Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 22nd March

Panel reapproves GM food crop field trials

Field trials for ten varieties of GM (genetically modified) food and other crops were revalidated by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), the statutory appraisal arm of the Environment Ministry. These included field trials for rice, wheat, maize, cotton and sorghum.

Companies applied for revalidation after their earlier permits lapsed following opposition from States. The revalidations would have to be first approved by the Union Environment and Forests Minister and then the promoter companies would have to go back to the States for a final nod as agriculture is a State subject under constitutional provisions.

The move came after the Union Environment Minister Veerappa Moily did a u-turn on the views of his predecessor Jayanthi Natarajan and approved several trials that the GEAC had given the nod for in its earlier meetings. Ms. Natarajan had taken the view that it was not prudent to go ahead with the trials while the Supreme Court was hearing a case on the subject of field trials and the regulatory regime for GM technology in India. She had put the decision in abeyance while writing to the Prime Minister, expressing her views against immediately going ahead with trials of food crops. But Mr. Moily held, upon taking over, that the apex court had not explicitly ordered any stay against clearing field trials while the case went on.

SC notice to Centre on plea against twin nominations

The Supreme Court has sought the response of the Centre and the Election Commission to a public interest writ petition, seeking to quash provisions of the Representation of the People Act which permit a candidate to contest elections from two constituencies.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam issued the notice last week on the petition filed by the Voters Party, a registered party, challenging the constitutional validity of Section 33 of the RP Act, which allows candidates to contest two seats, and Section 70, which permits a candidate to give up one if he wins both seats.

‘Twin nominations distort people’s faith’

Seeking to quash the provisions of the Representation of the People Act which permit a candidate to contest elections from two constituencies, a public interest writ petition filed in the Supreme Court by the Voters Party said that in case he/she managed to win from both, “he/she is bound by the existing law to vacate one of the seats, thereby forcing an unwarranted by-election and its related expenses.”

The petitioner said it acted against the fundamental principles of representative democracy, besides distorting the faith of the people who elected him/her. In such a situation, the elected candidate should bear the cost of the entire by-election in the vacated constituency.

 Gyaan
Section 33 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, inter alia, provides that a person can contest a general election or a group of bye-elections or biennial elections from a maximum of two constituencies, while Section 70 of the Act, stipulates that if a person is elected to more than one seat in either House of Parliament or in the House or either House of the Legislature of a State (some states have a Legislative Council or Vidhan Parishad as well, along with the Vidhan Sabha), then he/she can only hold on to one of the seats that he/she won in the election.

The petitioner has sought for a mandamus declaring that the provisions under Sub-Section 6 and Sub-Section 7 of Section 33, Section 70 and any other relevant Sections in the Representation of The People Act, 1951 which permits a candidate to contest from two constituencies at a time in a single election are unconstitutional.

The petitioner, in his writ petition, has adverted to the Background Paper on Electoral Reforms that was prepared by the Core-Committee on Electoral Reforms, a part of the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Law and Justice in collaboration with the Election Commission and released in 2010, wherein the Election Commission at Issue No.6.5 had expressly recommended restricting the number of seats from which a person can contest from in a particular election.

The petitioner says that the Election Commission had also, in fact, proposed that if this provision was not changed, then if a person contested from two seats, he/she should bear the entire cost of the bye-election to the seat that he/she decides to vacate in the event the person wins both seats and that the Governments have not considered this issue seriously and so this provision stands as it is, and the taxpayer money is being used to conduct the bye-election when the candidate wins both seats

Mandamus

Means - "We command"
It is a command issued by the court to a public official asking him to perform his official duties that he has failed or refused to perform. It can also be issued against any public body, a corporation, an inferior court, a tribunal or government for the same purpose.

The Supreme court(under article 32) and the High courts(under Article 226) can issue the writs of:

1. habeus Corpus
2. mandamus
3. Prohibition
4. certiorari
5. quo-warranto

A lot more is there about Writs. So please read it from a textbook.

We have not moved to inflation targeting as yet, says Raghuram Rajan

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on Friday said that the central bank was yet to take a decision on Urjit Patel committee report which had suggested an inflation target and was still in discussion with the government on the subject.

The Deputy Governor of the RBI Urjit Patel had submitted, in January last, a report of the expert committee to revise and strengthen the monetary policy framework, suggesting the central bank to move to an inflation target, with an aim to eventually bring down consumer price index (CPI) inflation to 4 per cent with a 2 per cent band on either side.

However, reiterating his preference for CPI, Dr. Rajan said that “probably we should focus more on CPI than wholesale price index (WPI) because CPI is what actually the common man sees and based on many decisions including wage decisions”.

