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  • 3rd July 2020 | Prelims Daily with Previous Year Questions

    [WpProQuiz 473]

    [WpProQuiz_toplist 472]

  • Making justice accessible through live streaming

    Livestreaming of the judicial proceeding goes a long way in increasing the access of justice which is granted under Article 21. This article examines the evolution in judiciary and making justice accessible.

    Judiciary adapting to changes

    •  As the lockdown began, the Court had to quickly find the technology and create protocols for virtual courts and e-hearings.
    • Before this, there was an open courtroom that the public could access.
    • This protected the right to access justice, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

    Access to justice without physical classroom

    • Now that the Court is proactively adopting technology, it must expand the right of access to justice by live-streaming proceedings.
    • Further, court proceedings must also be documented and preserved for future generations.
    • Both audio-visual recordings and transcripts of oral arguments should be maintained for this purpose.

    Evolution of access to court

    • The Supreme Court maintained no public record of its own proceedings in the past.
    • Nor were its proceedings broadcast live for public viewing.
    • Over time, security concerns meant that the public could only enter courtrooms in the SC with a pass.
    • Due to space constraints, law students were not permitted to enter courtrooms on Mondays and Fridays when the Court heard fresh matters.

    A case that led to live broadcast of the proceedings

    • In its 2018 judgment in Swapnil Tripathi v Supreme Court of India, the Court recommended that proceedings be broadcast live.
    • The SC held that live streaming proceedings is part of the right to access justice under Article 21 of the Constitution.
    •  Justice DY Chandrachud noted that open courts help foster public confidence in the judiciary.
    • Further, publishing court proceedings is an aspect of Article 129, per which the Supreme Court is a court of record.
    • Journalists, young lawyers, civil society activists and academics would all benefit from live streaming, the Court opined.
    • The guidelines proposed live-streaming cases of constitutional and national importance as a pilot project including Constitution Bench cases.
    • Matrimonial cases and those involving national security could be excluded.

    Recording the proceedings- Examples

    • Internationally constitutional court proceedings are recorded in some form or the other.
    • In Australia, proceedings are recorded and posted on the high court’s website.
    • Proceedings of the Supreme Courts of Brazil, Canada, England and Germany are broadcast live.
    • The Supreme Court of the US does not permit video recording, but oral arguments are recorded, transcribed, and available publicly.
    • Democracies aside, in China, court proceedings are live streamed from trial courts up to the Supreme People’s Court of China.

    India stands alone

    • India stands alone amongst leading constitutional democracies in not maintaining audio or video recordings or even a transcript of court proceedings.
    • Court hearings can be turning points in the life of a nation: ADM Jabalpur comes readily to mind.
    • More recently, there are a number of cases where the Supreme Court’s judgments have changed citizens’ lives — Aadhaar, Section 377, Sabarimala, NRC and the triple talaq judgments are among them.

    Steps to make justice accessible

    • The Court started providing vernacular translations of its judgments.
    • Non-accredited journalists were permitted to live-tweet court proceedings.
    • During the lockdown, journalists have been permitted to view virtual court proceedings in real time.
    • If that technology is available, it could be extended to members of the public, who can then view court proceedings themselves.
    • Due to pandemic for the next few years, Indian courts will have to adopt a combination of virtual and in-person hearings.

    Consider the question “Live-streaming and recordings of the court proceeding helps in reinforcing the public faith in the judiciary. Comment.”

    Conclusion

    Openness and transparency reinforce the public’s faith in the judicial system. Livestreaming and recording of the proceeding will open the door to ensure the same.

  • In an uncertain world a seat at the UNSC

    As a non-permanent member of the UNSC for the next two years, India will have to navigate through a tumultuous world. Anti-terrorism will be top priority for India.

    India at UNSC

    • India will be back in the United Nations Security Council for a two-year term beginning January 1, 2021.
    • Two-year term will be a critical time in the history of the UN.
    • It is hoped that by then COVID-19 will have subsided, a U.S. President will have been elected.
    • And the contours of a new world order may have emerged.

    How elections take place

    • The basic contest for the non-permanent seats takes place in the respective regional groups and their sub-groups.
    • Voting in the General Assembly is to fulfil the requirement of countries having to secure a two-thirds majority of the member states.
    • But regional endorsement is becoming difficult.
    • Last time, it was Kazakhstan which vacated the place for India.
    • This time, it was Afghanistan. India could not have got the endorsement without such gestures from friendly countries.

