The collegium system is one where the Chief Justice of India and a forum of four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court recommend appointments and transfers of judges. However, it has no place in the Constitution.
Article 124: Deals with appointment of Supreme Court Judges.
Article 124(2): Judges of SC shall be appointed by President. In case of appointment of judges other that the CJI, Chief Justice of India shall always be consulted. 
The system was evolved through Supreme Court judgments in the Three Judges Cases: 
  • S.P. Gupta case (December 30, 1981) or the First Judges Case: It declared that the President is the final authority in appointing the judges and he need not follow the advice of the judges whom he consults. CONSULTATION IS NOT CONCURRENCE. The ruling gave the Executive primacy over the Judiciary in judicial appointments for the next 12 years.
  • Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association versus Union of India or the Second Judges Case(October 6, 1993): The majority verdict gave back CJI’s power over judicial appointments and transfers. It says the CJI only need to consult two senior-most judges. The role of the CJI is primal in nature because this being a topic within the judicial family, the Executive cannot have an equal say in the matter. However, confusion prevails as the CJIs start taking unilateral decisions without consulting two colleagues. The President is reduced to only an approver.
  • In Special Reference case of 1998 or the Three Judges Case (October 28, 1998): On a reference from former President K.R. Narayanan, the Supreme Court lays down that the CJIs should consult with a plurality of four senior-most Supreme Court judges to form his opinion on judicial appointments and transfers.
Senior advocate and former Solicitor-General Gopal Subramanium on Wednesday faulted the Centre for not following the Memorandum of Procedure in appointment of judges by segregating his name from the list of four names without the active consent of the Supreme Court collegium. He said that the procedure followed by the government in segregating his name was incorrect as the entire file ought to have been returned to the collegium.
The 1993 judgment also gave primacy to the judiciary over the executive in appointment of judges. It had reasoned that “should the executive have an equal role and be in divergence of many a proposal, germs of indiscipline would grow in the judiciary.”
So, once the collegium reiterates its recommendation that a particular person has to be appointed as judge, the government is bound to comply with the collegium’s decision as a “healthy convention”.

India China Encyclopedia

India and China are set to release the first encyclopedia on their cultural contacts to bring the centuries-old civilisational links between the two neighbours into public domain. 
The book traces back the centuries old civilisation links that started with the visit of Huen Tsang to India in the 7th century to bring Buddhist scriptures to China. 
It, however, skips the difficult political and strategic relations between the two countries leading up to the 1962 Sino-India war.
It was stated to be a dynamic document which was expected to be improved in future as the relations progressed, they said. The main purpose was to bring the history of many centuries of India-China cultural contacts into the public domain, making it easily accessible to people of both the countries. 

Like in many south east Asian countries, Buddhism has taken deep roots in China ever since scholars Xuan Zang (602 AD - 664 AD) travelled to India on foot to seek Buddhist sutras and believed to have brought about 657 Sanskrit texts with him and translated them into Chinese. He along with another Chinese monk Fa-Hien paved the way for spread of Buddhism in China.

Govt. extends excise boost

U.S. govt panel puts India on piracy watch list
India was named to an ‘International Piracy Watch List’ by a U.S. government panel that is looking to highlight countries that are doing little to address high rates of digital piracy. Being put on this Congressional caucus list may have an impact on the ‘out-of-cycle’ intellectual property review that the Office of the U.S Trade Representative will conduct on India later this year. 

The watch list, which also highlights concerns in China, Russia and Switzerland, points out that India continues to present a “seriously flawed environment” for the promotion of copyright and intellectual property.
Among continuing issues in India are extremely high rates of cam-cording piracy, high levels of unlicensed software use by enterprises, and a lack of effective notice-and-takedown procedures for online piracy.
A new study recently pointed out that online piracy levels in India remained at 60 per cent, with nearly $2.9 billion of unlicensed software being installed in 2013.
According to non-profit organisation BSA, India is second only to China (over $8.7 billion) in the Asia Pacific region in terms of commercial value of unlicensed software sold in 2013. 

Move to bring more drugs under control draws flak

The Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013 controls the price of 348 medicines deemed essential under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).
Drugs under NLEM account for Rs.15,000 crore or a fifth of the total Indian market. 
Industry wants that the government should first evaluate the impact of the earlier order on availability and prices and see if the objectives were met. A compensatory mechanism must also be in place to ensure that companies are not reluctant to invest or hike production.

Top companies flout e-waste rules, says study


Reputed electronic and electrical equipment companies in the country are doing little to safeguard the environment against the irresponsible dumping of e-waste. Under the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011 the two most important stakeholders are producers and the regulatory agencies. The report noted that:
  • Most companies, including leading mobile phone companies have not set up any The take-back mechanism, which is a system to collect e-waste from the consumers. Those that have such systems have less than 100 collection points across the nation.
  • Most top companies have a global policy on waste management and demonstrate responsible behaviour by setting up efficient systems in most parts of the world. In India, however, the same companies follow a totally different yardstick, which leaves much to be desired
  • the findings that revealed negligence on part of the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) on most of the tasks assigned to them by the e-waste rules. No action has also been initiated against any of the defaulting companies by the regulatory agency. 
The volume of e-waste is growing at an alarming rate. Current estimate shows that 2.7 million tonnes of e-waste are generated annually in India. The apprehension arising is not of volume alone, but also of the nature of toxicity associated. E-waste contains a variety of toxic chemicals, metals and materials such as mercury, lead and brominated flame retardants, known to cause major health and environmental damage.

Sweetened package

Government announced:
  1. to increase the import duty on sugar to 40% from the current 15%
  2. to continue with the subsidy of Rs 3,300 per tonne on sugar exports until September 
  3. go-ahead to 10% ethanol blending in petrol
  4. additional interest-free loans of up to Rs 4,400 crore to sugarmills
Government would implement these measures only after sugar mills give it in writing that they would pay their arrears to farmers, totalling as much as Rs 11,000 crore at present.

Sugar producers in country have two issue:
1. Low prices of sugar : this is due to excessive production of sugar in past years
2. Rising cost of sugarcane procurement : this is due to higher prices mandated by state government without any linkage with sugar prices

The Rangarajan Committee came up with the ideal solution of revenue-sharing between farmers and mills, and the ratio suggested by it is very fair to both parties. Yet, only some of the sugarcane growing States, such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, have implemented the recommendation from this year. Major States, such as Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, have ignored the Rangarajan formula and continued with the practice of announcing procurement prices unilaterally. 

 The move to double ethanol blending with petrol is intended, prima facie, to boost ethanol demand and increase the income of the mills that produce it from molasses. However, it is noteworthy that even the current five per cent ethanol blending target has not been fully met in many parts of the country. 

 The measures, in fact, show a callous disregard for resource shortages. India is scarce in land and water, and so biofuel based on field crops – such as ethanol for fuel blending – is always going to be a bad idea. And giving incentives for the export of sugar ignores the fact that it is, in effect, encouraging the export of water, given how water-intensive sugarcane is.