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Veteran actor Asha Parekh has been selected for the DadasahebPhalke award for the year 2020 and will be handed the award at the National Film Awards ceremony.
Making the announcement, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said, “The DadasahebPhalke Selection Jury has decided to recognise and award Asha Parekh-ji for her exemplary lifetime contribution to Indian Cinema.”
On the occasion Thakur also announced that the 68th National Film Awards ceremony will be presided over by President DroupadiMurmu.
In a statement announcing the Phalke award, the I&B Ministry said, “Asha Parekh is a renowned film actress, director and producer and an accomplished classical dancer. Starting her career as a child actor, she made her debut in ‘Dil Deke Dekho’, and has acted in over 95 movies since, including Kati Patang, TeesriManzil, Love in Tokyo, AyaSaawanJhoomKe, Aan Milo Sajna and MeraGaonMeraDesh.”
In 1992, she was honoured with the Padma Shri, the country’s fourth-highest civilian award. She served as the head of the Central Board for Film Certification between 1998 and 2001.
Parekh, 79, started her career as a child artist with the 1952 film ‘Aasmaan’ and acted in Bimal Roy’s ‘BaapBeti’ two years later. She made her debut as a lead actress in Nasir Hussain’s 1959 film ‘Dil Deke Dekho’, starring opposite Shammi Kapoor.
Also a director and producer, Parekh had helmed the acclaimed TV drama ‘Kora Kagaz’ in the late-1990s.
The ministry stated that the jury for the 52nd DadasahebPhalke award consisted of five members: singer Asha Bhosle, actor-MP HemaMalini, actor Poonam Dhillon, filmmaker T S Nagabharana, and singer Udit Narayan.
The DadasahebPhalke Award is the country’s highest award in the field of cinema, and has been given to Rajinikanth, Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna (posthumously) in recent years.
The winners of the 68th National Film Awards for 2020 were announced in July, with Tamil film ‘SooraraiPottru’ and Hindi film ‘Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior’ bagging maximum trophies. ‘SooraraiPottru’, which bagged five awards, is inspired by events from the life of Deccan Airlines founder G R Gopinath, while ‘Tanhaji’, which traces the life of Maratha warrior TanajiMalusare, won three.
The leading actors of both movies — Ajay Devgn for ‘Tanhaji’ and Suriya for ‘SooraraiPottru’ — shared the honour for Best Actor. SooraraiPottru’s honours also include Best Actress for AparnaBalamurali.
Govt. and Politics
SC collegium recommends Bombay HC CJ as top court judge (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court collegium led by Chief Justice of India U ULalit, in its meeting held on September 26, recommended the elevation of Justice DipankarDatta, Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, as a Supreme Court judge.
Justice Datta, who was a senior judge at the Calcutta High Court, was appointed as the Bombay High Court Chief Justice on April 28, 2020.
He will be elevated to the apex court after the central government clears his appointment and issues a notification in this regard.
The son of the late Justice Salil Kumar Datta, a former judge of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Datta was born on February 9, 1965. He obtained his LLB degree from the University of Calcutta in 1989.
He enrolled as an advocate the same year and practiced in the Supreme Court and in high courts, dealing with constitutional and civil cases.
Justice Datta has served as the junior standing counsel for West Bengal between May 2002 and January 2004, and as a counsel for the Union government since 1998. He was elevated as a permanent judge of the Calcutta High Court on June 22, 2006.
He took over as the Chief Justice of Bombay HC after Justice Bhushan P Dharmadhikari during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensured the functioning of the court through virtual and hybrid modes.
Justice Datta also passed several directions to authorities to provide medical assistance to citizens besides redressing the grievances of migrant workers during the lockdown.
He also changed the working hours of the high court from 11 am-5 pm to 10.30 am-4.30 pm. Before him, the last Bombay HC Chief Justice to have been elevated to the Supreme Court was Justice Anil Dave, who became an apex court judge in April 2010.
In July 2020, a bench led by Chief Justice Datta passed directions to the state government to reduce overcrowding in jails during the pandemic and pulled up the prison department on the “sorry state of affairs”
On December 16, 2020, in a setback to the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray-led state government, a division bench including Justice Datta, while hearing the central government’s plea through its salt commissioner laying claim to the 102-acre Kanjurmarg salt pan land, stayed the order of the collector that transferred the said land to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for the Metro car shed project.
