Scientists develop electronic soil that zap plant roots with electricity (GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Why in news?
- Recently, the researchers from Linkoping University have unveiled an innovative electrically conductive cultivation soil, dubbed eSoil, which has demonstrated a remarkable ability to enhance the growth of barley seedlings by 50% within just 15 days.
Why it matters?
- This development in hydroponic technology could potentially revolutionise urban farming and contribute significantly to global food security.
- Hydroponics, the method of growing plants without soil, relies on water, nutrients, and a substrate for root attachment.
- The system is designed to be closed, allowing for efficient water recirculation and ensuring that each plant receives the precise nutrients it needs.
- This method conserves water and keeps nutrients within the system, a feat unachievable with traditional soil-based agriculture.
Key Highlights:
- Researchers emphasised the urgency of finding new agricultural methods due to the increasing world population and the challenges posed by climate change.
- The eSoil represents a significant advancement over commonly used mineral wool substrates in hydroponics, which are non-biodegradable and produced through energy-intensive processes.
- The new substrate is composed of cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer, combined with a conductive polymer known as PEDOT. While this mixture is not novel, its application in plant cultivation and as an interface for plants is unprecedented.
Potential:
- One of the key benefits of eSoil is its low energy consumption and the elimination of high voltage risks associated with previous research that used high voltage to stimulate plant roots.
- The researchers have observed that barley seedlings grown in eSoil process nitrogen more effectively, although the exact biological mechanisms behind the enhanced growth and electrical stimulation's role remain to be fully understood.
Way Forward:
- While hydroponics alone may not solve the problem of food security, it can make a substantial difference, especially in regions with limited arable land and harsh environmental conditions.
- The study's findings pave the way for further research into hydroponic cultivation, potentially leading to more efficient food production methods.
SC overturns remission given to Bilkis Banorapists
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Why in news?
- The Supreme Court has struck down the remission granted to 11 men convicted in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case of 2002.
- The court has ruled that the Gujarat government’s decision to remit their sentences and set them free was illegal.
Background:
- Bilkis was gangraped and seven members of her family were murdered during the Gujarat riots of 2002. The 11 convicts were released by the Gujarat government under its remission and premature release policy on August 15, 2022.
What was the issue before the court here?
- It was essentially whether Gujarat had the authority to issue the order for the remission of the sentences.
- The crime had been committed on March 3, 2002 in Chapparwad village in Gujarat’s Dahod district, but the trial took place in Mumbai, where a special court convicted and sentenced the accused in 2008.
- The Supreme Court noted that the appropriate government to decide remission is the state within whose jurisdiction the accused were sentenced and not the state within whose territorial limits the offence was committed or the accused were imprisoned.
- Therefore, the court ruled that the competent government in this matter would be the Maharashtra government.
What is the law on remission of sentences?
- Under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution, the President and Governors of states can pardon a convict, and can also suspend, remit, or commute a sentence passed by the courts.
- State governments too have the power to remit sentences under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). This is because prisons is a State Subject.
- However, Section 433A of the CrPC puts certain restrictions on these powers of remission. It says: “Where a sentence of imprisonment for life is imposed on conviction of a person for an offence for which death is one of the punishments provided by law, or where a sentence of death imposed on a person has been commuted under Section 433 into one of imprisonment for life, such person shall not be released from prison unless he had served at least fourteen years of imprisonment.”
What are the grounds for remission?
- States set up a Sentence Review Board to exercise the powers under Section 432 of the CrPC. The Supreme Court has held that states cannot exercise the power of remission arbitrarily, and must follow due process. While the policy varies from state to state, broadly the grounds for remission considered by the Board are the same.
- These factors to be considered while making a decision on granting remission are: seriousness of the crime, the status of the co-accused, and conduct in jail.
- In ‘Laxman Naskar v. Union of India’ (2000) the SC laid down five grounds on which remission is considered:
- Whether the offence is an individual act of crime that does not affect the society;
- Whether there is a chance of the crime being repeated in future;
- Whether the convict has lost the potentiality to commit crime;
- Whether any purpose is being served in keeping the convict in prison; and
- Socio-economic conditions of the convict’s family.
- Jail manuals contain rules that allow certain days of remission in every month for good behaviour of convicts. For those serving fixed sentences, the remission days are accounted for while releasing the convict.
- However, convicts serving life sentences are entitled to seek remission only after serving a minimum of 14 years.
What happened in the Bilkis Bano case?
- One of the convicts, Radheshyam Shah, moved the Supreme Court in 2022 after he had completed 15 years and four months of the life term awarded to him by a CBI court in Mumbai.
- Radheshyam Shah sought directions to the Gujarat government to consider his application for premature release under its 1992 remission policy.
- Shah argued that the Gujarat HC had rejected his prayer on July 17, 2019 on the premise that since the trial had been concluded in Maharashtra, the application for premature release must also be filed in Maharashtra, and not in Gujarat.
- In an order dated May 13, 2022, an SC Bench of Justices asked the Gujarat government to consider Shah’s application for premature release “within a period of two months”.
- Gujarat was the “appropriate government” to decide on questions like remission or premature release because it was there that “the crime was committed and not the State where the trial stands transferred and concluded for exceptional reasons under the orders of this Court”.
What is Gujarat’s remission policy?
- The remission policy that was notified in 1992 permitted prisoners to apply for remission “on the basis that life imprisonment is an arbitrary or notional figure of twenty years of imprisonment”. But this policy was invalidated by the SC in November 2012.
- Following the SC order and instructions issued subsequently by the Union Home Ministry to all states and Union Territories, the Gujarat government formulated a fresh policy in 2014.
- This contained an annexure listing cases where remission could not be granted — among them were those in which the prisoners were convicted for a crime that was investigated by an agency under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (CBI, which was in the investigating agency in the Bilkis case), and prisoners convicted for murder with rape or gangrape.
