Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 8th May

Discussions, the way forward

U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) did not designate India a Priority Foreign Country (PFC) on account of alleged “deterioration” in its environment for IPRs, in its Special 301 report released on April 30.  That label is reserved for the worst IPR offenders.

The USTR, has retained India on the less-serious Priority Watch List, says it will conduct a mid-year review. India’s response has been measured. The Commerce Secretary has said that India will not be a party to any unilateral investigation by the U.S. but is prepared to discuss the matter on a bilateral basis.

The disagreement between the two countries over IPRs goes back to 1994 when at the Uruguay Round of trade talks India and a few developing countries managed to incorporate a few flexibilities in the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement. However, since 2005 when India incorporated patent protection into its domestic laws, it has made use of the flexible provisions only twice. 

1. In March 2012, a compulsory licence was issued to an Indian manufacturer of a cancer drug whose patent-holder, the German multinational Bayer, had priced it well beyond the reach of a majority of Indian patients. 

2. The second case involves the denial of patent on a drug to the Swiss company Novartis on the ground that only incremental innovation was involved. The 2006 decision of the Indian patent office was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. 

Clearly it is not these two instances but the possibility of other countries emulating India that has rattled big pharma, whose influential lobbies have been in the forefront of the moves against India’s IPRs regime. The IPRs regime itself is fully compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organisation. It is noteworthy that at the hearings before the U.S. Trade Commission three of the world’s largest corporations claimed that they faced no significant IPR violations in India. On a strong wicket, India should present its case effectively to counter the pressure from the U.S. lobbies.

No shield for corruption

News: Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Section 6-A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act that requires prior approval of the Centre before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) can begin an inquiry or investigation against officers of the Union Government in the rank of Joint Secretary and above for the same reason that it invalidated the government’s ‘Single Directive’ in Vineet Narain(1997). 

Apart from there being no reasonable basis to treat corrupt public servants of a certain rank differently from those below them, the Court has given cogent and practical reasons too: that Section 6-A is destructive of the objective of the Prevention of Corruption Act as it blocks the truth from surfacing, protects those who commit crimes thwarts independent investigation and provides a forewarning to corrupt officers as soon as allegations are made against them.

Government's argument: officers of the rank of Joint Secretary and above are “decision-making” officials who required protection against malicious or vexatious allegations. In the absence of such protection, it was contended, officials may tend to make no decisions, or limit themselves to ‘safe decisions’. 

Counterargument: However, as the amicus curiaepointed out to the Court, there was no known instance of harassment of officials between 1997 and 2003, the period in which no such prior approval was required. Further, other provisions requiring sanction from the competent authority before commencing prosecution remain intact. 

The real mischief in the provision, the Court has noted, is that the very group of officers who may be the target of the inquiry get to decide whether the probe should be allowed or not. It has ruled that where it could be inferred that a corrupt act had taken place, but there is no direct evidence, the ‘expertise’ to decide whether to begin a probe should remain with the CBI, and not with the government. 

Warning over global league tables

Governments around the world anxiously await the results of the triennial tests of 15-year-olds carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Education ministers pray their nation’s youngsters will climb the international league tables. Around half the countries that take part (66 in 2012) have made significant school reforms in the light of the results.

When the latest scores in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), as the testing regime is called, were published in December, England came 26th in maths, 23rd in reading and 21st in science. (The U.K.’s overall performance was similar.) Michael Gove said the results “eloquently” made the case for a more academic curriculum, more rigorous exams, more academies and free schools, and other reforms introduced by the coalition. His junior minister, Liz Truss, went to Shanghai in China, which topped the league tables in all subjects to discover the secrets of its success.

Now nearly 100 leading educational figures from around the world have issued an unprecedented challenge to Pisa — and what they call “the negative consequences” of its rankings — in a letter to its director, Andreas Schleicher.

The OECD, the letter says, has “assumed the power to shape education policy around the world.” Using “tests widely known to be imperfect,” it encourages governments to seek “short-term fixes” to climb the rankings; and kills the “joy of learning.” Pisa, the signatories argue, dramatically increases the reliance on “quantitative measures” to rank and label pupils, teachers and heads. The letter points out that the OECD — which has 34 member nations, most of them European — is focused on the economic role of schools.

