Thursday, November 14, 2019

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The HINDU Notes – 14th November 2019

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VisionIAS 14:05

📰 Supreme Court opens CJI office to RTI

"Transparency and accountability should go hand in hand," the main judgment authored by Justice Sanjeev Khanna and supported by Chief Justice Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta said.

•The Office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is a ‘public authority’ under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi declared on Wednesday.

•The main judgment of the Constitution Bench authored by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said the Supreme Court is a ‘public authority’ and the office of the CJI is part and parcel of the institution. Hence, if the Supreme Court is a public authority, so is the office of the CJI.

•Justice Khanna, who shared his judgment with Chief Justice Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta, observed that “transparency and accountability should go hand-in-hand”. Increased transparency under RTI was no threat to judicial independence, he held.

•Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, in his separate and concurring opinion, eloquently observed that “judicial independence is not secured by the secrecy of cloistered halls”.

•Justice N.V. Ramana, in his opinion, struck a more cautionary note, saying judicial independence was the basis of the trust public reposes in the judiciary. Only the right dose of transparency should be calibrated with judicial independence.

‘Not absolute right’

•The Bench, however, agreed, in one voice, that the right to know under RTI was not absolute. The right to know of a citizen ought to be balanced with the right to privacy of individual judges.

•“Right to information should not be allowed to be used as a tool of surveillance,” Justice Ramana wrote.

•Hence, on this aspect, Justice Khanna held that personal information of judges should only be divulged under RTI if such disclosure served the larger public interest.

•The disclosure of personal information was discretionary under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act. The statute has given the discretion to the Public Information Officer (PIO).

•Justice Chandrachud said the information about assets of judges and official communication during the process of elevation of judges to the Supreme Court are treated as confidential third-party information. In such cases, the PIO should follow the procedure mandated in Section 11 of the RTI Act. That is, a notice should be first issued to the third party — the judge concerned — about the RTI request for information. The view of the third party should be considered before the PIO takes a call.

•“Personal information, which if disclosed, could lead to an unwarranted invasion of privacy right… what should be disclosed would depend on authentic enquiry relating to the public interest,” the Supreme Court observed.

•Justice Ramana even listed certain “non-exhaustive factors” for the PIO to consider while deciding whether the information sought was private. These factors include various criteria from the nature of the information sought to its impact on the private life of the judge.

•The Bench upheld the Delhi High Court judgment of 2010 that the CJI does not hold information on the personal assets of fellow judges in a fiduciary capacity. Information held by a person in a fiduciary capacity is exempt from disclosure under RTI.

•Justice Chandrachud observed that the judges of the Supreme Court are constitutional offices and not a hierarchy.

•“The judges who disclose their assets cannot be said to be vulnerable to and dependent on the Chief Justice of India,” Justice Chandrachud observed.

📰 Amended Finance Act: Supreme Court strikes down rules on tribunal postings

Rapid Revision Program 2019 Polity Handout PDF

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VisionIAS 07:06

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World Geography UPSC Prelims Ready Reckoner 2019 PDF

WORLD GEOGRAPHY

VisionIAS 07:00

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THE HINDU NEWSPAPER IMPORTANT ARTICLES 14.11.2019

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VisionIAS 06:51

FRONT PAGE

‘Office of Chief Justice of India comes under RTI Act’

Amended Finance Act: SC strikes down rules on tribunal postings

NATIONAL

‘No one is above law’

Capital’s air quality nears ‘emergency’ zone

INTERNATIONAL

Economy to be main topic at BRICS meet

OPINION

Far removed from reality

Narrowing options in Jammu and Kashmir

Nehruvian consensus under siege

A time for experimentation

A balancing act

Disqualified, yet qualified

Gloom deepens

Cong. Parliamentary Party splits

LIFE

WHO initiative to boost insulin access

Climate change is harming health of children, says Lancet report

General Knowledge Saar Sangrah PDF Book Download For Competitive Exams

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VisionIAS 20:19

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The HINDU Notes – 13th November 2019

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VisionIAS 20:04

📰 India’s cancer care facilities highly inadequate, says parliamentary panel

Systematic failure to address needs results in 20% higher mortality, says the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science, Technology and Environment.

