THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 13 March
SC cracks down on judicial delays
•Non-performers and “dead-wood” among judges should be weeded out as the judicial service is not just a job to be done with but a mission to serve the cause of justice, the Supreme Court held.
•Highlighting the importance of having men and women with leadership qualities among the subordinate judiciary, which has over two crore pending cases, the Supreme Court said subordinate judiciary “cannot rest in a state of helplessness” as litigants wait in snaking, ever-longer queues for their turn.
•A Bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit, in their 22-page judgment, said there was no room for non-performers among the subordinate judiciary. “Public interest is above individual interest,” Justice Goel wrote.
‘Weed out deadwood’
•“Judicial service as well as legal service are not like any other services. They are missions for serving the society... Posting of suitable officers in key leadership positions of Session Judges and Chief Judicial Magistrates may perhaps go a long way in dealing with the situation. Non performers/deadwood must be weeded out as per rules,” the Supreme Court said.
•In a slew of guidelines for High Courts, the Supreme Court fixed a time-bound hearing and disposing of criminal cases, especially in bail applications.
•The Supreme Court suggested that bail applications be decided in a week by subordinate courts, while High Courts do the same within a month.
•The court said magisterial trials, where accused are in custody, should normally be concluded within six months and sessions trials, with accused in custody, within two years.
•The Supreme Court asked the High Courts to ensure that subordinate courts dispose of cases pending for five years by the end of 2017. In case of High Courts, the judgment said criminal appeals, where accused are in custody for more than five years, should be concluded at the earliest.
‘Monitor actions’
•Noting that High Courts should monitor action plans for lower courts and keep a constant watch, the Supreme Court said the timelines prescribed in the judgment would be used to assess judicial performance in the annual confidential reports of judicial officers.
•Noting that 50% of the population in jails consists of undertrial prisoners and long periods of incarceration without bail or trial is human rights violation, the judgment said those undertrials who have already completed their entire period of their sentence had they been found guilty should be released on personal bond.
•The court held that liberal adjournments of cases must be avoided and witnesses once produced must be examined on consecutive dates. It held that suspension of work or strikes were “clearly illegal and it is high time that the legal fraternity realises its duty to the society which is the foremost”.
India to lose presence on U.N. scientific panel
•Even as India strenuously lobbies for seats in global high tables such as the United Nations Security Council and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, it will — for the first time in two decades — not have a member in a prestigious, U.N. scientific body that decides what portions of the seabed can be exclusively mined for natural resources such as oil, precious metals and minerals.
•India’s current member to the 21-person body, called Commission on Legal Continental Shelf (CLCS) and part of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), told The Hindu that he was “anguished” by India’s decision not to field a candidate for the upcoming election.
•According to officials of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), the date to send a nomination lapsed on March 7. Multiple sources said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which formally nominates Indian candidates, chose to nominate a person to another U.N. body, called the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
•“The MoES is the nodal Ministry of the Government for the Law of the Sea-related issues. However, the MEA went on to nominate a retired Joint Secretary-level officer for ITLOS membership, whereas the MoES candidate for CLCS was not agreed to by the MEA,” an official source said. Despite several representations by the MoES Secretary at various levels, the issue was not addressed, the source said. MoES Secretary Madhavan Rajeevan didn’t comment on The Hindu’s queries.
•The CLCS has a five-year tenure and elections are due in June for the 2017-2022 term. Not having an Indian in this 21-member group would mean that China and Pakistan would likely “grab” two of the five seats allotted to the so-called Asia-Pacific group, Rasik Ravindra, India’s current member of the CLCS, said from New York, where he’s attending the CLCS’s last meeting for the 2012-2017-term ending in June.
Seabed demarcation
•Apart from signalling prestige, a membership of the commission allows India to gauge the scientific strength of claims by countries to parts of the seabed that, like territorial waters, are often hard to demarcate. Such information is privy only to participants. India has had disputes with several neighbours — Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka — over how the continental shelf (the seabed under the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal) can be fairly distributed.
•India has huge interest in CLCS and applied for extending the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) up to 350 nautical miles from the existing 200 nautical miles. India’s submission to CLCS will likely come up for scrutiny later this year, and Sri Lanka, which has claimed a larger area than India, will be examined first. India’s application number is 48, while Sri Lanka’s is 43.