He warned “Higher and higher level of inflation feed on each other and the ultimate is hyper inflation. Hyper inflation has social conflict because middle-class savings get wiped out. Hyper inflation is not where we want to go. Moderate rate of inflation do not necessarily translate into hyper inflation, but we need to be careful”.

Gyaan

Hyperinflation

Extremely rapid or out of control inflation. There is no precise numerical definition to hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is a situation where the price increases are so out of control that the concept of inflation is meaningless.

When associated with depressions, hyperinflation often occurs when there is a large increase in the money supply not supported by gross domestic product (GDP) growth, resulting in an imbalance in the supply and demand for the money. Left unchecked this causes prices to increase, as the currency loses its value.

When associated with wars, hyperinflation often occurs when there is a loss of confidence in a currency's ability to maintain its value in the aftermath. Because of this, sellers demand a risk premium to accept the currency, and they do this by raising their prices.

One of the most famous examples of hyperinflation occurred in Germany between January 1922 and November 1923. By some estimates, the average price level increased by a factor of 20 billion, doubling every 28 hours.

 

Awards for excellence in TB reporting

“While the India continues to remain a high burden country in terms of tuberculosis load we are also seeing increased drug compliance, robust treatment and reduced prevalence, incidence and mortality because of the disease,’’ Dr. R.S. Gupta, Deputy Director General (TB), Central TB Division in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said on Friday.

He was speaking at the presentation of the REACH Lilly MDR-TB partnership media awards-2014 for excellence in reporting on tuberculosis here.

The award in the English category has been won by Bijoyeta Das for her work published in Al Jazeera and Sumitra Deb Roy ( Times of India , Mumbai).

The focus of the event, organised in the run-up to the World TB Day observed on March 24, was ‘Childhood TB.’

 

Myanmar’s marine ‘Lost World’ braces for tourism

The Mergui archipelago in southern Myanmar has been called the “Lost World.” The people losing this world are the Moken, who have lived off the land and the sea for centuries as Mergui has now been claimed by outsiders — fishermen, poachers and loggers, followed by developers and high-end tourists.

The islands harbour some of the world’s most important forms of marine biodiversity, and are a lodestone for those eager to experience one of Asia’s last tourism frontiers.

Gyaan

Moken people

The Moken are an Austronesian ethnic group with about 2,000 to 3,000 members who maintain a nomadic, sea-based culture. They speak their own language which belongs to the Austronesian language family  

No winners in a war of sanctions

Beneath their tough political rhetoric, European leaders are still wrestling uneasily over the ambit of punitive economic measures to be used against Russia for its role in the Ukrainian and Crimean developments.

Following the announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama of an expanded list of 21 individuals who will face bank asset freezes and travel bans, European Union (EU) leaders who met in Brussels increased their own list by 12, but postponed releasing the names till March 21 [when this went to print].

The sanctions are, at least for the present, seen as a political reproach of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s facilitation of Crimea’s integration into Russia. Even though the pressure was turned up a notch on March 20 to include several senior Russian officials into the sanctions net, the measures do not match the threatening oratory that has emerged from western capitals against Russia.

The next step — of broad-based economic sanctions including trade embargoes and business asset freezes — is likely to see much less of a consensus between the trans-Atlantic allies, and within the countries of Europe.

Indeed, at the EU Summit in Brussels on March 20, the 28-nation body said that it would go to the next level of punitive measures if Russia were to intervene in eastern Ukraine — an implicit recognition of Crimea’s integration into Russia as a fait accompli .

The EU sought to enhance its profile as a political player during the Ukrainian crisis by its direct engagement with the Euromaidan leaders and its facilitation of the February 21 Agreement between the Opposition and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. However, it has moved with considerable caution on the issue of economic sanctions. The reasons:

* Russia is the EU’s third largest trading partner, a major energy supplier, and a hub of European business investment.

* Germany is likely to be hit the hardest in such an eventuality, a fact that explains German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s calls for diplomacy — and not sanctions — to resolve the conflict. Germany is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas, and if Russia retaliates with its own sanctions, prices will go up, creating an economic shock that could spell disaster.

* The EU is Russia’s primary trading partner, accounting for over 40 per cent of its trade. European exports to Russia include machinery and transport equipment, chemicals, medicines and agricultural products.

The EU imports nearly 80 per cent of Russia’s oil and natural gas exports, with Germany alone being the single biggest importer of oil and gas.

Pinching Russia

Russia is already bracing for possible sanctions. It is reported to have moved out of the U.S. last week more than half of its $200 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds.

There is a consensus among the Russian expert community that sanctions will push Russia closer to China, in what could be a nightmarish scenario for the U.S. Russia may step up defence sales to China and reorient its energy exports from Europe to the East, a policy Russia launched several years ago with the construction of an oil pipeline to its Pacific coast and China.