Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Supreme Court relies on 1987 report to declare Delhi is not a State

News

• The Supreme Court on July 4 followed the 1987 Balakrishnan Committee report to conclude that Delhi is not a State.

Beyond News

• The report had envisaged that Delhi cannot have a situation where the national capital has “two Governments run by different political parties. Such conflicts may, at times, prejudice the national interest.”
• Chief Justice, in his leading opinion for the Bench reproduces excerpts from the report, which said “Delhi as the national capital belongs to the nation as a whole.”
• The report foresaw that if Delhi becomes a full-fledged State, there will be a constitutional division of sovereign, legislative and executive powers between the Union and the State of Delhi.
• The Parliament would have limited legislative access and that too only in special and emergency situations. The Union would be unable to discharge its “special responsibilities in relation to the national capital as well as to the nation itself”.
• The report said the control of the Union over Delhi was vital in the national interest.
• The report dealt extensively with the modifications in the aid and advice given by the Council of Ministers to the LG as the Administrator of Delhi.
• It pointed out that the ‘aid and advice’ concept cannot apply to the exercise by the Administrator of any judicial or quasi judicial functions. The LG is bound to the aid and advice of the Delhi Cabinet only in matters in respect of which the Legislative Assembly has the powers to make laws
• The LG’s role is not that of merely a Constitutional figurehead, though the ultimate responsibility for good administration of Delhi is vested in the President acting through the Administrator. However, the Administrator has to take a somewhat more active part in the administration than the Governor of a State.
• Hence, differences of opinion would arise between the LG and the elected government. The report had recommended that the “best way” of doing this is to let the LG refer such differences of opinion with the elected government to the President for a final decision.

Union Cabinet clears DNA profiling bill

News

• The Union Cabinet has cleared a bill that allows law enforcement agencies to collect DNA samples, create “DNA profiles” and special databanks for forensic-criminal investigations.

Beyond News

• The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2018, is the latest version of a Bill that originated as a DNA “profiling” Bill, framed by the Department of Biotechnology.
• The aim of that draft legislation was to set in place an institutional mechanism to collect and deploy DNA technologies to identify persons based on samples collected from crime scenes or for identifying missing persons.
• Several clauses of the Bill were tightened to make it stronger and immune to data abuse.
• The Bill creates a DNA Profiling Board that would be the final authority that would authorise the creation of State-level DNA databanks, approve the methods of collection and analysis of DNA-technologies.

India braces for more U.S. pressure on Iran sanctions

News

• The Government of India is bracing for more “pressure“ from the U.S. on Iran sanctions in the coming weeks, but hopes that there may be an exception made for its dealings on the Chabahar port, as officials meet with a U.S. delegation in the next few weeks.

Beyond News

• The government was yet to take any decision on cutting oil import from Iran, as the U.S. had demanded, when its U.N. envoy visited India last week.
• Iran remains an “important near neighbour” for India, and a major oil supplier, and the government hoped to have further discussions with the U.S. to understand the options it has on dealing with Tehran, given the sanctions proposed to kick in by November 4, 2017.
• India is second only to China when it comes to oil import from Iran, and in February 2018, after President Rouhani’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi, India had committed to increase that intake by 25% this year.
• However the U.S.’ decision to walk out of the multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran and re-imposition of sanctions by November has cast a shadow on its future engagement.
• This week the U.S. State Department reiterated its intention to get tough with all countries engaging with Iran for trade, energy and infrastructure projects.
• The discussion on Iran sanctions, as well as on impending sanctions under the new American CAATSA law that imposes strictures on trade with Russian and Iranian entities, were expected to have been taken up during the “2+2” meeting between External Affairs Minister, Defence Minister and their counterparts in Washington this week, but the talks were cancelled by the U.S., owing to another meeting in North Korea for nuclear talks.
• Government officials called speculation over the cancellation “unfounded”.

Uttarakhand HC declares animals to be ‘legal persons’

News

• In a unique ruling, the Uttarakhand High Court accorded the status of “legal person or entity” to animals in the State, saying “they have a distinct persona with corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person.”

