NATIONAL NEWS
A) India in talks with foreign vaccine-makers for ‘local manufacturing’, says Foreign Secretary.
India was in talks to allow major foreign vaccine manufacturers to carry out local manufacturing, said Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla on Thursday. Addressing the WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Health Partners’ Forum, he stated that India was fighting an exceptionally severe second waveof the pandemic. We are also part of the discussions with major vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna about sourcing and possible local manufacturing of their vaccines in India. We have also helped expedite the introduction of Sputnik-V vaccines, he said, elaborating on the role of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in securing vaccines. India had been demanding easier access to raw materials necessary for production of vaccines. Shringla said MEA’s representatives have been working to ease regulatory disruptions to these supply chains. India would create global scale capacities necessary to fight the pandemic. A number of serious global conversations are underway on this in platforms such as the G7, the G20, QUAD, BRICS, the United Nations and the WTO itself, he added.
B) Every journalist entitled to protection under 1962 Kedar Nath judgment, says SC, quashing sedition case against Vinod Dua.
The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed a sedition case registered against senior journalist and Padma Shri awardee Vinod Dua for his critical remarks about the Prime Minister and the Union Government in a YouTube telecast. It also underscored its 59-year-old verdict that strong words of disapproval about the ruling regime does not amount to sedition. A Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit upheld the right of every journalist to criticise, even brutally, the measures of the government with a view to improve or alter them through legal means. The free speech of a journalist should be protected from charges of sedition. The apex court judgment by Justice Lalit upheld the spirit and intent of its 1962 Kedar Nath Singh judgement, which said that commenting in strong terms upon the measures or acts of Government, or its agencies, so as to ameliorate the condition of the people or to secure the cancellation or alteration of those acts or measures by lawful means, that is to say, without exciting those feelings of enmity and disloyalty which imply excitement to public disorder or the use of violence is not sedition. Every journalist is entitled to protection under the Kedar Nath Singh judgment, Justice Lalit declared. The 1962 judgment had said Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (sedition) was intended only to punish subversion of a lawfully established government through violent means. The court acknowledged the submission made by Dua, who is currently recovering from Covid-19, that there is a recent trend against the media where State governments who do not find a particular telecast to be in sync with their political ideologies register FIRs against persons of the media primarily to harass them and to intimidate them so that they succumb to the line of the State or else face the music at the hands of the police. The judgment came as a blow to the government, which had even raised the question whether journalism itself could legally be termed a profession. The government had said that a professional was someone who had a client relationship. The verdict on Thursday may spell a push-back from the court against the indiscriminate number of sedition cases being filed against critical journalists, citizens, lawyers and activists. Recently, another Bench of the Supreme Court, in a separate case on sedition charges levelled against two Telugu channels by the Andhra government, had said it was time to define the limits of the sedition law. The complaint against Dua was filed by a BJP leader. Besides sedition, the other charges included causing public nuisance, printing of defamatory matter and making statements conducive to public mischief.
C) Kerala retains top position in Niti Aayog’s sustainable development goals index 2020.
In the year 2020, India saw a major decline in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to industry, innovation and infrastructure as well as decent work and economic growth, according to the NITI Aayog’s 2020 SDG Index. Kerala retained its position at the top of the rankings in the third edition of the index, with a score of 75, followed by Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, both scoring 72. At the other end of the scale, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam were the worst performing States. However, all States showed some improvement from last year’s scores, with Mizoram and Haryana seeing the biggest gains. Developed by a global consultative process on holistic development, the 17 SDGs have a 2030 deadline. The NITI Aayog launched its index in 2018 to monitor the country’s progress on the goals through data-driven assessment, and foster a competitive spirit among the States and Union Territories in achieving them. In March, a UN assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the SDGs said the region India is part of may see rising inequality due to the pandemic. The NITI Aayog Index shows some improvement in the SDG on inequality, but a look at the indicators used to assess this goal shows that the think tank has changed the goalposts. In 2019, the indicators for inequality included the growth rates for household expenditure per capita among the bottom 40% of rural and urban populations, as well as the Gini coefficient a measure of the distribution of income in rural and urban India. The 2018 indicators included the Palma ratio, another metric for income inequality. Such economic measures have been omitted from the indicators used for this SDG in the 2020 edition of the NITI Aayog’s Index. Instead, it gives greater weightage to social equality indicators such as the percentage of women and SC/ST representatives in State legislatures and the panchayati raj institutions, and the levels of crime against SC/ST communities. The only economic indicator this year is the percentage of population in the lowest two wealth quintiles. The SDGs that do deal directly with wages and industrial growth better reflect the fact that India’s economy has taken a beating over the last year. The country’s score on the SDG related to industry and infrastructure dropped 10 points to 55, while the scores on decent work dropped three points to 61. The Clean Water and Sanitation SDG also saw a five-point drop, despite flagship government schemes in this sector.
