SC agrees to list plea for Collegium system review

• Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday agreed to list in due course a writ petition to reconsider the collegium system of judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and the High Courts.
• The petition sought the revival of the National Judicial Appointments Commission or NJAC, which briefly gave the government an equal role along with the judiciary in the appointment of judges to the constitutional courts before it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015

About NJAC and the Act:

• NJAC is a body responsible for the appointment and transfer of judges to the higher judiciary in India.
• NJAC Bill sought to replace the collegium system of appointing the judges of Supreme Court and High Courts with judicial appointments commission wherein the executive will have a say in appointing the judges.

A new article, Article 124A, (which provides for the composition of the NJAC) was to be inserted into the Constitution.

The Bill provided for the procedure to be followed by the NJAC for recommending persons for appointment as Chief Justice of India and other Judges of the Supreme Court (SC), and Chief Justice and other Judges of High Courts (HC).

According to the bill the commission will consist of the following members:

1. Chief Justice of India (Chairperson, ex officio)
2. Two other senior judges of the Supreme Court next to the Chief Justice of India – ex officio
3. The Union Minister of Law and Justice, ex-officio
4. Two eminent persons (to be nominated by a committee consisting of the Chief Justice of India, Prime Minister of India and the Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha or where there is no such Leader of Opposition, then, the Leader of single largest Opposition Party in Lok Sabha), provided that of the two eminent persons, one person would be from the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes or OBC or minority communities or a woman. The eminent persons shall be nominated for a period of three years and shall not be eligible for re-nomination.

Sri Lankan Navy arrests 14 Fishermen from T.N., Karaikal; seizes boats

• Fourteen fishermen of Karaikal, Nagapattinam and Pudukottai districts were reportedly detained by the Sri Lankan Navy for trespassing into the territorial waters of the island nation on the night of November 16, 2022 (Wednesday).
• The fishers were said to have ventured into the sea from the Karaikal port on Wednesday morning on a mechanised boat owned by Selvamani of Kottucherrymedu. They were reportedly fishing near the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) near Neduntheevu.

Background of Fisherman issues

• Both Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen have been fishing into the Palk Bay area for centuries.
  • Palk Bay is a semi-enclosed shallow water body between the southeast coast of India and Sri Lanka.
• Problem emerged only after a maritime agreement was signed by India and Sri Lanka in
• In fact, initially the1974 border agreement did not affect fishing on either side of the border.
• In 1976, through an exchange of letters, both India and Sri Lanka agreed to stop fishing in each other’s waters.
  • In 1974 and 1976 treaties were signed between the two countries to demarcate the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL).
  • The treaties also ended up making the Palk Strait connecting India and Sri Lanka a ‘two-nation pond’, under the relevant United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) rules to the exclusion of all third nations.
  • Simply put, the bilateral arrangement bans international fishing and shipping.
• However, the agreement could not stop the fishermen from fishing in these waters, as fishermen know no boundary.
  • Despite the signing of maritime boundary agreements, fishermen communities of both the countries continued their fishing in the Palk Bay area peacefully until the Eelam war broke out in 1983.
• Nonetheless, after the end of War in 2009, the Sri Lankan fishermen have been raising their objection to Indian fishermen fishing in their waters.
• Later, India and Sri Lanka agreed to set up a Joint Working Group (JWG)on Fisheries in 2016 between India and Sri Lanka as the mechanism to help find a permanent solution to the fishermen issue.

Mullaperiyar level up, Food warning issued for Kerala

About Mullaperiyar Dam

• It was built in 1895 on the Periyar River in the Idukki district of Kerala.
• It is situated high up in the Western Ghats, adjacent to Kerala’s famed Periyar wildlife sanctuary.
• Mullaperiyar is listed among the world’s big dams that need to be decommissioned in a report by the UN University – Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
  • It has been stated that the Mullaperiyar dam, situated in a seismically active area, faces the risk of failure.
  • The ageing of large dams is an emerging global development issue as they pose threats to human safety and the environment.
• Decommissioning Mullaperiyar is strongly opposed by Tamil Nadu state, which inherited a lease agreement between the former princely state of Travancore (now Kerala) and the British government.
  • The matter is still subjudice in the Supreme Court.

Electoral bonds worth more than “10,000 crore sold since 2018

• 10,246 In Rs crore, the worth of electoral bonds sold by the State Bank of India (SBI) in 21 tranches since the instrument was launched in March 2018.
• Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency to political funding

About Electoral Bonds

• State Bank of India is authorised to issue and encash these bonds.
• Electoral bonds are purchased anonymously by donors and are valid for 15 days from the date of issue.
• As debt instruments, these can be bought by donors from a bank, and the Political party can then encash them.
• These can be redeemed only by an eligible party by depositing the same in its designated account maintained with a bank.
• The bonds are issued by SBI in denominations of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore.
• The bonds are available for purchase by any citizen of India for a period of ten days each in the months of January, April, July and October as may be specified by the Central Government.

Eligibility:

• Only the political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and have secured not less than 1% of the votes polled in the last general election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly, are eligible to receive electoral bonds.

Rise in tea exports in the first eight months of this year

• 8 In percentage, the rise in tea exports to 140.28 million kilograms (mkgs) in the first eight months of the 2022 calendar year, according to Tea Board data.
• Tea shipments during the January-August period in 2021 stood at 122.18 million kilograms.
• The CIS countries, including Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, remain the largest importers of Indian tea.

The European Union to fund climate adaptation in Africa

• 1In € billion, the amount to be provided by the European Union and the four member countries for climate adaptation in Africa, EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans told the COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh.
• Timmermans also said that the EU will provide 60 million euros for loss and damage and will present ideas on how to take loss and damage negotiations forward

Army’s first LCH squadron moves to Missamari in Assam

• The Army has moved its “first light combat helicopter (LCH) squadron to Missamari, Assam, in the eastern sector near the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
• The LCH, India’s “first indigenously designed and developed attack helicopter, is also the “first dedicated attack helicopter operated by the Army.
• “Two helicopters have moved there on November 1.
• The third light combat helicopter will move by November-end and the fourth by mid-December.
• The Army will receive the “fifth LCH by January-end next year.
• The squadron will be fully operational by then

India secured 8^th rank in Climate Change Performance Index

Indo-US military exercise ‘Yudh Abhyas 22’ being held in Auli, Uttarakhand

Arvind Virmani  has been appointed as a full-time member of NITI Aayog by the government

Arunanchal Pradesh has launched the world’s 1^st drone-mediated livestock vacancies delivery service

Source : THE HINDU