In a judgment on PILs filed by former police officers of Maharashtra seeking restraining orders against “media trial” in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case passed in January 2021, a bench led by Justice Datta had held that a “media trial” pending the investigation of any case violates the Programme Code under the Cable TV Network Regulation Act and does have an impact on the probe by “interference with administration of criminal justice.”
Express Network
EWS quota will not cut into existing quotas, Govt tells Supreme Court (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Apparently seeking to allay concerns that the quota for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) may cut into the reservation for backward classes or reduce seats available in general category, the Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it had approved creation of 2,14,766 additional seats in central educational institutions so that that respective quota for other categories are not affected.
The Ministry of Social Justice said this in an affidavit filed before the five-judge Constitution bench, presided by Chief Justice of India U ULalit, which wrapped up arguments on petitions challenging the Constitution 103rd amendment introducing the 10-per cent EWS quota in jobs and admissions.
The government said that “contemporaneously with the constitutional amendment”, a decision was taken to ensure that seats available to candidates from reserved category and open category are “not impacted in absolute numbers”.
As part of this, the government stated in its affidavit, the Department of Higher Education issued orders on January 17, 2019 to all central educational institutions to increase admission intake “in all branches of study” to provide for 10-per cent reservations for EWS category.
At the same time, the government submitted, it protected proportionate reservation for candidates from SC/ST/OBC categories, as also “not reducing seat availability in the general category (in absolute numbers) in 2018-19”.
The affidavit stated that as per the calculations done in this regard, in order to provide 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections, without adversely impacting the proportionate reservations to SC/ST and OBC categories and not reducing the seat availability for the general category in absolute numbers, as compared to admissions made in 2018-19, the total increase in intake has to be increased by approximately 25%. This is “over and above the intake in 2018-19.
The government said that “a total of 2,14,766 additional seats were approved to be created in the central educational institutions; and an expenditure of Rs 4,315.15 crore was approved to be incurred to improve the infrastructure in higher educational institutions.
The petitioners told the bench — it also comprised Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi and J B Pardiwala — that the Centre had not explained satisfactorily the nexus between reservation and poverty, and why the EWS category could not be provided with benefits other than reservation.
They also contended that providing reservation as a welfare measure instead of to overcome structural inequities goes against the basic structure of the Constitution.
Swedish firm to make Carl Gustaf M4 in India (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
India Army will soon get the deadly Carl Gustaf shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon which will be made in India by the Swedish defence major, Saab. After fulfilling the Indian Army’s orders, the company has plans to export these to the rest of the world.
The Swedish company announced its plans to set up a fully owned production facility in India to manufacture the state of the art Carl Gustaf shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon.
This according to company officials will be the first such production facility outside Sweden for this weapon system, which is the mainstay of armies globally including the Indian army.
This will be the first time that an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) announced that a fully owned facility is being opened in India for global customers. “This facility is planned to start by 2024 and will be supporting the
The new company will be Saab FFV India, according to MrGorgen Johansson, currently under registration. Though he did not disclose the details about the investment the company plans to make in the facility, he said, “the Company will be partnering with Indian suppliers and systems to be manufactured in the facility will be in compliance with Make in India initiative.”
As the Indian Army is one of the foremost users of the system, it is a natural step to set up the production facility for Carl-Gustaf M4 in India,” Senior Vice President Gorgen Johansson said.
According to the existing policy any foreign OEM has the permission to set up a production facility with 74 percent stake and this will be through the automatic route. And depending on the extent of technology the OEM is willing to transfer this can go up to 100 percent.
The senior company official said in response to questions that the company will follow all the procedures to get approvals by the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Investment Board.
This is a recoilless rifle and has been ordered by the Indian Armed Forces. It has a range of 1500 meters and can be used against armoured vehicles, bunkers and even infantry and it all depends on the ammunition being used.
With the different ammunition the Carl Gustaf uses it can destroy vehicles, with anti-armour, or structures; it can use anti-tank and anti-structure munitions. With anti-personnel range as it bursts in air, and sends down shrapnel it has the capability to neutralise infantry in the open.