•“The presence of an Indian at this strategic period is essential and in national interest,” Mr. Ravindra told The Hindu in a text message. As a former Director of India’s National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), he led the scientific expedition and analysis to determine the extent of India’s continental shelf.
•Fielding candidates for ITLOS and CLCS would require India’s Permanent Commission to The United Nations, which coordinates the process, to canvass for votes for both positions and could reduce future “diplomatic leverage,” said a person familiar with UNCLOS proceedings. “It’s also one of those rare occasions when there’s been a vacancy in both ITLOS and CLCS…and maybe the MEA deems ITLOS more important,” the person added.
•When contacted, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said he did not have any comment to offer.
•In CLCS, the sitting members from the Asia-Pacific region are China, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Malaysia and India, and all countries, except India, are learnt to be sending candidates for both posts.
•While ITLOS is a judge position and the appointee is paid annual wages, there is no remuneration for the sitting CLCS member.
•India became a signatory to the UNCLOS in 1982 and has had continuous representation in CLCS, ITLOS and the International Seabed Authority (ISA) since their inception in 1997, 1996 and 1994 respectively.
Indo-Russian transport plane JV grounded
•It may now be just a matter of time before Multi-role Transport Aircraft Ltd. (MTAL), the Indo-Russian company that was to have spawned India’s own military transport aircraft, is wound up.
•The closure of the company, when it happens, will formally bury a decade-old plan to co-design and co-develop a cargo/transport plane for the armed forces of the two nations.
•The project appears to have gone cold at least a year ago and there has been no official word on the status of the government-to-government deal, whereas Russia is reportedly going ahead with its new plane for its armed forces, according to sources.
•MTAL, which has been idle for almost two years, has a CEO, a company secretary and a head of finance.
•The board of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), which is an equal partner in the venture, may take the matter to its closure once it gets the nod, it is learnt.
•A hint of this came during the February Aero India 2017, when HAL chairman and managing director T. Suvarna Raju said, “The MTA (Multi-role Transport Aircraft) project is not progressing well. As of now, no work is going on and it is currently in the ‘stop’ mode. We will be knowing about its future in the current year.”
•It was up to the two governments to look at options, he said.
•The Indian Air Force (IAF) is yet to respond to a query on the project.
•“No Indian company has designed a transport plane. We lost that opportunity,” said a person familiar with aircraft design, who did not wish to be named.
•Joint development of the plane, MTA, was conceived around 2006-07 and firmed up in 2010 via an inter-governmental agreement. Two years later, HAL and Russian military entities — United Aircraft Corporation-Transport Aircraft (UAC-TA) and Rosoboronexport — signed a general contract to form the special purpose MTAL, with a 50:25:25 equity split to take the project forward. Each side put in $20 million as paid-up capital.
Replacement for An-32
•According to the old plan, the 15-20-tonne medium lift plane would replace the ageing Antonov /An-32 transport planes. The demand was estimated at 205 MTAs — 45 for the Indian Air Force, 100 for the Russian Air Force and another 60 for exports. The Indian aircraft was to be designed by HAL in Bengaluru and produced at its transport division in Kanpur. The project cost was estimated at $600 million (then around ₹2,700 crore).
•In 2012, over two dozen HAL engineers spent several months in Russia studying the project. Until March 2014, designers of either side had together completed the preliminary project design. Subsequent reports said problems such as an incompatible engine design, performance issues at higher altitudes and cost escalation had cropped up.
•While the An-32s are now proposed to be upgraded, this can only be done with the help of Ukraine, which is in conflict with Russia. The first An-32 upgraded earlier was lost over the sea near Chennai last July.
•In December 2015, three joint projects were alive between the two countries: the MTA, the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft and the light helicopter Kamov Ka-226. But the line for the MTA appears to have died, the sources said.
What is hyperloop? When can we see it?
•The term hyperloop has suddenly taken the India by storm, with everybody having an opinion on the best route in India to deploy the futuristic transportation system. But the question remains: what is a hyperloop and when can we get one?
What is a hyperloop?
