in agriculture, and as it happens, won’t talk to the ministry of agriculture to find ways and means of bringing about scientific and technological intervention. The reason the ministry of environment holds the key is that agricultural activities impact the environment. Therefore, using the authority of the Environment Protection Act of 1986, in the name of assessing the environmental impacts of new technologies in agriculture, the environment ministry has put a ban on introducing any new technology in agriculture.

The ministry of agriculture has not lost sleep over it. On the contrary, the Union minister of agriculture revels in eloquence about anachronistic agriculture. He seems to be least bothered about the lack of scientific progress in Indian agriculture, but wants Indian agricultural scientists to investigate the power of cow’s urine, panchagavya and yogic agriculture.

No wonder Arun Shourie remarked that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is the United Progressive Alliance plus a cow. The agriculture minister strongly feels that if Indian scientists can discover the power of cow’s urine and other Vedic paraphernalia, India can become the “vishwaguru” in agriculture. If this is the proclivity of the Union minister, there is nothing much to talk about state ministries of agriculture that never miss a beat to assert their rights over agriculture being a state subject.

Modern science and technology is an alien concept to state ministries of agriculture, state politicians and local farm leaders, all playing petty local politics, extolling the virtues of India’s annadata, with no clue as to what really ails their vote bank. They, too, simply throw good money at worsening problems year after year, and no real solution emerges.

Indian agriculture is seriously sick, and it needs a strong dose of bitter medicine. Market-based solutions are the only way forward. India’s investment in agricultural science and technology and rural infrastructure must be upped by 25%; the Indian Council of Agricultural Research must be turned into a private research corporation headed by a business-minded CEO; and private equity participation must be brought into India’s agricultural R&D.

Secondary agriculture must drive rural economic development. Small-scale farmers and subsistence farming must be gradually phased out as its size is not economically viable in the 21st century. No amount of shoring up economically unviable agriculture can help. Stubbornly persisting on flogging a dead horse is not going to improve the farmer’s plight.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has given no evidence of its intent to set a future-looking agenda so far. That is not good for the nation, nor for the NDA’s electoral fortunes in the years to come. It needs to act fast. India’s agricultural science is already lagging behind by decades, and if the Union ministry persists in dragging agriculture to the medieval age, only God can save Indian agriculture, and even that looks doubtful.

The threat to global centrist politics Is the world headed for another round of ideological wars?

The threat to global centrist politics

Is the world headed for another round of ideological wars?

The election results in two very different countries over the past few days offer some clues on an unlikely common theme: the future of global centrist politics based on a broad consensus.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won a landslide victory in Turkey this week. His populist appeal seems to have survived despite a fragile economy. Stephen Harper earlier lost power in Canada to Justin Trudeau. Both Erdoğan and Harper—despite their differences—have been outsiders who challenged the consensus politics of their respective countries.

There are similar examples elsewhere in the world. Alexis Tsipras got a fresh mandate from Greek voters in September to take on the continental financial establishment. Viktor Orbán in Hungary is another outsider who recently took a tough stance on the refugees pouring into his country. Matteo Renzi in Italy is also a bit of a maverick prime minister.

In Asia, think of leaders such as Joko Widodo in Indonesia or Shinzo Abe in Japan. And then there is Narendra Modi in India, very self-consciously an outsider.

These are elected leaders. Also look at the advances made by the National Front in France or Podemos in Spain in local elections—two very different ideologies but having an outsider mentality in common. Add to that the election of the Marxist Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party in the UK. Or the initial momentum of Donald Trump on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side of the US presidential primaries.

What binds all these strands together? The Great Moderation in economics had been accompanied by a Great Moderation in politics. There was a basic continuity in policy. That also increased the chances of global coordination since leaders were essentially pursuing their respective national interest from a common ground.

The emergence of the consensus is worth recounting. The years immediately after the end of World War II saw the rise of a social democratic consensus that brought parties across the ideological spectrum together. Many shared power in grand alliances in Europe in a bid to avoid the brutal divisiveness that plunged Europe into slaughter during the war. This was the era when the great sociologist Daniel Bell wrote about the end of ideology.