To provide additional support in the battlefield there are also illumination rounds. During night time operations these are used to light up tactical areas; also instant smoke rounds are used which act as a tool for screening and blinding targets.
Editorial Page
SC, Live (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court’s decision to live-stream proceedings — beginning Tuesday — was taken in a full court led by Chief Justice of India UU Lalit last week. It is immensely welcome.
The move, which expands on the idea of an open court that is accessible and transparent, marks the onset of a significant transformation in the judiciary’s functioning.
Live-streaming directly brings citizens into conversations that have so far largely remained restricted to judges, lawyers and litigants, on vital issues affecting the polity and society.
These include cases challenging the constitutionality of job quotas for economically weaker sections, questions related to the political crisis in Maharashtra after the breakaway of a section of Shiv Sena legislators, and about the validity of the All India Bar Examination.
In 2018 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court allowed live-streaming in cases of constitutional and national importance.
Attorney General KK Venugopal, who has for long advocated the idea of regional benches of the Supreme Court to improve access to justice, also batted for live-streaming.
Quoting the English legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the Supreme Court said that publicity is the very soul of justice. “It is the keenest spur to exertion, and surest of all guards against improbity.
It keeps the Judge himself while trying under trial (in the sense that) the security of securities is publicity,” the Court had said.
It still took four years, three chief justices and the pandemic to ensure the adequate infrastructure for live-streaming. On the Supreme Court’s cue, at least seven high courts started telecasting proceedings live.
In February, the case challenging the state government’s ban on students wearing the hijab before the Karnataka High Court became the first constitutional case to be telecast live.
Before that, the cases relating to the management of the Covid crisis before the Gujarat High Court were also keenly watched.
Across the world, live-streaming of judicial processes is an established practice — from the International Court of Justice to the Supreme Courts in other common law countries such as Kenya, Canada, Brazil.
Live-streaming is also an accountability tool for a check on populist statements by lawyers and for ensuring that judges begin proceedings on time and give equal opportunity to all sides.
It is also an invaluable resource for those who study and teach law. The archive will be an excellent opportunity to identify and address systemic patterns that are affecting judicial functioning.
The Idea Page
The Chiplun imperative (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Environmental Pollution and Degradation)
This monsoon, several parts of India have found themselves literally swimming in filth and sewage. Gutters have choked with garbage, plastics being the primary culprit. Single-use plastic carry-bags have been singled out for particular attention and regular meetings have been held to educate – as well as admonish — people about their use. Thus once more, the buck has stopped at the doorstep of the people – their good behaviour is seen as the key to change.
A cursory exploration of a clogged gutter will, however, show that branded packaging material — metal foil wrappers, bottles and boxes of various grades of plastics — are a substantial part of the mess inside.
So, who is going to clean that up? For this, we need to understand the science and economics of how this packaging matter got there. Let us begin with some data (see accompanying table) taken from a recent annual report of a large consumer goods (FMCG) company whose products — shampoos, soaps, ketchup, squashes etc — are available all over India.
The company had 18,000 employees of which 5,800 employees were permanent. The CEO, a Harvard graduate, was paid 170 times the median salary.
There are many interesting things here. We see that the revenue per employee is about Rs 2 crore, while for a permanent employee this figure is about Rs 6 crore.
Wages constitute less than 5 per cent of the revenue but spending on promotion and advertising is more than double of that. This is a transfer of wealth from the consumer, both rural and urban, to an elite urban class — the so-called creative people.
Let us come to garbage and sustainability — the expenditure on packaging, carriage and freight. The freight expenditure tells us that out of every Rs 100 of the company’s product that we buy, Rs 5 has gone up in vehicular smoke and Rs 8 for the package that we hold in our hand.
This packaging is required because the products must have a long shelf life, and withstand heat, sunlight and rough handling during freight.
So where should this piece of plastic go? As usual, the Centre and state governments have grandiose laws, but there is little scientific know-how or bureaucratic ability to implement them.
According to the law, the ultimate manufacturers (UMs) of the plastic films — the raw material for the much-reviled carry-bags and also the much larger volume of branded packaging — are responsible for the collection of this waste and its processing.
