Friday 16 May 2014

Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 16th May

Perils of non-disclosure

News: Non-disclosure by a candidate of the assets and property owned by the spouse and children while filing nomination for an election is ground for disqualification, the Supreme Court has held.
apex court has laid down two key points: non-disclosure of the spouse’s assets, in this case, or, as a general rule, 
1. suppressing essential information or furnishing false or incomplete information will be a ground for setting aside an election. 
2. Secondly, the fact that suppression of relevant information is an independent offence in electoral law cannot be a reason for leaving the validity of the candidate’s election unquestioned.
However judgement was for Assembly election in 2004 so author writes " it is an uncomfortable truth that many years elapse before election petitions are decided, sometimes leaving invalid results survive the entire tenure of a legislature. It is incumbent on the courts to deliver speedier decisions on election petitions."

Author argues that the latest judgment of the Supreme Court on the Mullaperiyar dam case, and the earlier judgment of 2006, are in error, in the sense that they go beyond the judicial domain as judiciary can't determine safety of a dam and this should be left to experts.

In this case, the Supreme Court has gone by the findings of a Committee appointed by it. It was only by assuming that the safety of a dam was a matter on which it could make a judicial pronouncement that the Court proceeded to appoint a Committee. That assumption was questionable and so was the appointment of the Committee.

According to author instead of judiciary deciding on the issue
  • the two States could have appointed a joint Expert Committee and gone by its findings. 
  • The Inter-State Council, a constitutional body, could have taken up the matter and tried to bring about a settlement. 
  • Eminent persons in both States could have tried for a rapprochement. 
Given a modicum of good sense, the two sides might have accepted the recommendations of such a group.

Gyaan
What is the Mullaperiyar issue?



Plastic currency notes will be launched in 2015 after field trials, Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Thursday.
The government in February had informed Parliament that one billion plastic notes of Rs.10 denomination will be introduced in a field trial in five cities selected for their geographical and climatic diversity.
The other four selected cities are Kochi, Mysore, Jaipur, and Bhubaneswar. The field trial is expected to be launched in the latter half of 2014.
Plastic notes have an average life span of about five years and are difficult to imitate.
Also, currency notes made of plastic are cleaner than paper notes.

U.S. panel backs plan for two-speed net

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday may have jeopardised prospects for “net neutrality,” a principle requiring non-discrimination by Internet service providers between their client websites, when it voted in favour of a proposal to allow ISPs to charge higher fees to those who seek to deliver higher-quality content in the U.S.

Based on the threat assessment by the Intelligence Bureau, the Special Protection Group (SPG) plans to take over security arrangements for the next Prime Minister and his immediate family members. Preparations, however, will be given a final shape only when the election results are out on Friday.

Gyaan
The Special Protection Group (SPG) is the executive protection agency of the Government of India. It is responsible for the protection of the Prime Minister of India, former Prime Ministers and their immediate family members

The news is not important but the term 'glass cliff' is and can be used in essay or answers on women related questions.
First we need to understand what is "glass ceiling"

A glass ceiling is a political term used to describe "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements."
Initially, and sometimes still today, the metaphor was applied by feminists in reference to barriers in the careers of high achieving women. In the US the concept is sometimes extended to refer to obstacles hindering the advancement of minority men, as well as women.

A glass cliff is a term coined by Professors Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam of University of Exeter, United Kingdom, in 2004.
Their research demonstrates that once women break through the glass ceiling and take on positions of leadership they often have experiences that are different from those of their male counterparts. More specifically, women are more likely to occupy positions that are precarious and thus have a higher risk of failure - either because they are appointed to lead organizational units that are in crisis or because they are not given the resources and support needed for success.

Extending the metaphor of the glass ceiling, Ryan and Haslam evoke the notion of the ‘glass cliff’ to refer to a danger which involves exposure to risk of falling but which is not readily apparent. "It therefore appears that after having broken through a glass ceiling women are actually more likely than men to find themselves on a "glass cliff", meaning their positions of leadership are risky or precarious."



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