📰 Chandrayaan-2 mission’s initial data released: ISRO
The Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) is the nodal centre of planetary data archive for the planetary missions of ISRO.
•The Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday said it has released the first set of data from the country’s second mission to the Moon, the Chandrayaan-2, for the general public.
•Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
•The Orbiter which was injected into a lunar orbit on September 2, 2019, carries eight experiments to address many open questions on lunar science.
•“All experiments have been performing well and the data received suggests excellent capability to deliver on the pre-launch promises,” ISRO said.
•In the period since the launch, payload teams tuned on-board systems for optimal instrument configurations, derived essential in-flight calibration data, revised / updated data processing steps / software and have started to publish early results, it said.
•On Thursday, the first set of data was being released for all users, the ISRO further said.
•The public release data archived at the Indian Space Science Data Centre in Bylalu, near Bengaluru is prepared in the standard, globally followed Planetary Data System 4 (PDS4) format for public release, it added.
•The Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) is the nodal centre of planetary data archive for the planetary missions of ISRO.
•The Chandrayaan-2 data is required to be in the Planetary Data System-4 (PDS4) standard, and is required to be peer reviewed scientifically and technically before acceptance as PDS archives and declared ready for sharing with the global scientific community and the general public, ISRO said.
•This activity has been completed and hence the first set of data from the Chandrayaan-2 mission is now being released for the wider public use through the PRADAN portal hosted by ISSDC.
•The ISRO Science Data Archive (ISDA) currently holds data sets acquired by Chandrayaan-2 payloads from September-2019 to February-2020 from seven instruments.
•Data sets from the Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer (IIRS) payload will be added to this shortly, it said, adding that this release has Level-0 and Level-1 basic data sets prepared using Planetary Data System (PDS) version 4 standards.
•The Chandrayaan-2 mission was India’s first attempt to land on the lunar surface.
•ISRO had planned the landing on the South Pole of the lunar surface. However, the lander Vikram hard-landed in September last year. Its orbiter, which is still in the lunar orbit, has a mission life of seven years.
•ISRO Chairman K. Sivan had recently said that the work on the Chandrayaan-3 mission, comprising a lander and a rover, was in progress.
•“We have not yet fixed the schedule (for the Chandrayaan-3 launch),” he had said.
The study was recently published in the prestigious U.K. journal New Phytologist
•Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) have identified a gene that facilitates in the greening of plants by playing a crucial role in regulating the levels of protochlorophyllide — an intermediate in the biosynthesis of the green pigment chlorophyll.
•Dr. Sourav Datta, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, IISER Bhopal, and a PhD research student Nikhil Job have identified the gene ‘BBX11’ and their study was recently published in the prestigious British journal New Phytologist.
•“The synthesis of chlorophyll in plants is a lengthy, multi-step process. When a seedling emerges from under the soil it must quickly synthesise chlorophyll to start supporting its own growth. In order to facilitate quick synthesis of chlorophyll, plants make a precursor of chlorophyll called ‘protochlorophyllide’ in the dark, which glows red when blue light is shone on the plant. As soon as the plant comes out into the light from under the soil, light-dependent enzymes convert protochlorophyllide to chlorophyll,” explained Dr. Datta.
•Using genetic, molecular and biochemical techniques, the duo found a mechanism where two proteins oppositely regulate the ‘BBX11’ gene to maintain optimum levels of ‘BBX11’. Dr. Datta said that the amount of protochlorophyllide synthesised needed to be proportional to the number of enzymes available to convert them to chlorophyll.
•“If there is excess of free protochlorophyllide, then exposure to light converts it into molecules that cause ‘photobleaching’. Thus, it is very important to regulate the amount of protochlorophyllide synthesized by the plant and here comes the vital plant played by the ‘BBX11’ gene. If it is less, plants are unable to efficiently ‘green’ in order to harvest sunlight. If the amount of protochlorophyllide is more, then plants bleach under the light,” he explained.
•According to Dr. Datta, the study could have tremendous implications in the agriculture sector in tropical countries like India and can help provide leads to optimise plant growth under stressful and rapidly changing climatic conditions. Due to the rapidly changing climatic conditions, farmers in several states in India, especially in Maharashtra, are suffering huge losses in crop yields.
•“This often leads to severe distress among the farming community as indicated by the high number of farmer suicides in Maharashtra for the past several years. Severe drought, high temperature and high light are some of the major reasons for crop failure. Young seedlings emerging out of the soil are extremely sensitive to high irradiance of light. This study can provide leads to optimise plant growth under these stressful conditions,” Dr. Datta said.