Beyond News

• A Division Bench of Justices bestowed the unique status on animal kingdom while issuing a series of directions to prevent cruelty against animals.
• The entire animal kingdom, including avian and aquatic ones, are declared as legal entities having a distinct persona with corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person.
• The court also declared all Uttarakhand natives the guardians of animals and endowed them with the duty to ensure their welfare and protection.
• In common law jurisprudence, there are two types of persons natural persons or human beings and artificial person, which are also known as juristic persons, juridical entity or a legal person other than a natural person.
• Legal or juristic persons are created by law and recognised as a legal entity, having distinct identity, legal personality and besides duties and rights. They include private business firm or entity, non-governmental or government organisations, trusts and societies, besides others.
• The Division Bench also gave directions ranging from the amount of load allowed to be pulled by various animals in accordance with the kind of carriage being pulled to the amount of riders per carriage.
• Further banning the use of spike or other sharp tackle or equipment on the animal, the court also directed the State government to ensure that if temperature exceeds 37°C or drops below 5°C, no person be permitted to keep in harness any animal used for the purpose of drawing vehicles.
• The court also went into the aspect of animal safety, highlighting the need for fluorescent reflectors in carriages and animals, certificates of unladen weight of vehicles, compulsory shelter of suitable size for horses, bullocks and stray cattle and a direction to the veterinary doctors of Uttarakhand to treat any stray animals brought to them or by visiting them.
• The order came on a public interest lawsuit seeking restrictions on the movement of horse-drawn carts between Indian and Nepal through Banbasa.
• It was also prayed for in the PIL that there should be provisions for vaccination, medical checkup of the horses for suspected infections before entering into the Indian territory from Nepal and for regulating traffic in the border areas.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

ISRO to test its astronaut escape feature

News

• Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has scheduled a ‘pad abort test’ of an experimental space crew capsule as an important cog of its plan to send Indians to space one day.

Beyond News

• The launch pad abort test, or PAT, involves aborting a space capsule at launch to save the inmates. It is slated at ISRO’s Sriharikota launch venue, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), in coastal A.P.
• A two-hour band has been slotted for the test, according to information on the website of ISRO’s Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad.
• SAC has provided devices that enable satellite communication and navigation of this flight.
• The priority of all space agencies in a human space mission is the safe return of its astronauts. With the pad abort test, ISRO aims to prove its technology that will safely parachute future astronauts down in case their space vehicle develops snags while taking off.
• ISRO describes PAT as the first milestone in qualifying its crew escape system in an emergency. The test is also one of the many main and supporting technologies that the space agency is developing ahead of its ambitious Human Space Flight Programme (HSP).
• A roughly 3,770-kg trial crew module, aided by four solid-fuelled rockets built around it, will be flown up to a distance of 2.4 km. On firing, the module will be jettisoned and demonstrate a safe descent with the help of parachutes all this in around three minutes.

Cosmic rays from massive star system may reach earth

News

• Eta Carinae the most luminous and massive stellar system within 10,000 light-years  is accelerating particles to high energies, some of which may reach the earth as cosmic rays, a study using data from a NASA telescope has found.

Beyond News

• Astronomers know that cosmic rays with energies greater than one billion electron volts (eV) come to us from beyond our solar system. However, because these particles electrons, protons and atomic nuclei, all carry an electrical charge  they veer off course whenever they encounter magnetic fields. This scrambles their paths and masks their origins.
• Eta Carinae, located about 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina, is famous for a 19th century outburst that briefly made it the second-brightest star in the sky.
• This event also ejected a massive hourglass-shaped nebula, but the cause of the eruption remains poorly understood.
• The system contains a pair of massive stars whose eccentric orbits bring them unusually close every 5.5 years.
• The stars contain 90 and 30 times the mass of our Sun and pass 225 million km apart at their closest approach about the average distance separating Mars and the Sun.
• NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope also observes a change in gamma rays – light packing far more energy than X-rays – from a source in the direction of Eta Carinae.

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