•India’s cancer care infrastructure is “highly inadequate” and forces a majority of patients to travel “thousands of kilometres” for treatment.

•The “systematic failure” to address the needs of patients contributes to a 20% higher mortality among Indian cancer patients than in countries with a “high” Human Development Index, says a report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science, Technology and Environment.

•The committee was constituted to examine an expanded role for the Department of Atomic Energy, through the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), to address India’s rising cancer burden. The committee, led by former Union Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, submitted its report to Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu on Monday.

•The incidence, or the number of newly diagnosed cases of cancer annually, is about 16 lakh. The disease kills 8 lakh people annually. Among these are 140,000 fresh cases of breast cancer, 100,000 cervical cancer cases, and 45,000 cases of oral cancer among women. Among men, the top three cancers with the highest incidence are those in the oral cavity (1,38,000 cases), cancer of the pharynx (90,000) and those of the gastro-intestinal tract (2,00,000).

•“The Committee would like to lay emphasis on the fact that mortality to incidence ratio of 0.68 in India is higher than that in very high human development index (HDI) countries (0.38) and high HDI countries (0.57),” it notes in the report viewed by The Hindu.

•The International Agency for Research on Cancer expects India’s cancer burden to increase from an estimated incidence of 13 lakh cases in 2018 to about 17 lakh in 2035, and cancer deaths expected to rise from 8.8 lakh in 2018 to 13 lakh in 2035.

•“The Committee is especially worried to note that the incidence of cancer is very high in all North Eastern States, as it is higher than the national average for several types of cancer, showing a consistently rising trend over the past few decades,” the report emphasised.

•While the TMC is a major referral centre for cancer treatment, India’s National Cancer Grid is the bulwark of cancer treatment in the country, and with its network of 183 cancer centres, research institutes, patient advocacy groups, charitable organisations and professional societies, treats over 7,00,000 new cancer cases.

Hub and spoke

•Two-thirds of India's cancer patients were treated in the private sector and this forced 6 crore Indians below the poverty line because of “catastrophic healthcare related expenditure on cancer”. The Committee submitted its report in 45 days and it is the first such report this year. It recommended a ‘Hub and Spoke Model’ proposed by the TMC to better reach out to cancer patients nationally. This approach — already in practice in Punjab — has a network of centres, or hubs, capable of treating complex forms of cancer. They would be connected to other centres (spokes) capable of treating less complex variants of cancers. The idea is to ease access and minimise travel times for patients.

•“One hub would ideally cover about 4 crore patients and a spoke from 50 lakh-1 crore patients annually. Therefore, about 30 hubs and 130 spokes would be needed to be created to bridge the gaps in access to cancer treatment,” representatives from the TMC told the Committee.

📰 Progress on childhood pneumonia, diarrhoea falling short, finds global study

Daily Current Affairs, 13th November 2019

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VisionIAS 19:40

1) World Kindness Day: 13 November

•November 13 is celebrated as the World Kindness Day. World Kindness Day is to highlight good deeds in the community focusing on the positive power and the common thread of kindness which binds us. Kindness is a fundamental part of the human circumstances which bridges the divides of race religion, politics, gender and zip codes. The Theme of 2019 for this World Kindness Day 2019 is empathy, encouraging people across the globe to better understand “the pains of others” and touch their lives “positively”.

•World Kindness Day was first introduced in 1998 by The World Kindness Movement, an organisation formed at a 1997 Tokyo conference by the like-minded kindness organisations from around the world. In 2019, the organization was registered as an official NGO under Swiss law. There are currently over 28 nations involved in The World Kindness Movement which is not affiliated with any religion or political movement.

2) Chief Justice’s office comes under RTI, rules Supreme Court

•The Supreme Court ruled that the office of Chief Justice comes under the transparency law, the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The decision by the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, led Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who retires on November 17, comes on a petition filed by Central Public Information Officer of the Supreme Court against a Delhi high court ruling of 2010 that held the office of the CJI was a public authority and directed the secretary-general of the top court to disclose details of the assets of judges sought by RTI activist SC Agarwal.