How to keep lights on, save cost (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2/3, Governance/Economy)
A paradigm shift is being proposed by the central government in power sector governance. The scheme under consideration is the market-based economic dispatch (MBED).
As is usually the case, when it comes to any drastic change in the power sector, there is a clash between the Centre and the states. This is exactly what is happening now.
Under the present regime, each distribution company (discom) is bound by the power purchase agreements (PPAs) that it holds.
It can schedule power only from its own PPAs, starting from the cheapest PPA and then moving up; it cannot schedule power from the PPA of some other discom.
For example, let us consider the case of two discoms, A and B. Let’s say both have PPAs totalling 1,000 MW each. Discom A has three PPAs of 500 MW, 300 MW and 200 MW with a cost of Rs 3.00/unit, Rs 3.25/unit and Rs 3.50/unit, respectively.
Discom B also has three PPAs of similar capacity but costing Rs 3.25/unit, Rs 3.50/unit and Rs 3.75/unit, respectively. If on a certain day, due to rains, discom A wants only 800 MW of power (as against its kitty of 1000 MW), it will forgo the most expensive PPA of Rs 3.50/unit.
If this share of 200 MW is transferred to discom B, it stands to gain since it can then avoid drawing power from its most expensive PPA which costs Rs 3.75/unit, thus saving Rs 0.25/unit.
This is the basic logic of MBED. Instead of all discoms operating in silos, restricting themselves to their own PPAs only, the entire demand of the country will be met by pooling together all the PPAs and there will be a centralised dispatch (as against decentralised dispatch) starting from the cheapest PPA.
The centralised dispatch will be done with the assistance of electricity exchanges. Each discom and each generator will place a bid in the day-ahead market of the electricity exchanges, which will indicate how much power is being demanded/supplied at what price.
These bids will enable the load dispatcher to construct a pan India demand and supply curve, the intersection of which will determine the market clearing price (MCP).
All generators whose variable cost of generation is below the MCP will be asked to dispatch and all of them will receive the same MCP irrespective of what they had bid. Generators whose variable cost is higher than the MCP will sit idle.
Explained Page
Assam CM in Kaziranga after dark :legal but not the best idea (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Facing flak for driving inside Kaziranga National Park with SadhguruJaggiVasudev after sunset, Assam Chief Minister HimantaBiswaSarma said that night safari in wildlife sanctuaries was in fashion around the world, and that no law in the country, including those for the protection of wildlife, prohibits it.
In India, entry into forests is governed by two laws — The Indian Forest Act, 1927, and The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The first applies to all reserve forests and bars trespassing.
Everyone other than people who live in villages inside reserve forests, needs permission from the divisional forest officer concerned for entering these forests for any purpose.
The Wildlife Protection Act empowers the Chief Wildlife Warden of a state to frame laws for tourists entering Protected Areas — sanctuaries and national parks.
Under the same Act, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has the powers to set rules for tiger reserves. Kaziranga National Park is also a tiger reserve.
While a chief wildlife warden must act “with the previous approval of the State Government” concerned, no rule once set by the warden can be violated by anyone, including superior officers or executives, such as the chief minister.
Of course, a chief minister can direct the chief wildlife warden of the state to modify or make certain rules. But any violation of a standing rule will be a violation of — and invite penalty under — The Wildlife Protection Act.
Like most national parks and tiger reserves of India, Kaziranga does not allow entry after sunset, barring forest staff. It remains unclear if that rule has been modified, or the chief minister’s entourage was given prior permission by the chief wildlife warden.
In July this year, the NTCA asked Madhya Pradesh to stop night safaris that were started last year in the buffer zones of the Kanha, Bandhavgarh, and Pench tiger reserves on the ground that such activities disturbed the wildlife in the park. The state has requested the NTCA to reconsider, and allow night safaris to continue in the three reserves.
In 2010, the Karnataka High Court allowed the state government to conduct night safari in an area of 50 hectares of Bannerghatta National Park after it was assured that the forest department would take adequate security and safety measures for both wildlife and tourists.
Smashing into a space rock (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Science & Technology)
It is the kind of stuff sci-fi movies and science fiction are made of. An asteroid hurtling towards the earth, its collision having the potential to wipe out all life forms.