    What will be India’s priorities as a member of UNSC

    • India will continue to provide leadership and a new orientation for a reformed multilateral system.
    • How far the UN will be able to reform itself in the new situation remains uncertain.
    • The UN did not succeed in either defining terrorism or in adopting the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
    • Counter-terrorism will be one of the highest priorities for India at the UNSC.

    Permanent member of India issue

    • India’s election as a non-permanent member has understandably ignited the hope that its quest for permanent membership.
    • Nothing is farther from the truth.
    • Seeking to amend the Charter to add new permanent members is difficult task.
    • None of the proposals has the possibility of securing two-thirds majority of the General Assembly and the votes of the five permanent members.
    • A majority of the UN members are against the privileges of the permanent members, particularly the veto.
    • India’s performance in the Council will not lead to its elevation to permanent membership as the opposition to any expansion is not India-specific.

    Role of India as non-permanent member

    • The non-permanent members have a collective veto over every resolution in the Council.
    • As a part of collective veto, India will have a higher profile at the UN for the next two years
    • Permanent members can prevent the adoption of resolutions by themselves through veto.
    • But they need at least nine votes to get a resolution passed.
    • India will also have a rare peep into the consultations chamber of the UNSC, which is closed to non-members of the Council.
    • India will get involved in many issues in which it may not have any direct interest.
    • Since India does not have a veto, it shall have to proceed cautiously not to offend anyone.

    Consider the question “India has been chosen as the non-permanent member of the UNSC and will be there at the critical time in the history of the UNSC. What should be India’s priority and approach as a member of the UNSC?”

    Conclusion

    India’s mission in New York has earned a reputation that it is next only to the permanent members in influence. But whether it will be able to deal with traditional challenges in novel ways will depend on the turns and twists in an uncertain world.

  • Safety net of income post Covid

    Providing a minimum basic income post-Covid will require some novel approach. This article proposes an approach with the mix of direct cash transfer and changes in the employment guarantee scheme.

    Non-universal targeted programs

    •  It is true that a universal schemes are easy to implement.
    • Non-universal targeted programmes face the problem of identification.
    • Narrowly-targeted programmes will run into complex problems of identification.
    • And the problem of identification gives rise to exclusion and inclusion errors.

    How to solve identification problem

    • There are three proposals which meet the objective of providing a minimum basic income.
    • 1) Give cash transfers to all women above the age of 20 years.
    • 2) Expand the number of days provided under MGNREGA.
    • 3) Have a national employment guarantee scheme in urban areas.
    • In all the three proposals, there is no problem of identification.
    • A combination of cash transfers and an expanded employment guarantee scheme can provide a minimum basic income.

    1) Cash transfer to all women

    • One way of doing it will be to give it to all women say above the age of 20.
    • This is an easily identifiable criterion because the Aadhaar cards carry the age of the person.
    • The female population above the age of 20 is around 42.89 crore.
    • Making available a minimum of Rs 4,000 annually as a cash transfer to all of them will cost Rs 1.72 lakh crore.
    • Which is 0.84 per cent of GDP.
    • The cost of the scheme to the government will be less if the well-off women choose not to take the cash transfer.

    2) Expanding MGNREGA

    • The Act guarantees 100 days of employment.
    • At present, MGNREGA is availed of only for 50 days of employment.
    • One way to help the poor and informal workers is to strengthen it.
    • The government needs to increase the number of days under the scheme from 100 to 150 in rural areas.

    3) Employment guarantee scheme for urban areas

    •  Introducing Employment Guarantee Act in urban areas would help also provide income.
    • Providing employment for 150 days instead of 100 days will also prove beneficial.

    Some facts and figures

    • In 2019-20, the government spent Rs 67,873 crore for providing 48 days of employment to 5.48 crore of rural households.
    • Out of this, the wage expenditure was Rs 48,762 crore.
    • The government has increased the per day wage rate from Rs 182.1 in 2019-20 to Rs 202.5 in 2020-21.
    • So, the estimated expenditure for 150 days of employment to 5.48 crore households in rural areas and 2.66 crore households in urban areas — together they account for 33 per cent of total households in the country.
    •  The additional expenditure needed for the new proposal proposal is Rs 1.9 to 2.5 lakh crore.
    • This additional expenditure is around 1 to 1.22 per cent of GDP.
    •  The total cost of the three proposals would be Rs 4.9 lakh crore or 2.4 per cent of GDP.

    But the total cost could be lower

    •  As the Employment Guarantee Programme is a demand-based programme, the number of days availed could be lower.
    •  This is happening even now.
    • Second, on cash transfers, some women, particularly from richer classes, may voluntarily drop out of the scheme.
    • Alternatively, we can provide that everyone receiving cash transfer must declare that her total monthly income is less than Rs 6,000 per month.