3) 39th India International Trade Fair 2019

•39th India International Trade Fair 2019 begins in New Delhi. The theme for the 39th edition of the fair is ‘Ease of Doing Business’ inspired by India’s unique achievement of rising to 63rd rank on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index from 142nd rank in the year 2014. The fair will be inaugurated by Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Nitin Gadkari. This year the status of ‘Partner Country’ has been accorded to ‘The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’ and ‘The Republic of Korea’ will be the ‘Focus Country’. Bihar and Jharkhand will be the focus states in this edition of the fair.

4) Swachh-Nirmal Tat Abhiyaan

•Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is undertaking a mass cleanliness-cum-awareness drive in 50 identified beaches under the programme called ‘Swachh- Nirmal Tat Abhiyaan’, from 11 -17 November 2019.

•The Objective of Swachh-Nirmal Tat Abhiyaan to strive to make coastal areas across the country clean and to create awareness amongst citizens about the importance of coastal ecosystems so as to save marine creatures from plastic waste, industrial effluents and other harmful substances.

5) Sishu Suraksha APP to be launched in Assam

•The Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights is going to launch a mobile app Sishu Suraksha on the occasion of Children’s Day. The purpose of the app is to empower citizens to take moral responsibility for protecting future generations. The app can be used by anyone in the state to lodge a complaint which will be directly registered at Commission.

6) Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurates exhibition of Technologies in Food Processing

•Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan inaugurated an exhibition of Technologies in Food Processing developed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The exhibition organized in New Delhi showcases CSIR technologies in the food sector to the industries and MSMEs. It also highlights the latest research and development being done in the food processing sector in the country. The products developed through these technologies and innovations are cost-effective and healthier for people.

7) Pravind Jugnauth sworn in as Mauritius PM

•Mauritius’s incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth was sworn in for a five-year term after elections in which his coalition consolidated its grip on parliament. Jugnauth took over from his father in 2017 without going through a vote, and the decisive victory of his centre-right Morisian Alliance in the November 7 elections have strengthened his legitimacy. Since attaining independence from Britain in 1968, Mauritius has become one of the most stable democracies in Africa.

8) Iran discovers new oil field with 53 Bn barrels of reserves

•Iran has discovered a new oilfield with 53 billion barrels of crude oil in Khuzestan province, home to Iran’s Khuzestan’s crucial oil industry. The announcement, however, did not reveal how much oil could be produced from the reservoir but the find could boost the country’s battered economy amid stringent US sanctions. The new oil field discovered is 2,400 square kilometres (925 square miles), with the deposit some 80 metres (260 feet) deep.

9) India to host 19th council of heads of government of SCO 2020

•India will host the 19th council of heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation 2020. The first such high-level meeting of the 8-member grouping to be organised by New Delhi after its admission into the grouping in 2017.

•The SCO is a China-led eight-member economic and security bloc in which India and Pakistan were admitted as full members in 2017. Its founding members included China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The latest Summit of heads of government was held in Tashkent in November 2019. It was proposed in Tashkent Summit that India would take the initiative to hold the 2020 meetings of the Heads of Government.

10) Mohammad Imran appointed Bangladesh High Commissioner to India

•Mohammad Imran has been appointed as the new High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India. He is currently Bangladesh’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He succeeds Syed Muazzem Ali. The announcement was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh.

11) SBI’s economic research team revised India’s FY20 GDP forecast to 5%

•The economic research team from the State Bank of India (SBI) has revised India’s Gross Domestic Product(GDP) to 5% from its earlier estimate of 6.1% for the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20). This downgrade was due to global slowdown in the index of industrial production (IIP). The SBI economic research team group has projected the second quarter (July-September) GDP growth at 4.2% in their report titled “EcoWrap”. It expects the growth rate to pick up in FY2021 to 6.2%.

12) FICCI signed MoU with Singapore Fintech Association

•Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore Fintech Association (SFA) as part of the growing Singapore-India fintech ecosystems. The MoU was signed during the Fourth edition of Singapore Fintech Festival, the world’s largest financial technology platform along with Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology conducted from November 11-13, 2019.

13) Air Chief to inaugurate ISAM Conference in Bengaluru

•Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria will inaugurate the 58th Indian Society of Aerospace Medicine (ISAM) Annual Conference. The aims of the conference to address contemporary issues and applications in the subject of aerospace medicine. The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Changing Paradigms in Aerospace Healthcare’. The event will take place at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Indian Air Force, Bengaluru from November 14-16.