D) Happy you cancelled Board exams, submit evaluation criteria within 2 weeks, SC tells Centre.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said it was happy that the government chose to cancel the Class XII Board exams and gave the CBSE and ICSE two weeks to place on record the objective criteria by which they intend to assess the performance of the students. We are happy you have decided in-principle to cancel the exam… but what are the objective standards [for assessment]. That is not spelt out here in this letter, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, the lead judge on the Bench, asked Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, appearing for the Centre. Venugopal said the process for fixing the criteria may take a little time and asked the court to anyway dispose of the petition filed by an advocate, Mamta Sharma. The prayer made in the petition had been fulfilled with the cancellation of the exams. Justice Khanwilkar, however, said the petitioners would want to address the court once the government placed on record the assessment standards. Both sides may have issues concerning the objective criteria, he said. Any issue, let them file an application, Venugopal replied. Justice Khanwilkar said the court would prefer to keep the petition pending till the objective criteria were also scrutinised. Initially, the government suggested filing the standards in four weeks, but the court insisted on two weeks. The students have apprehensions. Many students want to go outside for further education. This requires an urgent decision. Let the persons concerned interact on a day-to-day basis, Justice Khanwilkar said. Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the other judge on the Bench, also asked why the government needed even two weeks, as objective criteria for assessment had also been notified last year when the Board exams were similarly cancelled due to the pandemic. The ICSE, represented by advocate J.K. Das, urged the court to give more time, at least three weeks, to prepare the criteria for assessment.
E) Labour Ministry sets up panel to fix minimum wages.
The Union Labour and Employment Ministry on Thursday said it had set up an expert group for fixing minimum wages and national floor minimum wages. The Ministry said it had issued an order to constitute the group to provide technical inputs and recommendations on both issues. The group, set up for three years, would be chaired by Professor Ajit Mishra, director of the Institute of Economic Growth. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta Prof. Tarika Chakraborty, National Council of Applied Economic Research Professor Anushree Sinha, Labour Ministry Joint Secretary Vibha Bhalla, and V.V. Giri National Labour Institute Director General H. Srinivas would be its members. A senior advisor to the Ministry, D.P.S. Negi, would be the member-secretary, it said. The expert group will give recommendations to the government on minimum wages and national floor wage. To arrive at the wage rates, the group will look into the international best practices on the wages and evolve a scientific criteria and methodology for fixation of wages. The decision is part of the Centre’s implementation of the Code on Wages, 2019, which mandates a statutory national level floor wage.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Olympics: ‘We cannot postpone again,’ says Tokyo 2020 boss.
The head of Japan’s Olympics organising committee on Thursday ruled out another suspension of the Games, despite deep disquiet at the prospect of thousands of athletes and officials arriving during a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections. Already postponed from last year at the cost of an extra $3.5 billion, a scaled-down version of the Games, with no foreign spectators, is set to start on July 23. But with a slow vaccine rollout, Tokyo and nine other regions under a state of emergency, and rising numbers of severe coronavirus cases, most Japanese oppose hosting the Olympics. Most of the capital’s city council, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, agree, the Tokyo Shimbun paper reported on Thursday. Illustrating the public anxiety, residents in one training venue, Ota City, were furious over a decision to give preferential vaccinations to staff attending to visiting Australian softball players, media also said. However, organising committee president Seiko Hashimoto countered the gloom, telling the Nikkan Sports newspaper, We cannot postpone again. Hashimoto, who competed in seven summer and winter Olympics as a cyclist and skater, also told the BBC that while the Japanese were understandably worried, they should be reassured that a bubble situation was being carefully constructed. I believe that the possibility of these Games going on is 100%, she added. One thing the organising committee commits and promises to all the athletes out there is that we will defend and protect their health. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga also appeared confident of pulling off a successful Olympics and Paralympics as he plans a snap vote afterwards, the Asahi newspaper said. Authorities have not decided whether Japanese spectators will be allowed to attend Olympics events. There are fears that shouting, hugging and high-fiving could promote contagion. Though avoiding the rates of some other nations, serious cases of Covid-19 are rising in Japan, where the infection tally stands at nearly 750,000, with more than 13,000 deaths. The nation’s most senior medical adviser said on Thursday that public health guidance, including his, was not reaching the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in charge of the event. We are now considering where we should give our advice, Shigeru Omi told lawmakers. If they want to hold (the Games), it’s our job to tell them what the risks are.
B) Biden intends to overhaul Trump’s China blacklist.
U.S. President Joe Biden intends to this week overhaul a list of Chinese firms that U.S. investors are allowed to own shares in, as the President re-evaluates the world powers’ post-Trump relationship while maintaining pressure on Beijing. Donald Trump prohibited Americans from buying stakes in 31 Chinese companies that were deemed to be supplying or supporting China’s military and security apparatus. The list included major telecoms, construction and technology firms such as China Mobile, China Telecom, video surveillance firm Hikvision, and China Railway Construction Corp. The measures by the White House aimed at quelling the Asian giant’s rise and which has left ties between the two severely strained. Beijing repeated its outrage at the Trump-era blacklist on Thursday and vowed to protect Chinese companies’ rights, claiming the blacklist was politically motivated and ignores the facts and actual situation of the firms involved. The ban severely undermines normal market rules and order and damages, the interests of global investors including US investors, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said. Mr. Biden’s new order will see the Treasury Department create a list of firms that would be hit with financial penalties for their links with China’s defence and surveillance technology sectors, Bloomberg News reported. He is expected to keep the list largely intact, while the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control will add new firms to the list.