•It was entrepreneur Elon Musk who came up with the idea for a hyperloop. It is a system where magnetically levitating capsules are sent at high speeds through low-pressure tubes, thereby potentially reducing transport time — of people and goods — by more than 80%.
•Such a system is now being developed to connect Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
But why is India so excited about it?
•Hyperloop One, the company developing the technology, has begun an online vote for people to suggest and choose the best route to deploy a hyperloop in their countries. It said the Hyperloop One Global challenge received 2,600 registrants from 90 countries. It then selected 35 semi-finalists from across the world, five of which are from India. The route choices for India are: Bengaluru-to-Chennai (334 km in 20 minutes), Bengaluru-to-Thiruvananthapuram (736 km in 41 minutes), Delhi-to-Mumbai via Jaipur and Indore (1,317 km in 55 minutes), Mumbai-to-Chennai via Bengaluru (1,102 km in 50 minutes), and Bengaluru to Chennai (334 km in 20 minutes).
When can we see it in action in India?
•Hyperloop One has announced its intentions to begin operations in India by 2021. There are also reports that the company has already begun talks with the Indian government to see how to make this possible, and how to combine this with the Make in India mission by sourcing the necessary material locally.
Any pros and cons?
•If approved, such plans would enable India to jump forward in its transport infrastructure and could revolutionise the way business is conducted.
•Businesses are likely to pay for the premium charged to be able to schedule meetings and presentations cities apart, all in the same day. And this doesn’t even factor in the potential benefits to the goods transport industry.
•But in a country like India, the flip side of such a system is also clearly visible. At a time when railway infrastructure is abysmal and the airline industry is priced beyond the abilities of most of the populace, can India really afford another transport system only to be used by businesses and businesspeople?
Sweet spot in eye helps humans read
•Ever wondered why humans can read? A team led by Kolkata-born scientists has found that a special sweet spot in the eye called ‘fovea’ plays a crucial role in humans being able to focus on computer screens and also read, an ability which is unique to Homo sapiens .
•The findings decipher the mechanism that lets humans read the text, recognise faces, enjoy colours, say the scientists.
•Dr. Raunak Sinha and Dr. Mrinalini Hoon describe themselves as a ‘scientist couple’ who push the frontiers of neuroscience to better understand vision.
•Dr. Sinha says this “recent breakthrough in understanding how the most important aspects of our vision works at a cellular level. This work illustrates the physiological basis of how our central vision, mediated by the region in the eye called fovea, works at a cellular level and how it differs in its operation from the region that mediates our peripheral vision”.
•Vision scientists have uncovered some of the reasons behind the unusual perceptual properties of the eye’s fovea. Among mammals, only humans and other primates have this dimple-like structure in their retinas.
•Owls, some other predatory birds, and some reptiles have a similar structure. The fovea is responsible for our visual experiences that are rich in colourful spatial detail.
How fovea functions
•Figuring out how the fovea functions is essential to the search for strategies to correct central vision loss, including efforts to design visual prosthetics.
•“Diseases such as macular degeneration are much more debilitating than deficits in peripheral eyesight because of the importance of the fovea to everyday vision,” says Dr. Sinha of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington’s, School of Medicine.
•The fovea is a specialised region that dominates our visual perception, he explains. It provides more than half of the input from the eyes to the visual cortex of the brain.
•“When you look at a scene an arm’s length away,” he says, “the fovea subtends a field only about the size of your thumbnail. Our eyes undergo rapid movements to direct the fovea to various parts of the scene.”
•The absence of a fovea in most mammals, he says, and technical challenges associated with recording from the primate fovea, led to a paucity of information about how the fovea operates at the level of cellular circuits.
•Using advanced techniques, Dr. Sinha helped lead a study that revealed that the computational architecture and basic visual processing of the fovea are distinct from other regions of the retina.
•The results help explain why central and peripheral vision have different qualities, he says.
For fine tasks
•Located near the optic nerve, the fovea is at its best for fine tasks like reading. Compared to the peripheral retina, however, the fovea is less able to process rapidly changing visual signals.
•This low sensitivity is what makes us see motion in flipbooks and movies. It’s also what prevents us from seeing flicker when a computer or TV screen refreshes, unless we glance at the screen (especially the old-fashioned CRT monitors) from the corner of our eye, Dr. Sinha explains.