Deciding the Delhi Assembly question, justly

On February 14, 2014, Arvind Kejriwal resigned as Chief Minister of Delhi. Simultaneously, the outgoing Cabinet recommended to the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi that Delhi Assembly be dissolved. Mr. Kejriwal’s resignation was accepted and the President issued a proclamation under Article 239 AB of the Constitution placing the Assembly in ‘suspended animation.’ Not surprisingly, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) challenged part of the Presidential Proclamation before the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional and motivated by mala fides. On March 7 and March 31, a division bench of the Court, hearing this petition, passed interim orders calling on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress to express their views to the petition. Subsequently on April 17, the Court reiterated the established legal position that any order imposing President’s Rule may be varied or revoked subsequent to its proclamation, thereby diffusing the prospect of a loud and raucous political contest before the apex court. Here we argue that the Supreme Court should uphold the Presidential proclamation as it satisfies judicial standards established by previous constitution benches and avoid confusing political with legal accountability.

Article 239 AB is a special provision that applies to the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), and is analogous to Article 356, which applies generally to all States. Article 356 of the Constitution allows the President to assume the executive powers of a State and transfer the Assembly’s legislative powers to Parliament where the State government cannot be ‘carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.’ This power to impose ‘President’s Rule’ has mostly been exercised in two limited circumstances — where there is no clear majority in the Assembly, and where a State government acts contrary to constitutional provisions. We are primarily concerned here with the former type of cases as the minority AAP government has resigned and no other party has unambiguous majority support in the Assembly.

Arguments in the petition

The first argument in this petition is that the President has acted improperly by not dissolving the Assembly and placing it under ‘suspended animation.’ The role of the President (and the Governor) where there is no clear majority party in the Assembly has been clearly set out in various decisions of the court. In Rameshwar Prasad v.Union of India (2006) the Court held that this discretionary executive power under Article 356 should be exercised to sustain the political democratic process and the dissolution of a legislature is a last resort. The Supreme Court has emphasised that the Governor and President should allow the political process in the legislature to play out and not pick winners or losers among competing political parties. The tendency of political forces to find their equilibrium should not be generally interfered with, and the ability of a political party to muster a majority and form the government should be tested on the floor of the House.

The petitioner’s second argument is that the President’s proclamation in this case is motivated by mala fides. The scope of judicial review of orders imposing President’s Rule has been considered by successive benches of the Supreme Court and S.R. Bommai v. Union of India clarified that such review would be limited and only in order to ascertain whether a) it was on the basis of any material at all; b) if such material was irrelevant; and c) if the exercise of the power under Article 356 was tainted by mala fides, or was based on extraneous considerations. When adjudicating the imputation of mala fides on a high constitutional functionary like the President, the Court must remember that it cannot be alleged on personal grounds, and must exhibit attributes of irrationality or a clear fraud on the power vested (A.K. Kaul v. Union of India, 1995). Further, a court cannot examine the truth, accuracy or adequacy of the material based on which the decision was made. While mala fides may be easy to allege, they are notoriously difficult to prove in a court of law.

Why the petitioner is wrong

In order to sustain this argument the petitioner will need to show actual mala fides in fact, or prove that there is no constitutionally valid justification for the President’s action. In other words, the petitioner needs to show that the President’s decision is bad in law and motivated by mala fides, as the only manner in which political realignment to secure a majority in the Assembly could occur is through a violation of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. The petition supposes that defections and horse-trading are the only possible ways by which a majority may be obtained. This argument is mistaken in fact and law.

First, political realignment in May 2014 after the general election may be possible within the restrictions imposed by the Tenth Schedule. The BJP has, through a political strategy with the moniker ‘Operation Kamala’ secured and consolidated majorities in Karnataka and Gujarat by having opposition MLAs resign their legislative assembly seats and contest the by-elections on a BJP ticket. While the political legitimacy of ‘Operation Kamala’ is suspect, there is no doubt that it does not violate the Tenth Schedule. This may well explain the BJP’s reticence to spell out its position.