📰 Article 356 and an activist judiciary
The A.P. High Court’s recent order is worrisome — it opens up the possibility of judicial use or misuse of the Article
•‘In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this; you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself,’ said James Madison. Judicial activism may be good as a rare exception but an activist judiciary is neither good for the country nor for the judiciary itself as it would encourage the government to appoint committed judges. Sometimes even the collegium’s recommendations on transfer of judges and chief justices today looks more like an executive order transferring IAS officers.
•The recent order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court directing the Andhra Pradesh government to come prepared to argue on the ‘breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state’ is shocking as it opens up the possibility of use or even misuse of Article 356 by the judiciary. Though the Supreme Court of India has stayed the order, we need to go deeper into this observation and look at the controversial provision of Article 356 because of which the High Court could make such an observation. The devil is in the provision itself.
Behind the inclusion
•No liberal democratic Constitution in the world has a provision such as Article 356 that gives the central government the power to dismiss a democratically-elected State government except the Constitution of Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan borrowed this provision from the Government of India Act, 1935. Interestingly, the leaders of our freedom struggle were so very opposed to this provision that they forced the British government to suspend it; thus, Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935 was never brought into effect. The provision which we had opposed during our freedom struggle was incorporated in the Constitution strangely in the name of democracy, federalism and stability.
•On June 11, 1947, it was agreed in the Constituent Assembly that the Governor could use this emergency power. By this time the Governor was supposed to be elected by the people of the State rather than nominated by the Centre. Govind Ballabh Pant did say that by mere elections, Governors will not become all wise. G.B. Pant and Hirday Nath Kunzru opposed it and termed it as virtual reproduction of the 1935 Act. H.N. Kunzru defied the whip and voted against it. Laxmi Kant Maitra and Tangutri Prakasam said that Indian Governors would not behave like British Governors who acted as agents of the Centre. Alladi Krishnaswami justified the provision in the name of representative government at the Centre. Subsequent decades proved all of them wrong both in respect of Governors as well as the central government.
The power of a word
•After several revisions, provision became Article 278 (now Article 356). H.V. Kamath termed it as a surgical operation for a mere cold. He criticised the word ‘otherwise’ and said only god knows what ‘otherwise’ means. As the Governor had been made a nominee of the Centre by this time, he asked why the President could not have confidence in his own nominees. He went on to say: “if he cannot have confidence in his own nominees, let us wind up this Assembly and go home.” ‘Otherwise’ can include anything including a presidential dream of breakdown of constitutional machinery in a state. Though Shibban Lal Saksena was happy about Parliament’s power to ratify President’s Rule in States, he did concede that this was a ‘retrograde step’ and that ‘we are reducing the autonomy of the states to a farce.’ P.S. Deshmukh too favoured deletion of the term ‘otherwise’. Naziruddin Ahmad said that “I think we are drifting, perhaps unconsciously, towards dictatorship. Democracy will flourish only in a democratic atmosphere and under democratic condition.” In a strongly worded observation, he said the drafting committee had become a ‘Drifting Committee’ as it had gone against the original draft. ‘Otherwise’ can include anything including a presidential dream of breakdown of constitutional machinery in a state.
•The Andhra Pradesh High Court could pass such an order due to this very term ‘otherwise’. But for this word which negates the ideals of constitutionalism by giving unlimited powers to the Centre, the High Court could not have overstepped the line as it did. But this is not the first instance of judicial overreach on this issue. On August 13, 1997, a Patna High Court Bench of Chief Justice B.M. Lal and Justice S.K. Singh while disapproving the functioning of the Rabri Devi government had observed that the Governor’s report was not conclusive regarding the invocation of Article 356, and the High Court could also report to the President about the breakdown of constitutional machinery in the State.
The record
•Article 356 has been used/misused more than 125 times though B.R. Ambedkar had assured that it would remain a dead letter. Both on Article 356 and the Governor, experience has proven Ambedkar wrong. In almost all cases it was used for political considerations rather than any genuine breakdown of constitutional machinery in the States. All Presidents signed presidential proclamations without demur except K.R. Narayanan who twice returned the cabinet’s recommendation on October 22, 1997 in respect of the Kalyan Singh government in Uttar Pradesh which had just won the controversial confidence vote and stating that imposition of President’s Rule would be constitutional impropriety. He also returned the cabinet’s recommendation on September 25, 1998 in respect of the Rabri Devi government in Bihar, and in an unprecedented detailed note, rebutted all the charges made by the Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari.
Inflicting more wounds
•In the very first invocation of Article 356 in 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru removed the Gopi Chand Bhargava ministry in Punjab though he enjoyed the majority. In 1959, it was used against the majority opposition government of the E.M.S. Namboodripad government in Kerala and Governor B. Ramakrishna Rao in his report argued that the government had lost ‘support of [the] overwhelming majority of people’ and belittled the fact of it enjoying the confidence of [the] House which he said was an important consideration at the time of formation of government not its continuance. Strange logic indeed.