The economic stress of the 1970s shattered this social democratic consensus. That was the period when Margaret Thatcher in the UK, Ronald Reagan in the US, Deng Xiaoping in China and Mikhail Gorbachev in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shook their respective elites.

The end of communism may not have led to the end of history. But global politics once again moved towards a consensus based on market economics combined with US geopolitical power. If the 1950s saw conservative parties make their peace with social democratic policies, then the 1990s saw social democratic parties embrace market economics.

Is the post-1990 consensus being challenged now with the rise of politicians who do not come from within the established system of political bargaining? Some global thinkers had predicted after 2008 that the crisis would come in three stages: a financial crisis followed by an economic crisis followed by a political crisis. Is that moment approaching?

The consensus after 1990 did serve the world well. But the advances made by maverick politicians over the past few years show that this consensus could be under stress. It is almost impossible to forecast whether the world is headed for another round of ideological wars, such as the one during the Thatcherite era in the UK, when the Labour Party responded to her new policies by swinging to the extreme left under Michael Foot.

The cracks in the centrist core could be a source of worry if extreme politics takes over. Things need not fall apart when the centre does not hold. But they could lose direction.

India once again tops Nielsen’s global confidence index

Citizens actually saving more than before; spending habits haven’t changed much over past two quarters

India continues to top the global confidence index but its citizens are actually saving more than before in a continuing trend of caution, and their spending habits haven’t changed much over the past two quarters.

Respondents polled online by market researcher Nielsen said they saved primarily on gas and electricity (54%), new clothes (48%) and telephone expenses (37%), compared with last year.

Over two in 10 (23%) respondents indicated they will cut down on smoking to control spending, even when conditions improve.

However, the country’s confidence level was unchanged from the preceding quarter at 131 points.

India was followed by the US (119), Philippines (117) and Indonesia (116), according to the Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions.

Even though this is the sixth quarter in a row that India has topped the survey, the number of respondents who felt the economy was still weak increased over the year. More than half the respondents (54%) felt the economy is still in a recession, an increase of 4 percentage points over the preceding quarter.

However, this quarter, 67% indicated that India will be out of the recession over the next 12 months, as against 61% last quarter.

Consumer confidence above 100 indicates optimism. An increase in consumer confidence index is a sign of brighter prospects for an economic recovery. The latest survey was conducted between 10 August and 4 September and had 30,000 global participants with Internet access across 60 countries.

The survey results are in line with the earnings of consumer goods manufacturers and retailers. For instance, at Hindustan Unilever Ltd, India’s largest consumer goods manufacturer by sales, volume growth in the September quarter was nearly the same as that in the preceding quarter at 6.5%.

Likewise, Shoppers Stop Ltd, India’s oldest department store chain, recorded flat like-to-like growth in the September quarter.

However, Govind Shrikhande, managing director, Shoppers Stop, is now looking at double-digit growth in the December quarter, given the festivals of Dussehra and Diwali.

“The festive season may lend to this buoyancy,” said Roosevelt D’Souza, senior vice-president, Nielsen India region, adding that smart marketing and attractive deals, both online and in store, may also stimulate the market. However, “volatility still exists in consumer sentiment owing to deficit monsoons, and uncertainty in certain pockets when it comes to consumption”, he said.

Meanwhile, optimism for urban job prospects remains at the same level as last quarter at 81%.

With no improvement in the job outlook, an increasing number of consumers have changed their spending habits. In the September quarter last year, 61% indicated they will invest spare cash in savings, 44% in new technology projects, 43% in new clothes, and 42% on holidays and vacations.

Now, over 4/5th of respondents (83%) have changed their spending habits to save on expenses, echoing trends from last quarter (80% in June quarter 2015), and five percentage points higher than the same quarter last year (78% in Q3 2014).

Additionally, there has been a slight increase on concerns around job security, with 19% of respondents indicating it is the biggest concern, up by two percentage points from last quarter (17% in the preceding quarter). However, compared with the same period last year, the outlook on jobs security is optimistic (21% in Q3 2014).

Other big concerns for the next six months are the state of the economy (13%), followed by work-life balance (10%. Others included increasing food prices (8%) and parents’ welfare and happiness (7%).

