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| 5 THINGS FIRST |
PM Modi to preside over UNSC debate on maritime security; Israel defence panel to scan more Pegasus-like spyware; Supreme Court to hear Flipkart, Amazon plea against CCI probe; Delhi High Court to hear CBI’s plea against allowing Chidambaram and other accused to inspect documents in INX Media case; International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
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| 1. Listen to us, Opposition tells Centre |
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- A video: The opposition on Sunday released a three-minute video in an attempt to get the Centre to listen to their demands of discussion in Parliament on the Pegasus snooping row and farm laws. The video, released by the TMC MP from Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien’s handle, urges, “Mr Modi come listen to us”.
- A suggestion: RJD leader Manoj Kumar Jha and an influential opposition voice alleged that the government was using the “language of enmity” which had taken away the possibility of “breaking the ice”. “But if Mr. Prime Minister himself intervenes and tells his people to break the ice and say ‘we are ready to discuss everything’, it is still possible to discuss. If possible, extend the session to make up for the time we have lost,” he said.
- The logjam: Since the start of the Monsoon Session on July 19, parliamentary proceedings have been disrupted over the opposition’s demand for a discussion on the Pegasus snooping row.
- The efforts: Opposition parties have given notices under Rule 267 of Rajya Sabha seeking suspension of the listed business of the day to take up a discussion on Pegasus and written to President Ram Nath Kovind seeking his intervention. However, the Centre has refused to discuss the issue.
- An excuse: CPI MP Benoy Viswam last week said his question in Parliament on whether the government has entered into an MoU with the NSO Group, which owns Pegasus, has been refused on the ground that the matter is sub judice.
- A meeting: Shashi Tharoor, senior Congress leader and chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, on Sunday said the panel’s last meeting was “disrupted” by BJP members as they did not want the Pegasus-related allegations to be discussed and the officials who were to testify “appear to have been instructed not to attend”. The panel’s meeting on July 28 could not take place as the BJP members of the panel did not sign the attendance register, even though they were present in the meeting room, leading to a lack of quorum.
- A discussion: Meanwhile, in a sign that Israel is widening the ambit of its audit of surveillance software exports beyond the NSO Group, the country’s top defence committee will meet today to discuss the issue.
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Box
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| 2. SC judge-led committees stop selections of tribunal members |
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- The Supreme Court judge-led statutory selection committees have collectively decided to stop conducting interviews to recommend names for appointment of members to important tribunals till the central bureaucracy cleared the already recommended 100 names, which are gathering dust for months rendering the tribunals dysfunctional.
- The central bureaucracy has shown a lackadaisical approach in filling vacancies in important tribunals dispensing justice for armed forces, central government employees and in important sectors like telecom, environment, income tax, central excise and sales tax, debt recovery, corporate insolvency and company law.
- The SC was also miffed at the inexplicable lethargy on the part of the Union finance ministry to set up a Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Appellate Tribunal as per the CGST Act, which came into force in April 2017.
- For the various vacancies in National Company Law Tribunal and NCLAT, the SC judge headed committees had recommended names of 21 persons as far back as May 27, 2020. But, it has not been acted upon. NCLT, which deals with litigations pertaining to companies as also the insolvency proceedings, does not have a president and posts of 23 judicial and technical members are vacant.
- For the NCDRC, the SC committee had recommended 14 names in June last year. After nearly 14 months, the government has appointed only four of the 14 names recommended.
- The worst affected by the inert bureaucracy is the Debt Recovery Tribunals, which have no chairpersons in 15 places.
- Another important tribunal, ITAT has 25 judicial and 27 technical members’ posts vacant. In the Railways Claims Tribunal, posts of 20 judicial and five technical members are vacant. In CESTAT, posts of 16 technical members are not filled. The CAT president has retired and there are vacancies of 18 judicial and 14 technical members.
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| 3. Should top military promotions be about seniority or talent? |
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- A proposal: In what will be a radical change in the promotion policy for top military generals if actually implemented, the defence ministry is `examining’ a proposal that the commanders-in-chief (Cs-in-C) in the Army, Navy and IAF should primarily be selected on merit rather than seniority.