•Indira Gandhi has the dubious distinction of using Article 356 as many as 27 times, and in most cases to remove majority governments on the ground of political stability, absence of clear mandate or withdrawal of support, etc. She did not spare even Chief Ministers of her own party. But the Janata government did worse than Mrs Gandhi by removing nine majority Congress governments in one stroke on April 30, 1977. The Supreme Court of India upheld it in State of Rajasthan v. Union of India (1977). Mrs Gandhi replied in the same currency on her return to power in 1980 by removing nine Opposition majority governments at one go. Subsequent governments too acted in similar fashion including the Narendra Modi government which invoked Article 356 in Arunachal Pradesh on Republic Day itself, in 2016.
•The most notable case of non-use of Article 356 was the refusal of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government prior to the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 as in the draft Constitution, emergency power could be used to safeguard the ‘legitimate interests of minorities’ and the government was fully aware of a breakdown of constitutional machinery in Uttar Pradesh. However, the subsequent dismissal of three Bharatiya Janata Party governments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, though upheld by the Supreme Court in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) was wrong as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ban was better implemented in these States and much greater violence had taken place in the Congress-ruled States of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
•Today, when many constitutional experts are of the view that the judiciary is increasingly becoming more executive-minded than the executive itself, the observations of the Andhra Pradesh High Court are a worrisome sign. Ideally, the word ‘otherwise’ should be deleted from Article 356 and the provision be used only sparingly and to never remove a majority government.
📰 Recharging DTH
Scaled down licence fee will help,but there is no escaping competition
•The Union Cabinet’s approval of a revised scheme for the Direct-to-Home (DTH) television distribution sector beginning with 100% FDI brings a measure of calm to an industry buffeted by technological change and revenue pressures this year. Under the new norms, the licence period will go up to 20 years from the present 10, and, importantly, the fee has been reduced to 8% of Adjusted Gross Revenue, after setting off service tax, as opposed to 10% on Gross Revenue now. The proposal for a reduction in the licence fee has been on the backburner for six years since the regulator, TRAI, recommended it. The DTH operators have also been facing a challenge from high bandwidth Internet and new generation entertainment providers using Over The Top (OTT) channels that are chipping away at their urban viewer base so valuable to advertisers. Many broadcasters now have a live Internet presence, and newer screen casting technologies pair mobiles to large screen TVs. In such an environment of flux, some existing players have combined technologies, incorporating DTH, Internet service and OTT. There is relief among the DTH players on the licence fee decision, although the Indian Broadcasting Foundation would like to see further liberalisation — the removal of cross media ownership restrictions. Significantly, a legal challenge against the existing annual licence fee in the Supreme Court was recently posted for hearing in February 2021.
•The DTH operators have been arguing that, since TRAI issued the New Tariff Order (NTO) for television last year, they have become mere carriers of channels and bouquets, with no pricing powers for these. Any high fee would, therefore, be anomalous, in their view. The broadcasters, on the other hand, have approached the courts against the amended NTO issued in January, which increased the available channels for a mandated network capacity fee paid to platforms like DTH, reduced the maximum price of pay channels in bouquets, and curbed price rigging using bouquet arrangements. These are measures that strike a blow for the common man. While major platforms accepted the network fee provision, the channels have baulked at regulation. India is one of the biggest single markets for audiences, with an estimated 200 million cable and satellite households, and regulation favouring the consumer is warranted. In fact, the recent controversy surrounding fake audience numbers for channels points to the need for scrutiny of the methods adopted. What broadcasters, including state-run Doordarshan, must realise is that audiences are won by the power of authentic programming and entertainment. In a diverse cultural milieu, with a vibrant public sphere and a sporting tradition, there is space for everyone, and the best combination of technology and pricing will win the viewer’s favour.
📰 The fallout of keying in the wrong labour codes
As the Wistron case shows, hoodwinking industrial workers is economically suicidal and damaging to India
•On December 12, contract workers ransacked Wistron’s iPhone assembly factory in Karnataka, at Narsapura in Kolar district, about 80 kilometres from Bengaluru. There are reports that property worth Rs. 50 crore was damaged, and many workers sent to jail. The factory which began production in July, employed about 2,000 permanent workers and 7,000 contract workers. The factory does not have a labour union.
•What caused the violence? The reason is said to be the reported non-payment, or only partial payment, of wages, or its delay, and flouting of labour laws, such as non-issuance of the wage contract, and employing women workers in night shift without providing adequate safety.
Incident and deeper impact
•The central and State governments have sharply condemned the violence. They are now busy controlling the damage the incident has caused to the country’s high-profile global campaign to attract foreign direct investment, especially under its production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to boost domestic investment in mobile phone manufacturing. The Wistron project showcased the government’s success in attracting foreign direct investment, and promoting Atmanirbhar Bharat, the vision of making India self-reliant.