    Where the additional money will come from

    • Removing all exemptions in our tax system would give enough money.
    • Tax experts advocate removing exemptions so that the basic tax rate can be reduced.
    • Perhaps, out of the Rs 4.2 lakh crore which is needed, Rs 1 lakh crore can come out of phasing out of some of the expenditures.
    • While another Rs 3 lakh crore must come out of raising additional revenue.
    • Some of the non-merit subsidies, another item of expenditure, can be eliminated.

    Consider the question “What are the issues non-universal schemes faces? Suggest the ways to do with the issue of identification which such schemes face.”

    Conclusion

    In the post-COVID-19 situation, we need to institute schemes to provide a minimum income for the poor and vulnerable groups and trying the mixed approach of cash transfer to women and modification of Employment Guarantee Acts could do that.

  • Biodiversity Governance: The agreements and laws that help enforce it

  • International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Project

    The heavy engineering division of L&T dispatched a giant Cryostat lid, to International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site in France from its Hazira unit in Gujarat.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.With reference to International science projects, consider the following:

    1. Large Hadron Collider (LHC)– The God Particle
    2. Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) – The World’s Most Advanced Telescope
    3. International-Thermonuclear-Experimental-Reactor (ITER) – Fusion Energy
    4. Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) – Antiproton and Ion Research

    Which of the above projects have India’s active participation?

    a) 1 only

    b) 2 and 3 only

    c) 1, 3 and 4 only

    d) All of them

    ITER Project

    • ITER is international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject, which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment.
    • The goal of ITER is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful use.

    Minutes of the project

    • The project is funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
    • The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing about 45 per cent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing approximately 9 per cent each.
    • Construction of the ITER Tokamak complex started in 2013 and the building costs were over US$14 billion by June 2015.

    How does it work?

    • ITER is the most complex science project in human history. The ITER aims to use a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped enclosure long enough for fusion to take place.
    • Hydrogen plasma will be heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times hotter than the core of the Sun, to enable the fusion reaction.
    • The process happens in a doughnut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak 1, which is surrounded by giant magnets that confine and circulate the superheated, ionized plasma, away from the metal walls.
    • The superconducting magnets must be cooled to -269°C (-398°F), as cold as interstellar space.
    • Scientists have long sought to mimic the process of nuclear fusion that occurs inside the sun, arguing that it could provide an almost limitless source of cheap, safe and clean electricity.
    • Unlike in existing fission reactors, which split plutonium or uranium atoms, there’s no risk of an uncontrolled chain reaction with fusion and it doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste.

    Back2Basics: Nuclear Fusion

    • Nuclear fusion is the process of making a single heavy nucleus (part of an atom) from two lighter nuclei. This process is called a nuclear reaction.
    • The nucleus made by fusion is heavier than either of the starting nuclei. It releases a large amount of energy.
    • Fusion is what powers the sun. Atoms of Tritium and Deuterium (isotopes of hydrogen, Hydrogen-3 and Hydrogen-2, respectively) unite under extreme pressure and temperature to produce a neutron and a helium isotope.
    • Along with this, an enormous amount of energy is released, which is several times the amount produced by fission.
    • Scientists continue to work on controlling nuclear fusion in an effort to make a fusion reactor to produce electricity.

    How it is different from nuclear fission?

    • Simply put, fission is the division of one atom into two (by neutron bombardment), and fusion is the combination of two lighter atoms into a larger one (at a very high temperature).
    • Nuclear fission takes place when a large, somewhat unstable isotope (atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons) is bombarded by high-speed particles, usually neutrons.

  • What are Containment Zones?

    In the current pandemic, all interventions are primarily geared towards reducing people-to-people contact, and thus breaking the chain of transmission to the extent possible. The demarcation of containment zones, which works at a more micro level, is likely to remain as long as the disease is spreading.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q.Discuss how the preemptive lockdowns imposed during earlier phases of coronavirus pandemic has led to reduced casualties in India.

    What are Containment Zones?

    • The lockdown, implemented in five phases, worked at the national level, while the classification of red, orange and green districts operated at the state and inter-district levels.
    • Demarcation of containment zones is done within a town, village, or municipal or panchayat area.
    • Neighbourhoods, colonies, or housing societies where infected people live are sealed, and access is restricted.
    • Containment zones are where the restrictions on movement and interaction are the most severe.
    • In many cities, the entire demarcated area is barricaded and the entry and exit points closed. Only the very basic supplies and services are allowed inside.