Interestingly, 81% urban Indian respondents have polled that the state of personal finances was good or excellent for the third quarter of 2015, marginally up by two percentage points from last quarter (79% in the preceding quarter).

Bill related to 10% reservation to RA has been passed by GOVT OF UTTARAKHAND

Bill related to 10% reservation to RA has been passed by GOVT OF UTTARAKHAND.now on 16th HC will give its decision related to petition on reservation.after that UKPSC will start process for mains exam.mains exam may be scheduled after december.

http://epaper.livehindustan.com/story.aspx?id=678455&boxid=87544936&ed_date=2015-11-03&ed_code=135&ed_page=2

Fast forwarding to thorium

A new worldwide plutonium market brought under safeguards is a safe bet to help India advance its ambitious thorium reactor programme.

What is the single greatest factor that prevents the large-scale deployment ofthorium-fuelled reactors in India? Most people would assume that it is a limitation of technology, still just out of grasp. After all, the construction of the advanced heavy-water reactor (AHWR) — a 300 MWe, indigenously designed, thorium-fuelled, commercial technology demonstrator — has been put off several times since it was first announced in 2004. However, scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have successfully tested all relevant thorium-related technologies in the laboratory, achieving even industrial scale capability in some of them. In fact, if pressed, India could probably begin full-scale deployment of thorium reactors in ten years. The single greatest hurdle, to answer the original question, is the critical shortage of fissile material.

A fissile material is one that can sustain a chain reaction upon bombardment by neutrons. Thorium is by itself fertile, meaning that it can transmute into a fissile radioisotope but cannot itself keep a chain reaction going. In a thorium reactor, a fissile material like uranium or plutonium is blanketed by thorium. The fissile material, also called a driver in this case, drives the chain reaction to produce energy while simultaneously transmuting the fertile material into fissile material. India has very modest deposits of uranium and some of the world’s largest sources of thorium. It was keeping this in mind that in 1954, Homi Bhabha envisioned India’s nuclear power programme in three stages to suit the country’s resource profile. In the first stage, heavy water reactors fuelled by natural uranium would produce plutonium; the second stage would initially be fuelled by a mix of the plutonium from the first stage and natural uranium. This uranium would transmute into more plutonium and once sufficient stocks have been built up, thorium would be introduced into the fuel cycle to convert it into uranium 233 for the third stage. In the final stage, a mix of thorium and uranium fuels the reactors. The thorium transmutes to U-233 as in the second stage, which powers the reactor. Fresh thorium can replace the depleted thorium in the reactor core, making it essentially a thorium-fuelled reactor even though it is the U-233 that is undergoing fission to produce electricity.

After decades of operating pressurised heavy-water reactors (PHWR), India is finally ready to start the second stage. A 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam is set to achieve criticality any day now and four more fast breeder reactors have been sanctioned, two at the same site and two elsewhere. However, experts estimate that it would take India many more FBRs and at least another four decades before it has built up a sufficient fissile material inventory to launch the third stage. The earliest projections place major thorium reactor construction in the late 2040s, some past 2070. India cannot wait that long.

Procuring fissile material

The obvious solution to India’s shortage of fissile material is to procure it from the international market. As yet, there exists no commerce in plutonium though there is no law that expressly forbids it. In fact, most nuclear treaties such as the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material address only U-235 and U-233, presumably because plutonium has so far not been considered a material suited for peaceful purposes. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) merely mandates that special fissionable material — which includes plutonium — if transferred, be done so under safeguards. Thus, the legal rubric for safeguarded sale of plutonium already exists. The physical and safety procedures for moving radioactive spent fuel and plutonium also already exists.

If India were to start purchasing plutonium and/or spent fuel, it would immediately alleviate the pressure on countries like Japan and the U.K. who are looking to reduce their stockpile of plutonium. India is unlikely to remain the only customer for too long either. Thorium reactors have come to be of great interest to many countries in the last few years, and Europe yet remains intrigued by FBRs as their work on ASTRID, ALFRED, and ELSY shows.