- The policy: As per the existing policy, promotion to the C-in-C level is based on an officer’s date of birth and his date of commissioning almost four decades ago. In the Army, for instance, an officer must have a “residual service” of 36 months left (till he turns 60) from the date of his approval as a Lt-General in order to command one of the 14 corps in the force. Then, after commanding the corps, he must have residual service of 18 months to be promoted as the C-in-C of one of the six operational and one training command. The residual service clause for Cs-in-Cs in Navy and IAF is 12 months.
- Those against: Serious reservations against the proposal, however, have already been expressed by some quarters within the armed forces. “Only a handful of officers reach three-star ranks after being assessed on merit at every step in their careers. Why tinker with a policy that has worked well for decades? This so-called `deep selection’ will needlessly lead to politicisation of the top ranks,” said a senior officer.
- Those in favour: But the proponents of the change in policy contend merit, and not just seniority, should be the deciding factor in selecting the top ranks as the country heads for tri-Service theatre commands and organisations to build an integrated land-air-sea warfighting machinery.
- A precedent: Incidentally, though earlier governments had almost always followed the seniority principle to appoint a new military chief except in a few instances, the NDA government had appointed General Bipin Rawat as the Army chief in December 2016 by superseding two Lt-Generals senior to him. Gen Rawat was then appointed as the country’s first-ever chief of defence staff in December 2019.
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| 4. Olympics draw to a close, show now moves to Paris |
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- The curtains came down on the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday with the US managing to scrape though as the leader on the medals tally, both in the gold and overall medals department after trailing China for days, with the American women’s basketball, water polo and volleyball teams claiming the gold in their respective events to beat China by one in the gold medals tally.
- This is the third consecutive Olympics that the US women have dominated the medals haul, thanks in part to the new directive by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that made Tokyo the most gender balanced Olympics with 49% female representation, which will move up to 50% by 2024 Paris Olympics.
- Of the US’ 113 medals, 66, or over 58%, were won by women who, with 329 athletes, also outnumbered the male athletes in their 613 member strong contingent. India too sent its largest contingent of female athletes — 56 — in the 127-member squad at the Tokyo Olympics.
- With seven medals, including its first ever track and field gold, courtesy javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra on Saturday, Tokyo 2020 has become India’s best outing ever at the quadrennial games, with women winning three of them.
- The final day’s main event was the men’s marathon which saw 36-year old Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge cement his place as the greater ever marathoner by successfully defending his Olympic title from Rio 2016 in a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 38 seconds — more than a minute ahead of the second and third place finishers, Netherlands’ Abdi Nageeye and Belgium’s Bashir Abdi, respectively.
- Kipchoge, the only person to have run a marathon in under 2 hours in an event that was not officially recognised, broke away from the rest of the 106-member strong pack — 30 of whom wilted under the heat and couldn’t finish the race — at the 30km mark to take an unbeatable lead and in the proces, become the third person after Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila and East Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in men’s marathon.
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| 6. Covishield-Covaxin cocktail offers better protection, says ICMR |
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- A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has found that vaccinating with a combination of Covishield and Covaxin was not only safe with no more side effects when compared to the same dose regimen of either vaccine, but it also resulted in generating better protection or immunogenicity against Covid-19.
- The study was prompted by the inadvertent administration of Covaxin as the second dose to 18 people in Uttar Pradesh after they had received the first dose of Covishield. While Covishield, the Indian version of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca-University of Oxford, is an adenovirus based vaccine, Covaxin, the indigenously developed vaccine by Bharat Biotech in conjunction with ICMR is based on an inactivated virus.
- The study also analysed results of 80 other participants divided into two groups of 40 each — with one administered two doses of Covishield and the other given two doses of Covaxin. It found that “immunisation with a heterologous combination of an adenovirus vector platform-based vaccine followed by an inactivated whole virus vaccine is safe and elicits better immunogenicity than two doses of homologous vaccination, using the same vaccines.”