•However, according to a preliminary inquiry report by the State labour department into the incident (the report is unavailable in the public domain), Wistron and its labour contractors violated many provisions of the laws that led to the violence. The Taiwanese assembler has admitted its faults, and sacked its vice-president for its India operations for the lapses. Apple Corporation has condemned the violations of statutory laws and has reportedly put further business on hold until Wistron addresses the labour dispute.
•In July, the State government promulgated an ordinance to dilute the major labour laws including the Factories Act 1948. The Act regulates the ordinary working day’s length, overtime wages, hours of work, the timing of shifts, safety, and health issues. Couched in legalese, the yet-to-be-operationalised law, effectively repealed the standard eight-hour working day with a 12-hour (with overtime payments applicable for work 75 hours to 125 hours, per quarter). This is evident from workers’ testimonies in the police inquiry into the incident.
The pandemic as a foil
•Amid the health pandemic and the lockdown, a few State governments sensed an opportunity to quickly ram through pieces of legislation or ordinances to whittle down the labour laws. It was purportedly to attract foreign capital seeking alternative locations to China, considering rising geopolitical tensions. The reform effectively knocks down the foundations of national labour laws by paring down many protective laws. The Karnataka government is apparently at the forefront of such a reform drive, with the media widely reporting the legal changes and the deep discontent among workers in the State.
•India’s labour laws are indeed a cumbersome web — some 47 central laws and 200 State laws, mostly applicable to organised sector workers — requiring rationalisation. Efforts to consolidate them have been on for quite a while, but with modest progress for lack of agreement among the stakeholders and the complexity of the legal frame.
•In 2019, the government consolidated 29 central laws into four labour codes and introduced bills in Parliament. The codes concern: industrial relations; occupational safety, health and working conditions; social security, and wages. The Code on Wages Bill, 2019 was passed last year and the remaining three in September this year, but without adequate consultation with the stakeholders and legislative scrutiny.
ILO stand, how it is in China
•National trade union federations, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), have opposed many contentious changes. The reforms go against many of the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions to which India is a founding signatory. In May, the ILO chastised the Uttar Pradesh government which sought to suspend the labour laws for the next three years.
•There is undoubtedly a lot to learn from China’s industrial success. But the government seems keen to emulate China’s long working days and flexible use of labour. However, China also mandates employers to provide dormitory accommodation for workers close to factories and other social security benefits. Factory-provided dormitory accommodation is the principal reason for slum-free Chinese industrial cities, unlike in India.
•Moreover, as is widely known, China’s local governments compete with each other to offer excellent physical infrastructure and ensure adequate credit to industrial enterprises through the national development banks, thus implicitly subsidising production costs. The local governments and party officials, whose objective is employment generation, act as midwives in industrial promotion. Why do they do so? Because the professional rewards for Chinese bureaucracy and provincial ruling party officials are dependent on the local economic performance. India’s efforts at cherry-picking legal changes for labour reforms, without reasonable compensation, are bound to face resistance.
Data on earnings
•The average daily earnings of casual workers in urban India in 2018-19, as per the official Periodic Labour Force Survey (https://bit.ly/3hpS2h6), are Rs. 256 (or Rs. 6,400 a month for 25 days of work). It is well below the official living wage as defined by the Seventh Pay Commission for central government employees. Industrial workers are ever eager to work longer hours for overtime, considering the low absolute earning levels. Trade unions mostly welcome negotiations for labour flexibility linked to productivity but resist its unilateral imposition if the productivity gains accrue mainly to the management (the ‘winner takes all’ situation).
•The Wistron episode has highlighted how the government has short-changed workers, as the length of the working day was unilaterally raised from eight hours to 12 hours in October, undoing the principal provision of the Factory Act 1948. The State Labour Department has reportedly admitted the flaw in the ordinance, in its letter to the Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment at the Centre. If the “principal employers” (Wistron in this case) and their labour contractors view the reforms as unbridled “hunting licence”, such legal changes are bound to unleash a backlash, sooner than later. The Wistron episode seems proof of this.
No surprises
•What are the lessons of the sorry episode? Hoodwinking workers is politically illegitimate and economically suicidal in a shrinking economy. During the lockdown following the novel coronavirus pandemic, when lakhs of workers lost jobs and livelihoods, trudging back to their villages, an insensitive government instead of addressing the humanitarian crisis, cleverly sought to capitalise on working-class misery to undercut wages — a morally reprehensible act in any civilised society. So, it should not come as a surprise if such hasty and crafty measures have now backfired, denting India’s image among global investors. The Wistron dispute has apparently turned the clock back on the government’s efforts to boost domestic production (‘Make in India’), and enhance national self-reliance (Atmanirbhar Bharat).