Second, a seven-judge bench of the Court has clarified that the Speaker’s quasi-judicial power under the Tenth Schedule to rule on defections cannot be appropriated by the Governor of a State unto herself to recommend dissolution of a State Assembly of that basis. ). Hence, the petitioner’s demand that the Lieutenant Governor recommend the dissolution of the Assembly is without constitutional justification.

BJP, EC headed for showdown

SC bans ‘jallikattu’

Supreme Court observed on Wednesday as it banned ‘jallikattu’ (bull fighting) and bullock cart racing in Tamil Nadu. The court also banned bullock cart racing in Maharashtra.

A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Misra said, “Forcing a bull and keeping it in the waiting area for hours and subjecting it to the scorching sun is not for the animal’s well-being. Forcing and pulling the bull by a nose rope into the narrow, closed enclosure or ‘ vadi vassal ’ (entry point), subjecting it to all forms of torture, fear, pain and suffering by forcing it to go the arena and also over-powering it in the arena by bull tamers, are not for the well-being of the animal.”

Success on debut for undersea launch of DRDO’s K-4 missile

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight-tested an underwater-launched missile called K-4 with a range of about 3,000 km on March 24.

The sources described K-4 as “the proud successor” of the K-15 underwater-launched missile, codenamed B-05. Nearly 10 development trials of K-15 missile have already been completed from pontoons submerged in the Bay of Bengal over the past few years.

The K-15 missile has a 700-km range. It is 10 metres long and weighs six tonnes. The K-15 is now under production and ready for integration into India’s nuclear-powered submarine, Arihant .

Thai court dismisses Premier Shinawatra

Thailand’s Constitutional Court dismissed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and several of her ministers for abuse of power on Wednesday, a ruling that threatens to unleash a new wave of political unrest.

The Cabinet swiftly appointed a Deputy Premier — Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan — as her replacement, as the ruling party struggled to regain its footing after the judicial blow.

The way forward for Citizen Science

“Citizen science in India is still in its infancy, but it is the way forward,” says Mohammed Dilawar who runs the Common Bird Monitoring of India, programme from Nashik. This programme, started in 2012, now has over 2,000 citizens, from 34 states, involved in observing and making notes about the common birds in their locality. The organisation is now in talks with Wildlife Institute of India to validate the data using statistical tools.

n an article published in the journal Science in April, authors Rick Bonney, Jennifer L. Shirk, Tina B. Phillips et al discuss this phenomenon and outline a future course for CS initiatives. Expressing the desire that the term citizen science, regardless of size of the project, will grow to refer to those programmes that truly do science, they emphasise the importance of developers employing “sound research or monitoring design.” This cannot be overemphasised in a climate where critiques of CS are many times based on the contention that untrained personnel cannot come up with data that is of the quality equal to that obtained by professionals.

There is a recent instance where this contention has been proved wrong. Studies involving monitoring of sharks have shown that quality of data collected by citizen scientists can be as reliable as that collected using automated tools (Gabriel Vianna, PLOS ONE, April 23). This is just one instance, and increasingly, Citizen Science initiatives are being treated with the seriousness due to scientific study.

Meanwhile, Bonney, Shirk, Phillips et al stress upon the importance of organising existing CS projects for maximum impact. Project redundancy and repetition being a danger of such large projects, project developers could “adapt, adopt or collaborate with already-proven projects.” They also suggest that developers can look at new possibilities and opportunities for data collection, for instance during natural and manmade disasters, such as oil spills, wild fires or earthquakes. They moot the important idea of networking CS projects around the world so that the research can contribute to a better understanding of phenomena like climate change.

But in India, where the numbers are still small and this concept is yet to catch on, there are obstacles still. While technology need not pose a problem anymore given the ubiquity of mobile apps and even the Internet, there are practical difficulties.

QUESTION CORNER

What makes stainless steel non-magnetic whereas ordinary steel and iron are magnetic?