And human beings (mostly United States as a country) manage to execute a last-minute plan to deflect the asteroid from its trajectory and avoid the collision.
On Tuesday morning (04:46 am India time), NASA, for the first time, enacted this script in real life. Just that the asteroid in question was not headed towards the earth, and there was no danger of any collision.
What NASA managed to do was to let one of its spacecraft, sent specially for this purpose last year, crash itself against a small asteroid that was orbiting the Sun 11 million km away from Earth.
By doing so, it hopes to change the orbit of the asteroid. How much it succeeded in its effort would become known only after measurements are done.
The 11 million km (about 300 times the distance to moon) is the closest that this asteroid, Dimorphos, comes to Earth while going around in its orbit.
There was absolutely no danger that it would have come and collided with Earth. Tuesday’s collision was, therefore, just a technology demonstration, and an experiment to assess the capabilities to do such maneouvers in future should a need arise.
Though there was no threat to Earth from this particular asteroid — and NASA says there is no real danger to Earth from asteroids for the next 100 years at least — asteroid collisions are real, and can happen.
The dinosaurs, and most other life forms at that time, are known to have become extinct following an asteroid collision about million years ago.
As recently as 2013, an asteroid entered the earth’s atmosphere and exploded over Russia, causing injuries to hundreds of people, and causing widespread damage.
Small asteroids — millions of them orbit the Sun – keep entering the earth’s atmosphere fairly regularly, but burn out due to friction before they reach the surface.
Some of them do drop to the surface but are not large enough to cause harm. The danger is from bigger asteroids. The one that destroyed the dinosaurs was about 10 km in width. According to NASA, an asteroid that big comes towards the Earth only in about 100 to 200 million years.
But smaller ones are more frequent. There is a probability that an asteroid of the size of 25 metres would come once every 100 years. The one that exploded over Russia in 2013 was a little smaller, about 18 metres in size.
The problem is that these calculations are based on asteroids that we know about, only about 26,000. There are many asteroids that we haven’t discovered yet. And these could surprise us.
Tuesday’s mission was called Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART. The targeted asteroid Dimorphos is actually a moon to a slightly larger asteroid called Didymos.
While Didymos is 780 m at its widest, Dimorphos is about 160 metres. Dimorphos orbits around Didymos, and this two-body system go around the Sun.
Economy
Non-personal data regulator after consultations: MoS IT (Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
A body proposed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) to act as the country’s non-personal data regulator will be formulated following a series of roundtables and public consultations involving the industry, consumer groups and government agencies.
In May, the ministry had released the draft National Data Governance Framework Policy, which proposed to harness non-personal data available with the government by start-ups of the country.
The draft proposed the creation of an India Data Management Office (IDMO), which would manage and set standards for the flow of such data, and act as the sector’s regulator. In its most basic form, non-personal data is any set of data which does not contain personally identifiable information.
“We will not decide the design and composition of the IDMO in this ministry alone. We will have a series of roundtables and public consultations of what that institution should be like.
We will get consumer groups, innovators, technology experts, representatives from Big Tech companies, government ministries and agencies in a room and discuss how the IDMO should be like,” Chandrasekhar said during an exclusive interaction with this paper. “The institution building will be done through consultation.”
The data governance framework policy, while having laid out the responsibilities of the IDMO, was unclear about its composition. Chandrasekhar’s comments provide the first indications of how the IDMO could potentially be formed.
Once finalised, the IDMO is set to play a key role in dictating how start-ups could gain access to non-personal data housed with the government.
The body will be incharge of designing and managing the ‘India Datasets’ platform, which will process requests and provide Indian researchers and start-ups access to the non-personal datasets.
The MeitY’s draft policy also “encourages” private companies to share non-personal data with the IDMO which will “prescribe rules and standards, including anonymisation standards for all entities (government and private) that deal with data that will cause every government ministry/department/organisation to identify and classify available datasets and build a vibrant, diverse and large base of datasets for research and innovation”.
The draft data governance framework was a replacement of the shelved data accessibility policy, a draft of which MeitY floated in February. The old draft policy was axed as it faced severe criticism over its proposal to monetise government data.