- While the results of the study could have implications for India’s vaccination programme, especially since there’s a shortfall of vaccines, the study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, has several limitations. For one, the sample size of 18 people is too small, as the study itself admits and secondly, “the follow up period is only 60-70 days after immunisation with the first dose and baseline serological and immunological data of the participants is not available.” Moreover, while the study points out the efficacy of Covishield followed by Covaxin, it has no data on the efficacy if the dosage order was reversed.
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| X-PLAINED |
| 7. Why PM Modi is chairing a meet that envoys, ministers did |
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- What: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to preside over a virtual open debate of the UN Security Council on maritime security today. This is the first time an Indian PM has chosen to chair such a debate at the UNSC.
- Why: India holds the rotating presidency of the UNSC for the month of August and is organising signature events on three focus areas as part of it — on maritime security, peacekeeping operations and counter-terrorism. External affairs minister S Jaishankar will chair the other two meetings.
- How: The UNSC consists of 15 members: 10 non-permanent and five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the UK and US. Each year the UN General Assembly elects five non-permanent members for a two-year term. The non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis — five for African and Asian States; one for Eastern European States; two for the Latin American and Caribbean States; and two for Western European and other States. India began its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member on January 1. The other non-permanent members at present are Tunisia, Vietnam, Estonia, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Norway and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Non-permanent members do not enjoy the veto power like the permanent members.
- Who: The presidency of UNSC changes hands for a period of one month each between its members in an alphabetical order. The presidency passed to India from France and in September, Ireland will take over from India.
- When: India, one of the founding members of the world body, has been elected as a non-permanent member of the Council seven times in the past for the years 1950—1951, 1967—1968, 1972—1973, 1977—1978, 1984—1985, 1991—1992 and 2011—2012.
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| 8. Is data on defective EVMs ‘commercial’ or for public? |
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- A ruling: The Central Information Commission has ordered the disclosure of the total number of EVMs and VVPATs that showed defects and errors during testing and evaluation of their firmware by the Standardisation, Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate.
- A question: The ruling of the CIC came on a petition of activist Venkatesh Nayak, who had approached the STQC Directorate under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, seeking information related to audit and testing of firmware of EVMs of M3 and M2 generation and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units manufactured by ECIL and BEL, and used in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
- No answer: The information was denied to him citing section 8 (1)(d) of the RTI Act which allows exemption of information pertaining to commercial confidence from disclosure. The CIC held the plea of Nayak “justified”, calling it “statistical information” which can be given and “there is no exemption applicable in disclosing the numbers”.
- The issue of EVMs in an election is hotly contested among political parties and sections of people.
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| 9. Taliban captures government buildings, US carries out airstrikes |
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- Continuing its onslaught, the Taliban took control of two more cities in Afghanistan, Kunduz in the northeast and Sar-e-Pul in the north, which are both provincial capitals. They also captured several government buildings in Kunduz with just the airport and the army base under the government’s control.
- In Sar-e-Pul too, Taliban insurgents captured key government buildings, forcing government officials to retreat to an armed forces base near the main city. The capture of Kunduz and Sar-e-Pul comes just days after the Taliban took control of Zaranj, capital of the southern Nimroz province near the Iran border.
- Even as the Taliban attacks have escalated following the announcement by the US that it would end its military campaign in the country by the end of this month, the US launched airstrikes through its F-16 fighters and B-52 bombers over east and south Afghanistan, along with air patrolling over Kabul, to prevent the Taliban from capturing political power. The attacks by Taliban, which are a deviation from its assurances of peace, have also led to the indefinite postponement of the peace talks scheduled from August 17-19 in Islamabad.
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| Answer to NEWS IN CLUES |
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Alibaba. The company, started by Jack Ma, a former English teacher and which owns Taobao, China’s largest internet shopping site, said on Sunday that it has suspended several employees after an employee alleged on the company’s intranet that she was sexually assaulted by her boss and a client. Cited as the world’s fifth largest artificial intelligence company last year, it’s named after Alibaba, a fictional character from a West Asian folk tale, Alibaba and the Forty Thieves.
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Written by: Rakesh Rai, Judhajit Basu, Sumil Sudhakaran, Tejeesh N.S. Behl
Research: Rajesh Sharma
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