    Who defines the containment zones?

    • It is the district, town or panchayat authorities that decide which areas have to be marked as containment zones, how large they would be, and what kind of restrictions would apply.
    • The rules for the national lockdown, for example, were set by the central government, while the state governments decided what restrictions to impose on districts.
    • The district administration, Municipal Corporation or panchayat bodies exercise a great deal of discretion in the demarcation of containment zones.
    • The definition and time period vary and are continuously reviewed and updated.

    How are they demarcated?

    • The parameters used are similar, but the exact criteria applied to vary, and usually depends on local conditions. These have also evolved with time, and are under constant review.
    • In general, containment zones are getting smaller with time as the number of cases is increasing — from entire localities to colonies or neighbourhood, to streets and lanes, to particular buildings, and now just particular floors.
    • As of now, in Delhi, a containment zone is declared if three or more infections are detected.
    • The perimeter of the containment zone is also different in different cities.

  • Tillari Conservation Reserve

    The Maharashtra state forest department on declared 29.53 sq. km area of Dodamarg forest range in Sindhudurg district as ‘Tillari Conservation Reserve’.

    Note the differences between Conservation Reserves and Community Reserves. Their shuffled meanings can be asked directly in statements based MCQs.

    Tillari Conservation Reserve

    • This area is known to serve as a corridor and even as a habitat for the population of tigers and elephants moving between the three states of Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
    • The 38-km-long Dodamarg wildlife corridor that connects Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary in Maharashtra to Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka frequently witnesses elephant and tiger movement.
    • Tillari will be the seventh corridor in the state to be declared as a ‘conservation reserve’.

    What are Conservation Reserves?

    • They denote protected areas which typically act as buffer zones to or connectors and migration corridors between established national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserved and protected forests.
    • Such areas are designated if they are uninhabited and completely owned by the Government of India but used for subsistence by communities if part of the lands is privately owned.
    • Administration of such reserves would be through local people and local agencies like the gram panchayat, as in the case of communal forests.

    What are Community Reserves?

    • They are the first instances of private land being accorded protection under the legislature.
    • It opens up the possibility of communally owned for-profit wildlife resorts, and also causes privately held areas under non-profit organizations like land trusts to be given protection.
    • These protected area categories were first introduced in the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act of 2002 − the amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.
    • These categories were added because of reduced protection in and around existing or proposed protected areas due to private ownership of land, and land use.

  • Timbuktu: The faraway land

    Timbuktu is a western African city whose name is a metaphor for a place too exotic and remote to even imagine, now is in the grasp of Covid-19.

    Try this question from CSP 2018:

    Q.Very recently, in which of the following countries have lakhs of people either suffered from severe famine/acute malnutrition or died due to starvation caused by war/ethnic conflicts?

    (a) Angola and Zambia

    (b) Morocco and Tunisia

    (c) Venezuela and Colombia

    (d) Yemen and South Sudan

    Timbuktu

    • Timbuktu is a city in Mali, situated 20 km north of the Niger River.
    • The mystique of Timbuktu owes a lot to its inaccessibility, which continues even today.
    • It is located on the southern tip of the Sahara desert where there is nothing but thousands of miles of barren desert to its north.
    • It was a regional trade centre in medieval times, where caravans met to exchange salt from the Sahara Desert for gold, ivory, and slaves from the Sahel, which could be reached via the nearby Niger River.

  • 3rd July 2020| Daily Answer Writing Enhancement

    Important Announcement:  Topics to be covered on 6th July-

    GS-1  Political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism, etc.- their forms and effect on the society.

    GS-4  Case studies

    Question 1) 

    Propaganda can lead to cult leadership, and propaganda along with cult leadership could be dangerous for peace and stability within the country and for the world. Comment with reference to Nazism in Germany. 10 marks

    Question 2)

    India has been chosen as the non-permanent member of the UNSC and will be there at the critical time in the history of the UNSC. What should be India’s priority and approach as a member of the UNSC? 10 marks

     

    Question 3)

    What is universal basic income (UBI)? What issues it could face while implementing in India? Suggest the steps to address the issues in the UBI. 10 marks

    Question 4)  

    Distinguish between “Code of ethics” and “Code of conduct” with suitable examples. 10 marks

     

     

    Reviews will be provided in a week. (In the order of submission- First come first serve basis). In case the answer is submitted late the review period may get extended to two weeks.

    *In case your answer is not reviewed in a week, reply to your answer saying *NOT CHECKED*. If Parth Sir’s tag is available then tag him.

    For the philosophy of AWE and payment, check  here: Click2Join

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