•Past recordings of foveal output signals in the living eye had demonstrated that the perceptual specialisations of foveal vision originated largely in the retina itself, rather than in subsequent brain circuits.
•Nonetheless, Dr. Sinha says, little was known about the cellular and circuitry basis of these functional specialisations due to a lack of intracellular recordings from foveal neurons.
•The team from the Howard Hughes Medical Center research team recently made one of the first direct comparisons of the physiological properties of foveal and peripheral retinal neurons and among the first correlations between structure and function in the fovea.
•Publishing their work in the journal CELL , their experiments revealed how differences in the cellular and circuit mechanisms of foveal and peripheral retina can account for the well-established differences in their perceptual sensitivities.
•The latest study provides one of the first glimpses into how the fovea works at a cellular and circuit level. It turns out to be very different from how other regions of the retina operate.
•Returning to the issue of sensitivity to rapidly changing inputs, Dr. Sinha and colleagues compared the responses of the cone photoreceptors — the neurons that are the frontline of the visual system. They found that the responses of cone photoreceptors in the fovea are about two-fold slower than those in the periphery.
‘Novelty of the study’
•This is nearly identical to the differences between central and peripheral vision in the sensitivity to rapidly changing inputs. The finding suggests that the perceptual differences originate in the cone photoreceptors themselves.
•“The novelty of this study is bolstered by a comprehensive structure-function analyses, lacking in previous work on the fovea, using techniques such as particle-mediated gene transfer to study protein expression in a diverse array of ganglion cells,” says Dr. Hoon.
Reforming trade in agri-products
•Trading of agricultural commodities in India has been crippled by multiple structural and regulatory issues. Traditionally, the lack of liquidity, quality testing and assurance, and guarantee of delivery kept small farmers as well as institutional traders sceptical of the market. The grant of repository licences to CDSL and NCDEX and the ongoing discussions by SEBI to introduce commodity options are positive signs.
•Currently, a farmer can take the produce from the farm to a certified warehouse, get the quality inspected and receive a negotiable warehouse receipt (WR) with a unique identity (ISIN). This WR can be traded on the exchange like any other negotiable instrument.
•Theoretically, this works fine and has several advantages. It provides better price realisation for farmers, safer collateral for lenders like banks and NBFCs, a more efficient market place for hedgers and speculators, and better quality and lower disruptions in supply for the end customer. But, in practice, the system faces many issues, as below:
Participation by farmers
•The typical farm size in India is very small and the total produce of a farm would probably be lower than a single tradable lot at the exchange. Creating a pool of farmers through initiatives like Farmer Producer Companies (FPC) is a good idea, but the initiatives have been slow to take off.
•Usually the farmer, either directly or through a broker, sells the produce based on the prevailing MSP. Storing produce in a warehouse is often not an option for these farmers. The main reason for this is that the MSP has become the market price instead of being the minimum assured price. It means that the farmer is not incentivised to carry the goods.
•In countries like Australia and Canada, there are “pool” programs that allow the farmer to sell their harvest at the average price of grain over a period of time. The government could consider enhancing the MSP with more contracting options to allow the farmer to participate in the market movement.
Private participation
•Market intervention by the government is a major deterrent to private participation. The suspension of forwards contracts, ban on trading of chana and castor in 2016 have had an impact on the volumes and market confidence.
•The other issue is that the storage cost at certified warehouses is higher than the cost at the non-certified ones, this directly impacts the percentage of produce that gets dematerialised.
•Finally, in order to encourage private companies to directly buy from the farmers, the rules for purchase and payments at various APMCs need to be standardised and the government should consider introducing standard price adjustments based on location of the farm and the quality parameters. This will help the farmer sell goods at the farm gate conveniently with minimum wastage, and will help private companies adjust the MSP based on the pre-set transportation costs and quality of produce.
•Currently, due to the above issues, only a niche set of private companies use the agriculture contracts on the exchanges.
•In summary, our current state is a reflection of the journey we have chosen based on our needs as a country. Food security and rural economy have rightly been the main factors influencing government policies in this sector. The government now needs to create an efficient and robust market to attract investments and talent required for ensuring a bright future for agriculture in India.