We have to first understand how magnetic fields are generated around magnetic metals to answer this question. We know that within each atom, electrons spin on their axis that, in turn, causes magnetic field around them. Some electrons spin clockwise, some counter-clockwise. Generally they are paired so that the magnetic fields are cancelled. Iron which is a magnetic substance has three unpaired electrons. Each electron generates a magnetic field of its own.

If all the fields pull in the same direction then you have a magnet. In other words, the magnetic fields are aligned in a magnet. In the case of stainless steel, there are several types of them. In general they are made of iron (Fe), carbon (C), and about 10 per cent chromium (Cr). Some contain Nickel (Ni).

But other metals are added to obtain different properties. As stainless steel contains iron, a magnetic metal, one it would seem that it would be magnetic. However, when nickel (Ni) is added to stainless steel the result is a non-magnetic form of stainless steel, called austenitic stainless steel. At the atomic level, all the iron atoms act as mini magnets that are aligned in the same direction.

The net effect of this is that collectively the magnetic properties of all the iron atoms add up to produce the overall magnetisation of the material. This is known as ferromagnetism. But the addition of other elements to iron changes the properties. For instance, when chromium and nickel are added, the arrangement of atoms changes completely and this, in turn, affects the magnetic properties of iron. The nickel and chromium that are added to iron tend to cancel the magnetic fields and the net outcome is that stainless steel becomes a non-magnetic substance.

Indian role in producing super-heavy element 117

On May 1, 2014, Physical Review Lettersconfirmed the existence of a new super-heavy element 117. Super-heavy elements are elements beyond atomic number 104. They do not exist in nature.

It is a memorable day for scientists in India. Drs Susant Lahiri and Moumita Maiti from the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) joined the other international collaborators led by Professor Christoph Duellmann at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, in carrying out the historic experiment. Presently, Dr Maiti works in the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

A few atoms of the super heavy element emerged when calcium-48 ions at high energies impinged on a specially prepared target of berkelium-249 (Bk). Presently, researchers call the element ununseptium for its 117 protons (20 protons of calcium and 97 from Bk). An atom of element 117 is 40 per cent heavier than an atom of lead.

When climate change is not fully responsible for warming

It is a well known fact that over the past few years the Arctic Ocean has experienced a drastic melting of sea ice attributed mainly to climate change caused by anthropogenic activities. In the Arctic region, north eastern Canada and Greenland have experienced the greatest warming in the past 30 years.

While it may seem that this is due to the warming caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, a study published today (May 8) in Nature by Qinghua Ding, Research Scientist, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, and colleagues argues that roughly half the warming has been caused not by greenhouse gases but by natural variability of atmospheric temperatures.

Analysing atmospheric pressure and temperature data for the period 1979-2012, the study states that a Rossby train of waves originating in the central tropical Pacific Ocean caused by abnormally high sea surface temperatures may be the cause for part of the warming in Greenland and north eastern Canada.

The atmospheric Rossby wave train is an atmospheric phenomenon, a system of meandering winds that travels thousands of kilometres and greatly influences climate and weather patterns in its path. In the case of warming of Greenland and north eastern Canada, the Rossby waves carry warm air from the tropics to those regions.

The higher temperatures in the upper troposphere of Greenland and north eastern Canada were spotted by satellites which measured the changes in geopotential height in those regions.

When the air in the upper troposphere warms and rises it increases the height of the air column. As a result, a particular atmospheric pressure (say 200 hecta pascals) now occurs at greater height. This new height is sensed by satellite and indicates an increase in temperature associated with warming. Thus the geopotential height is the height in the upper troposphere that varies with temperature.

Another factor for the anomalous warming is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). NAO is the leading mode of the circulation variability in the North Atlantic region. In the last 30 years, the NAO has had a negative trend. A positive trend is when there is a low pressure in the north (Greenland) and high pressure in midlatitude of the North Atlantic so that a large pressure gradient exists. On the other hand when both regions have low pressure and the gradient flattens out it is called a negative trend.