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Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Sunday said it was the solemn duty of the current generation to keep afloat the idea of India powered by a constitution based on the principles of individual liberty, equality, and fraternity.
When we say ‘we honour the adoption of the Constitution’, first and foremost, we honour the fact that the Constitution ‘exists’ and that the Constitution ‘works’,” the Chief Justice said in his address during the Constitution Day celebrations at the Supreme Court.
The Chief Justice’s words are significant as the Constitution and the Supreme Court are entering the 75th year of their adoption and founding, respectively.
The Chief Justice said the common man should not fear approaching courts. The courts were an extension of constitutional governance.
For the past seven decades, the Supreme Court had acted as a “people’s court”. Thousands of citizens had approached its door with the faith that they would get justice through this institution.
CAA rules likely by March, says Minister (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be framed by March 2024, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra said on Sunday.
Addressing a gathering in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, Mr. Mishra tried to allay fears of the Matua community over the delay in framing the rules, and said the Act passed by Parliament in December 2019 ensured that members of the community became citizens.
You will get the full rights of citizenship. Even in the absence of proper documents, no action can be initiated against you. This we have included in the Act”.
By the latest information he had, the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation in the Lok Sabha had fixed time till January 9, 2024 and the committee in the Rajya Sabha till March 30, 2024 for framing the CAA rules.
States
Quashing of quota in private jobs instils hope in industrialists, migrant workers in Haryana (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed a law guaranteeing 75% reservation in private sector jobs for residents of Haryana, several stakeholders, including industrialists, workers, contractors, and trade union leaders, are breathing a sigh of relief.
Vikas Gupta, general secretary of the Manesar Industries Welfare Association, which is one of the petitioners in the case, hopes that the verdict will prevent political outfits across the country from promising such laws.
Why can’t someone from Uttar Pradesh get a job in Haryana? The law was against the spirit of the Constitution. I hope every State and political party gets this message loud and clear.
The law, enacted by the Haryana government in 2021, made it mandatory for employers in the State to reserve 75% of jobs with a monthly salary of less than ₹30,000 (originally ₹50,000) for State residents.
Editorial
Old censorship on a new medium (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Infrastructure)
On November 12, as India woke up to celebrate Deepavali, an under-construction tunnel collapsed in the early hours of the morning in Uttarakhand, trapping 41 workers. The Silkyara tunnel, about 30 km from the district headquarters, is part of the ambitious Char Dham all-weather road project of the Central government; it is being built to ease the journey of pilgrims to Uttarkashi’s Yamunotri shrine. On November 24, more than 10 days after the workers were sealed into the tunnel, the effort to free them faced a major setback.
From the day of the tunnel’s collapse, newspapers have been publishing detailed reports on rescue efforts. On the other hand, television coverage of the incident during the initial days was sparse. The Uttarkashi tunnel collapse poses troubling questions on environmental clearances, and faulty public works and civil contracting, all of which directly impact human lives. This is perhaps why news channels did not dare to cover the incident or host “debates” questioning the government. This silence was broken only when the prolonged captivity of the workers could not be ignored for long. Television news coverage peaked when rescue efforts began to bear fruit, and the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and the Union Minister for Roads visited the site. A story of gross negligence transformed into a story of a heroic rescue.
Fleet electrification to tackle urban pollution (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The air quality index (AQI) in many Indian cities has entered the red zone several days this year. Millions of people have to face serious health hazards due to recurring increases in air pollution.
It is clear that mitigation strategies have to be prioritised. As per two seminal studies pertaining to Delhi, the Urban Emission (2015) and the TERI study (2018), a significant contributor to urban smog is PM2.5 and PM10 pollution, which is caused by the transport and construction sector.
Increase in truck fleet
About 9 lakh new trucks are added to Indian roads every year to an already running fleet of 70 lakh trucks. India carries over 2 trillion tonne kilometres freight on trucks, annually.
These trucks consume over one-fourth of Indian oil imports and contribute to over 90% of road transport CO2 emissions.
The rate of increase of truck fleet is expected to keep increasing in a growing network of roads in an emerging economy.
If all these new trucks are powered by diesel-fired internal combustion engines vehicles, as is the case today, our cities will face a greater onslaught of PM2.5 pollution.
