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Calling court vacations a “colonial legacy,” a parliamentary panel has recommended that High Court judges take turns to go on vacation to tackle mounting pendency of cases.
“For reducing pendency, there is a need to have a multi-pronged strategy. However, at the same time, it is an undeniable fact that vacations in the judiciary are a ‘colonial legacy’ and entire court going on vacation en masse causes deep inconvenience to the litigants,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice stated in its 133rd report.
The panel, headed by BJP MP Sushil Modi, also endorsed a suggestion in the past by former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha on court vacations. It said “instead of all the judges going on vacation, all at one time, individual judges should take their leave at different times through the year so that the courts are constantly open and there are always benches present to hear cases”, and this “should be considered by the Judiciary”.
The demand for doing away with vacations in the Courts emanates primarily due to two factors, one is the huge pendency of cases in our courts, and the other is the inconvenience faced by the litigants during the vacations of the courts.
A common man holds a perception that despite having such (a) huge pendency of cases, their judges go on long vacations. Further, during the vacations, the litigants have to suffer a lot despite having a handful of vacation courts/benches.
Improved nutrition, early weight gain can cut TB cases, mortality: Lancet’s India research (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
When an 18-year-old tribal from Jharkhand was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he weighed just 26 kg. With his family barely managing to get one square meal per day, his condition deteriorated. But when given nutritious food packets, he gained 16 kg in six months, and showed improvement.
The teenager was part of two studies — conducted between August 2019 and August 2022 in four districts of Jharkhand — that offer the first evidence of how nutritional support reduces risk of mortality among TB patients.
According to the findings of the Reducing Activation of Tuberculosis by Improvement of Nutritional Status (RATIONS) trial, improved nutrition can reduce the incidence of all forms of TB by up to 40 per cent, and of infectious TB by up to 50 per cent among those in contact with patients suffering from infectious lung TB.
It also found that early weight gain among underweight patients with TB could reduce risk of mortality by up to 60 per cent, as it ensured higher treatment success.
The findings of the studies by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), in collaboration with the National TB Elimination Programme and National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai, have been published in The Lancet and The Lancet Global Health Journals.
In Parliament
RS passes inter services bill (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
A Bill seeking to empower the commander-in-chief and the officer-in-command of inter-services organisations with disciplinary and administrative powers over personnel from the other services was passed by the Rajya Sabha.
The Inter-Services Organisation (Command, Control & Discipline) Bill-2023 was introduced amid a walkout by opposition members who were demanding a discussion on the Manipur violence.
It was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 4. A parliamentary panel had recently recommended that the Bill be passed without any amendments.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh moved the Bill for consideration when the Rajya Sabha reassembled at 2pm after three adjournments in the pre-lunch session.
Initiating the Bill in the Upper House, he said the Bill is necessary to strengthen the Armed Forces in view of the global security scenario, emphasising that only through better jointness and integration can the military move forward towards securing national interests.
There should be better jointness and at the same time integration should be better so that our forces can move faster to achieve the desired results.
Express Network
Referendum not an option under constitution: SC (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Seeking public opinion in a constitutional democracy like India has to be through established institutions and there is no question of referendum under the country’s Constitution, the Supreme Court said.
Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, heading a five-judge Constitution Bench hearing petitions challenging the changes made to Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, said this when Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for some of the petitioners referred to Brexit referendum following which United Kingdom decided to withdraw from the European Union.
Sibal cited it to buttress his argument that the process of amending Article 370 could not have been done “unilaterally” by the Centre without the people of J&K agreeing to it.
There was no constitutional provision seeking a referendum. But when you want to sever a relationship, which has been entered into, you must ultimately seek the opinion of the people.
Because people are central to this decision, not the Union of India. It goes counter to the very grain of Article 370,” Sibal told the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul, Sanjeev Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant.
Kerela Assembly passes resolution against Centre’s Uniform Civil Code (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Kerala’s Legislative Assembly on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution against the Centre’s plan to implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), saying that the move is “hasty and unilateral” and that it would “do away with the secular character of the Constitution”.
Moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the resolution was backed by both the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF and the Opposition Congress-led UDF. Both the CPI(M) and the Congress have conducted a series of seminars on the issue in different parts of Kerala.
The resolution said that the Assembly considered the plan to implement a UCC a communal move that could be “detrimental to the unity of the country”.
Pointing out that secularism was guaranteed in the very Preamble to the Constitution, the resolution said the Constitution gave citizens the freedom to believe in any religion and live accordingly.
While the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution includes the right to follow and practise religious personal rules, any legislation preventing that practice would amount to a denial and violation of this constitutional right.
Economy
Bid to curb laptop imports: IT ministry meets top tech hardware companies (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Days after the Centre’s flip-flop on the import of laptops, personal computers, tablets and other devices, IT Ministry officials met representatives of top electronics hardware firms in a bid to allay concerns about India’s trade policy stance and make a pitch for domestic manufacturing.
On August 3, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) issued a notification stating that companies must obtain a licence before importing laptops and other devices – to be implemented with immediate effect.
Following the adverse impact, it issued another notification a day later which gave the industry a three-month reprieve. So, import of such devices will be “restricted” from November 1.
At the meeting on Tuesday, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) asked the companies to submit their India manufacturing plans, and suggestions on how the import of laptops and personal computers can be kept under check, The Indian Express has learnt.
The companies were a bit shaken that the import restriction was put in place without consultation. We explained to them that it was not intended, which is why the government quickly moved and created the three-month window,” said a senior government official, requesting anonymity.
The ministry also used the meeting to seek details about the industry’s manufacturing and investment plans in India. “It is expected that over the next one month or so, they will come back with their own ideas on how to create more local production, and their expectations from the government,” the official said.
Explained
Aiming for the moon (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The moon is bracing to deal with a crowd in a few days’ time. Chandrayaan-3 is already knocking on its doors, scheduled to descend on its surface on August 23 or 24. Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft is preparing to begin its journey later this week, and will make a touchdown around the same time as Chandrayaan-3.
Japan’s SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) is slated to join the party soon after, with its launch scheduled for August 26.
SLIM’s landing time has not been revealed yet, but if it takes a shorter route to the moon and arrives within two weeks of its launch, this would be the first time that three spacecraft would be crawling on the lunar surface at the same time.
And this is just the buildup.
The moon will soon have to get used to welcoming frequent visitors from earth — not just the robotic ones but also those in the flesh. Two more lunar missions are scheduled to go up later this year, and at least five are in the pipeline over the next three years, including crewed missions.
But this present rush to go to the moon pales in comparison to the heavy traffic that was witnessed in the 1950s and 1960s, at the very dawn of the space age.
The moon missions began immediately after the then Soviet Union succeeded in sending out the first ever spacecraft, Sputnik, in 1957. In fact, within a period of three years, as many as 14 attempts were made to go to the moon.
Most of them failed, but at least three had remarkable success, including Luna 3, which flew by the moon in 1959 and took the first pictures of the lunar surface.
Global warming: Climate friendly cows bred to belch less methane (Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
When Canadian dairy farmer Ben Loewith’s calves are born next spring, they will be among the first in the world to be bred with a specific environmental goal: burping less methane.
Loewith, a third-generation farmer in Lynden, Ontario, in June started artificially inseminating 107 cows and heifers with the first-to-market bull semen with a low-methane genetic trait.
Selectively breeding for lower emissions, as long as we’re not sacrificing other traits, seems like an easy win. The arrival of commercially available genetics to produce dairy cattle that emit less methane could help reduce one of the biggest sources of the potent greenhouse gas, scientists and cattle industry experts say.
Burps are the top source of methane emissions from cattle. Semex, the genetics company that sold Loewith the semen, said adoption of the low-methane trait could reduce methane emissions from Canada’s dairy herd by 1.5% annually, and up to 20%-30% by 2050.
The company this spring began marketing semen with the methane trait in 80 countries. Early sales include a farm in Britain and dairies in the US and Slovakia, said vice-president Drew Sloan.