China poses security threat in power sector: trade body
•A bid by Chinese, state-owned companies to enter India’s power transmission sector has raised national security concerns in Indian power gear circles. Local power gear makers’ lobby group, the Indian Electrical Equipment Manufacturers Association (IEEMA), has raised a red flag over the issue.
•IEEMA has cautioned against the associated risks if Chinese firms are allowed to bid and operate transmission projects in India.
Huge contracts
•After entering the consumer goods and power generation equipment market in India, Chinese firms are now eyeing the nascent transmission sector where multi-billion dollar contracts are up for grabs.
•China Southern Power Grid International (HK Company Ltd.), a subsidiary of state-owned China Southern Power Grid Co Ltd., has partnered with CLP India Private Ltd. to build power transmission networks in India. Several Chinese firms are gearing up to participate in bids invited by Central sector and State sector utilities for establishment, operation and maintenance of transmission lines for periods ranging from 25 to 35 years.
•In bids called for the inter-state transmission system projects involving investments worth more than ₹3,000 crore, China Southern Power has submitted qualification documents to build, own and operate power transmission networks in India.
•The consortium has submitted qualification documents for three projects for which bids were invited.
•The projects are: transmission systems for an ultra-mega solar park in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, Eastern Region Strengthening Scheme (ERSS)-XXI and the New WR-NR Inter-Regional Corridor.
•The long-term nature of the contracts ensures that the successful bidder will have ownership over the projects during the entire duration, people familiar with the development said.
•According to IEEMA, electricity transmission is a critical infrastructure for the economy and has significant bearing on the national security. The outage of one transmission element can have a cascading impact and can lead to a grid blackout situation, putting the military establishment, internal law and security and hospitals at a great risk,
•It said that from the points of view of data security and control on data communication, these are critical assets. “It is very important to safeguard the transmission system operation from grid stability, grid security as well as data security perspective,” IEEMA said in letters written to various government departments.
•“As a nation, we are not [on] good terms with China. . We must take extreme caution as it involves the crucial power sector,” said Sunil Misra, Director General, IEEMA.
•“Power is a critical infrastructure. It is difficult to imagine what will happen if the grid collapses [due to] some ulterior motive. We need to have safeguards,” Mr. Misra added. “Any nation or company where the relationship is suspect, we should not be dealing with them.”
•“We have no problem if contracts are given to French or German companies, [as these] which will not pose any security threat.”
•But not to Chinese companies. Like India will not buy fighter jets from China, it should not hand over its critical power infrastructure to them," he said.
•IEEMA had earlier written to India’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, seeking a ban on Chinese equipment in transmission, equating grid security to national security as hacked networks could bring down military establishments and hit railways, hospitals and operations in the oil sector.
•Chinese companies and firms with Chinese links are barred from bidding for Indian ports and they are not allowed dredging contracts due to the sour political relations between the two countries.
•Industry experts say that India should be careful while allowing foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms to participate in the transmission business.
•“If it is only transmission line, which is mainly conductor and tower, there is no problem. I am only concerned about the sub-station where the controlling function takes place. But, since the line and sub-station are being bid out together, there could be a threat. They (Chinese firms) controlling sub-stations in trunk routes could be an issue,” said R.N. Nayak, former chairman, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd.
•Former Union Power secretary R.V. Shahi said, “The government needs to be selective in choosing the agencies for the transmission sector which is critical to power supply. I am not opposed to Chinese companies but we need to be selective and cautious. For critical assets like this we should depend on selected agencies which have been doing it for us for decades.”
•“Security of the grid and uninterrupted operation is critical for power supply. The power transmission sector just can not be open up for any player. That is the concern.” Mr. Shahi said.
•In 2016, citing national security concerns, the Australian government rejected competing bids from Hong Kong and mainland Chinese groups for control of a company that supplies electricity to Sydney and neighbouring areas. The bid was for a 50.4% controlling stake in Australian electricity distributor Ausgrid.
•Further, in November 2016, a U.S. Commission, which provides non-binding recommendations to Congress, has accused Beijing of using its huge state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as tools to advance national security goals.
•Warning of a threat to national security, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission wanted the United States to block Chinese state-owned companies from carrying out takeovers in the country.