Opinion
Moulding the Himalayas needs caution (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
As the efforts to evacuate 41 workers trapped in a tunnel near Silkyara in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand are weeks away from fruition, the infrastructure development trajectory in the Himalayas comes under serious clouds — once again.
The Char Dham Project, all-weather roads, being constructed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) in Uttarakhand, linking the four religious pilgrimages of Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath, and Kedarnath, has brought into focus two major issues in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR).
The foremost one is about the development model itself and, in concrete terms, what should be the carrying capacity of the IHR.
Also important are the processes in which environment clearances were sought, undermining safety protocols, and a new form of architecture that should be built to construct and monitor infrastructure projects, if at all they are desired, in the region.
The irony is that the flash floods of 2013 in Uttarakhand are suggested as the reason for the construction of the Char Dham Yatra. In a way, a tragedy becomes a source for many tragedies in the offing!
In 2016 the Prime Minister announced that the Surface Transport Minister was acting like Shravan Kumar, a character in Ramayan who took his blind parents to pilgrimage. Likewise, the Minister is constructing these connections between the four holy towns. Not realising that this is against the wishes of nature.
Text & Context
Why is Bihar demanding the Special Category Status? (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
On November 22, the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Cabinet passed a resolution seeking the grant of special category status (SCS) to Bihar.
The demand comes in the backdrop of the findings from the “Bihar Caste-based Survey, 2022”, which revealed that nearly one-third of Bihar’s population continues to live in poverty.
It is a classification granted by the Centre to assist the development of States that face geographical or socio-economic disadvantages.
The SCS was introduced in 1969 on the recommendation of the fifth Finance Commission (FC). Five factors such as (i) hilly and difficult terrain (ii) low population density and/or sizeable share of tribal population (iii) strategic location along international borders (iv) economic and infrastructural backwardness and (v) non-viable nature of state finances, are considered before granting SCS.
In 1969, three States — Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and Nagaland — were granted the SCS. Subsequently, eight more States including Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand were given the SCS by the erstwhile National Development Council.
News
President Murmu calls for all-India judicial service (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday called for the setting up of an all-India judicial service as a way to ensure equal representation of India’s diversity in the judiciary, stressing that the cause of justice was best served by making it accessible to all.
Ms. Murmu was speaking at an event at the Supreme Court to mark Constitution Day. The event saw the unveiling of a statue of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar at the court complex.
In her remarks, the President said, “More varied representation of India’s unique diversity on Bench and Bar definitely helps serve the cause of justice better.
One way to hasten this diversification process can be the creation of a system in which judges can be recruited from varied backgrounds through a process which is merit-based, competitive and transparent.”
World
S. Korea, Japan and China to resume leaders’ summit (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Meeting for the first time in about four years, the top diplomats from South Korea, Japan and China agreed on Sunday to revive cooperation among the Asian neighbours and resume their leaders’ trilateral summit — but without a specific timing.
Closely linked with one another, the three countries together account for about 25% of the global GDP. But efforts to boost cooperation have often hit a snag because of a mix of issues including historical disputes stemming from Japan’s wartime aggression and the strategic competition between China and the U.S.
We three Ministers agreed to restore and normalise three-nation cooperation at an early date,” South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin told reporters after his meeting with Japan’s Yoko Kamikawa and China’s Wang Yi in Busan, South Korea.
Science
Piezoelectricity: Why quartz ticks (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Piezoelectricity is a remarkable phenomenon whereby some materials – including quartz, ceramics such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT), and even certain biological substances like bone and the tendons – can generate an electric charge in response to mechanical stress.
This property is the result of their unusual crystal structures. Usually, the charges on atoms in the molecules that make them up are symmetric on two sides of an axis.
When some stress is applied, the molecule becomes distorted and the asymmetry of charges gives rise to a small electric current.
The term “piezoelectric” itself originates from the Greek words “piezein,” meaning ‘to squeeze’, and “elektron”, for amber –a material known for its association with static electricity.
Some materials also display an inverse piezoelectric effect, where the application of an electric current induces a mechanical deformation.
Both direct and inverse piezoelectric materials are widely used in pressure sensors, accelerometers, and acoustic devices – where their ability to convert mechanical signals into electrical signals is crucial. The piezoelectric effect is also what made quartz watches so common and, over time, affordable.