The unseemly emphasis on thorium technology has many reasons. One, thorium reactors produce far less waste than present-day reactors. Two, they have the ability to burn up most of the highly radioactive and long-lasting minor actinides that makes nuclear waste from Light Water Reactors a nuisance to deal with. Three, the minuscule waste that is generated is toxic for only three or four hundred years rather than thousands of years. Four, thorium reactors are cheaper because they have higher burnup. And five, thorium reactors are significantly more proliferation-resistant than present reactors. This is because the U-233 produced by transmuting thorium also contains U-232, a strong source of gamma radiation that makes it difficult to work with. Its daughter product, thallium-208, is equally difficult to handle and easy to detect.

The mainstreaming of thorium reactors worldwide thus offers an enormous advantage to proliferation-resistance as well as the environment. Admittedly, there still remains a proliferation risk, but these can be addressed by already existing safeguards. For India, it offers the added benefit that it can act as a guarantor for the lifetime supply of nuclear fuel for reactors if it chooses to enter the export market, something it is unable to do for uranium-fuelled reactors.

It is clear that India stands to profit greatly from plutonium trading but what compelling reason does the world have to accommodate India? The most significant carrot would be that all of India’s FBRs that are tasked for civilian purposes can come under international safeguards in a system similar to the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. There is little doubt that India will one day have a fleet of FBRs and large quantities of fissile material that can easily be redirected towards its weapons programme. This will limit how quickly India can grow its nuclear arsenal to match that of, say, China. Delhi has shown no inclination to do so until now, but the world community would surely prefer that as much as possible of India’s plutonium was locked under safeguards.

The U.S. could perhaps emerge as the greatest obstacle to plutonium commerce. Washington has been resolutely opposed to reprocessing since the Carter administration, preferring instead the wasteful once-through, open fuel cycle. Although the U.S. cannot prevent countries from trading in plutonium, it has the power to make it uncomfortable for them via sanctions, reduced scientific cooperation, and other mechanisms. The strong non-proliferation lobby in the U.S. is also likely to be nettled that a non-signatory of the NPT would now move to open and regulate trade in plutonium. The challenge for Delhi is to convince Washington to sponsor rather than oppose such a venture. In this, a sizeable portion of the nuclear industry could be Delhi’s allies.

Scientists predict that the impact of climate change will be worse on India. Advancing the deployment of thorium reactors by four to six decades via a plutonium market might be the most effective step towards curtailing carbon emissions.

More Indian birds enter list of threatened species

Destruction of grasslands, wetlands and forests takes its toll on birds

The Red List of birds released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for 2015 shows that a total of 180 bird species in India are now threatened, as against 173 last year. Only one species has moved out of the Red List.

The latest additions to the list, which are based on studies conducted by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS)-India, BirdLife International (UK-based) and other partner organisations, reveal that bird habitats like grasslands and wetlands are under threat. Of the new additions, five have been uplisted from the Least Concerned to the Near Threatened category, a sign of increased threat. These include Northern Lapwing (a grassland bird) and four wetland birds, namely Red Knot, Curlew Sandpiper, Eurasian Oystercatcher and Bar-Tailed Godwit.

Two other wetland birds, Horned Grebe and Common Pochard have been uplisted from Least Concerned to Vulnerable. Steppe Eagle (a raptor from grasslands), which is a regular winter visitor to the Indian subcontinent, has been uplisted from Least Concerned to Endangered.

More effort needed

“The list of threatened species keeps on increasing with every assessment. That itself symbolises that our efforts for conservation of species are not adequate. We need to logically rethink the developmental agenda, especially for the habitats and areas where these species exist,” said Dr. Deepak Apte, Director, BNHS. He added that some of the neglected habitats should be a part of protected areas or marked as ecologically sensitive sites.

Destruction of grasslands, wetlands, forests and other habitats is considered the most common reason for this development.

BNHS study reveals that apart from habitat loss, the other reason for decline of birds like Steppe Eagle, which mostly scavenges on animal carcasses, is the use of veterinary drug diclofenac used to treat livestock. This drug causes renal failure in these birds. Three vulture species, namely White-backed, Slender-billed and Long-billed have also been severely affected by diclofenac.