Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 11th Jan 2022

NEWS

Kannada writer and activist Chandrashekhar Patil, popular as Champa, passed away.

 ABOUT

• Indian poet, playwright and public intellectual writing in Kannada
• Considered one of the foremost voices of the progressive literary Bandaya movement
• Retired as professor of English from Karnataka University
• Served as the President of Kannada Sahitya Parishat and as the Chairman of Kannada Development Authority
• Was the recipient of Pampa Award, the highest literary honour of the state in 2011. He returned the award in 2015 protesting against the assassination of M.M. Kalburgi, writer
• Started a magazine ‘Sankrama’ along with Giraddi Govindaraj and Siddalinga Pattanashetti

NEWS

Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's party gets it symbol

DETAILS

• Captain Singh had created his own party Pubjab Lok Congress
• His party symbol is Hockey and Ball

ABOUT PARTY SYMBOLS

• An electoral or election symbol
  • Standardized symbol allocated to a political party.
  • Used by the parties during their campaigning and are shown on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), where the voter chooses the symbol and votes for the associated party.
  • Introduced to facilitate voting by illiterate people, who can’t read the name of the party while casting their votes.
• In the 1960s, it was proposed that the regulation, reservation and allotment of electoral symbols should be done through a law of Parliament, i.e. Symbol Order.
• In a response to this proposal, the ECI stated that the recognition of political parties is supervised by the provisions of Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 and so will the allotment of symbols.
• The Election Commission registers political parties for the purpose of elections and grants them recognition as national or state parties on the basis of their poll performance. The other parties are simply declared as registered-unrecognised parties.
• The recognition determines their right to certain privileges like allocation of the party symbols, provision of time for political broadcasts on television and radio stations and access to electoral rolls.
• Every national party and every state party is allotted a symbol exclusively reserved for its use throughout the country and the states respectively.

ROLE OF ELECTION COMMISSION

• Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968:
  • EC can decide disputes among rival groups or sections of a recognised political party staking claim to its name and symbol.
  • The EC is the only authority to decide issues on a dispute or a merger under the order. The Supreme Court (SC) upheld its validity in Sadiq Ali and another vs. ECI in 1971.
  • This applies to disputes in recognised national and state parties.
  • For splits in registered but unrecognised parties, the EC usually advises the warring factions to resolve their differences internally or to approach the court.
  • In almost all disputes decided by the EC so far, a clear majority of party delegates/office bearers, MPs and MLAs have supported one of the factions.
  • Before 1968, the EC issued notifications and executive orders under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.
  • The splinter group of the party - other than the group that got the party symbol - had to register itself as a separate party.
  • They could lay claim to national or state party status only on the basis of its performance in state or central elections after registration.

NEWS

Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna of the Supreme Court recused themselves from hearing a dispute among the States of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka on the allocation of the Krishna river water.

WHY THE DECISION

• Justice Chandrachud is from Maharashtra and Justice Bopanna hails from Karnataka.
• Judges similarly placed like them — hailing from the States in dispute — had recused themselves from the case previously

WHY DOES A JUDGE RECUSE?

• Prevent creating a perception that he carried a bias while deciding the case.
• Nemo judex in causa sua – It means “nobody should be a judge in his/her own case” in Latin. It is a cardinal principle of due process of law.
• Any interest or conflict of interest should be a ground to withdraw from a case since a judge has a duty to act fair.
• Recusal during such situation leads to reliable, trustworthy judicial system.

SITUATIONS OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST

• If a judge is holding shares in a company that is a litigant in the case being heard

• If a judge is having/had a prior or personal association with a party involved in the case.
• When an appeal is filed in the Supreme Court against a judgement of a High Court that may have been delivered by the SC judge when she was in the HC.

PROCESS

• The decision to recuse generally comes from the judge herself
• Rests on the conscience and discretion of the judge to disclose any potential conflict of interest.
• In some circumstances, lawyers or parties in the case bring it up before the judge.
• If a judge recuses, the case is listed before the Chief Justice for allotment to a fresh Bench.
• There are no formal rules governing recusals
• Previous Supreme Court judgment - Ranjit Thakur v Union of India, 1987)

Do judges record reasons for recusal

• Since there are no formal rules governing the process, it is often left to individual judges to record reasons for recusal.
• Some judges disclose the reasons in open court; in some cases, the reasons are apparent.
• In a landmark verdict in 2015 holding that the National Judicial Appointments Commission as unconstitutional, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Madan Lokur had referred to the need for judges to give reasons for recusal to build transparency and help frame rules to govern the process.

MAHITI FOR MAINS : INDIA AND CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW

 CONTEXT

Report on “India and international law” by the parliamentary committee on external affairs was recently presented to the Lok Sabha

WHAT IS IN THE REPORT

• Discusses how Indian courts have dealt with international law.
• Observed that India follows the principle of “dualism”, that is, international law does not automatically get incorporated into the domestic legal regime.
• An act of Parliament is necessary to transform international law into municipal law as recognised by Article 253 of the Indian Constitution. However, the committee believes that the Supreme Court has digressed from the principle of dualism and moved towards monism by holding that customary international law (CIL), unless contradictory to domestic law, is part of the Indian legal regime even without an enabling legislation enacted by the Parliament.

CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW

• Refers to international law norms derived from a custom that is a formal source of international law.
• India has indeed moved away from the principle of dualism towards monism by judicially incorporating not just CIL but also international treaties including those treaties that India has not signed.
• As regards customary norms, the Supreme Court in Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India held that CIL which is not contrary to the municipal law shall be deemed to have been incorporated in India’s domestic law. This principle has been affirmed in subsequent decisions.
• The apex court in Research Foundation for Science v. Union of India, relying on the Vellore Citizen case, declared that the precautionary principle, an environmental law concept, is part of CIL and thus part of Indian law.

JUDICIARY-LED TRANSITION FROM DUALISM TO MONISM – WHAT & HOW

As part of the domestic legal regime

• Consistent with the practice of other common law countries.
• What matters - Ease with which CIL is accepted as part of Indian law.
• Determination of whether a particular provision indeed constitutes a binding customary norm under international law requires the double requirement of state practice (the actual practice of the states) and opinio juris (belief that the custom is part of the law). The apex court rarely conducts such an analysis.

Inconsistence

• In a 2021 case, Mohamad Salimullah v. Union of India, the court appallingly refused to rule against the deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar despite the principle of non-refoulment being part of CIL.
• The principle of non-refoulment prohibits a country from returning refugees to countries where they face a clear threat of persecution.

Democratic deficit

• Arguably, judicially incorporating international law without parliamentary scrutiny legitimises such a democratic deficit.
• Accordingly, judicial incorporation of international law is questioned because it amounts to the judiciary riding roughshod over the Parliament.
• The committee too feels that this could become a bone of contention between the judiciary and the other organs of the state.

COMMITTEE’S RECOMMENDATION

• Executive should take note of the vacuum in domestic legislation on customary norms in international law and develop adequate domestic laws is an important one.
• However, this should not mean expanding domestic law that rejects binding customary norms in international law. On the contrary, India should enact domestic laws that are harmonious with CIL.
• The judiciary, on its part, should demonstrate greater analytical rigour in interpreting and applying CIL as part of the Indian legal regime.

NEWS

The analysis by NCAP Tracker, has ranked cities based on pollution level

DETAILS

• NCAP tracker is a joint project by news portal Carbon Copy and a Maharashtra-based start-up ‘Respirer Living Sciences’
• Aim of tracker - designed to track India’s progress in achieving the clean air targets
• Ranked Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh as the most polluted city out of the 132 non-attainment cities with highest levels of PM 2.5 and PM 10.
• Delhi was the second most polluted city in the list of cities with the highest PM 2.5 level and fourth in cities with the highest PM 10 level.
• Despite the constant focus on the air pollution woes of the Capital city, Delhi reduced its PM levels only marginally, the analysis said.
• Varanasi was able to achieve the largest reduction in air quality levels (52 per cent in PM2.5 levels and 54 per cent in PM10 levels). The only other cities to achieve an at least 20 per cent reduction were Hubli, West Bengal (42 per cent in PM2.5 levels and 40 per cent in PM10 levels), and Talcher, Odisha (20 and 53 per cent respectively)

NATIONAL CLEAN AIR PROGRAMME

• Launched by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in 2019.
• Notified under the Environment Protection Act or any other Act.
• Provide the States and the Centre with a framework to combat air pollution.
• Major goal of reducing the concentration of coarse (particulate matter of diameter 10 micrometer or less, or PM10) and fine particles (particulate matter of diameter 2.5 micrometer or less, or PM2.5) in the atmosphere by at least 20% by the year 2024, with 2017 as the base year for comparison.

CHOSEN CITIES

• Initially, 102 cities from 23 States and UTs were chosen as non-attainment cities. With the exception of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, most of those chosen are tier two cities.
• The cities were selected on the basis of the ambient air quality data from the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP) of 2011 – 2015.
• Maharashtra had the maximum number of cities chosen for the programme.

NEWS

Ace rider Fouaad Mirza, golfers Anirban Lahiri, Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar and Alpine Skier Mohammed Arif Khan are among the 10 athletes added by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports’ Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) to the list of athletes who would be provided support under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme

ABOUT TOPS SCHEME

• Launched by Ministry of Sports
• Under the ambit of National Sports Development Fund (NSDF).
• Aims at identifying and supporting potential medal prospects for upcoming Olympic Games.
• Provide selected sportspersons customized training at institutes having world class facilities and also other necessary support is being provided to the elite athletes
• Provide a benchmark for selection of athletes on par with international standards.
• Under it, Sports Authority of India (SAI) and federations, which are members of Mission Olympic Cell (MOC), will be nodal agencies for disbursal for fund.
• They will make payments directly to beneficiary person and institution concerned on behalf of athletes.

National Sports Development Fund: Established in 1998, under Charitable Endowments Act 1890, vide Government of India Notification dated 12th November 1998.