Tuesday, February 18, 2020

What is a curative petition?

A Delhi court on Tuesday issued a death warrant against four convicts in the December 2012 gangrape case allowing their execution on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar Jail. The verdict came after the parents of the victim moved the court seeking to expedite the procedure to hang all the four convicted in the case and also demanded issuance of death warrant against them.

In September 2013, a fast-track court held the four convicts guilty of 13 offences including gangrape, unnatural sexual assault and murder of the woman, and attempt to murder her male friend. The judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2017.

Three of the four convicts filed a review petition against the verdict which was rejected by the Supreme Court. This year, the four convicts filed a mercy petition which was rejected by the President of India. In this scenario, the counsel of the convicts is left with only one option – to file a curative petition in the top court.

What is a curative petition?

A curative petition may be filed after a review plea against the final conviction is dismissed. It is meant to ensure there is no miscarriage of justice, and to prevent abuse of process. A curative petition is usually decided by judges in chamber, unless a specific request for an open-court hearing is allowed.

Every curative petition is decided on the basis of principles laid down by the Supreme Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra Vs Ashok Hurra & another, 2002. This was a case of a matrimonial discord where the question of validity of a decree of divorce reached the SC after the woman withdrew the consent she had given to divorce by mutual consent.

The judgment held that technical difficulties and apprehensions over the reopening of cases had to give way to a final forum for removing errors in a judgment where administration of justice may be affected.

The court ruled that a curative petition can be entertained if the petitioner establishes there was a violation of the principles of natural justice, and that he was not heard by the court before passing an order. It will also be admitted where a judge failed to disclose facts that raise the apprehension of bias.

The SC has held that curative petitions must be rare rather than regular, and be entertained with circumspection. A curative petition must be accompanied by certification by a senior advocate, pointing out substantial grounds for entertaining it. It must be first circulated to a bench of the three senior-most judges, and the judges who passed the concerned judgment, if available. Only when a majority of the judges conclude that the matter needs hearing should it be listed — as far as possible, before the same Bench.

“It shall be open to the Bench at any stage of consideration of the curative petition to ask a senior counsel to assist it as amicus curiae. In the event of the Bench holding at any stage that the petition is without any merit and vexatious, it may impose exemplary costs on the petitioner,” the court had held.

Source: Indian Express, 7/01/2020

Here’s what will happen when our Sun dies

A new study reveals that the dying Sun will destroy the asteroid belt as we know it and also effect the asteroid beyond Neptune and Pluto.

Scientists have predicted that around six billion years from now, the Sun will run out of fuel and die. However, researchers have found out that before the Sun calls it quit, it will expand massively and emit powerful electromagnetic radiations in the process which could pulverize the solar system’s asteroids.

According to a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the radiation given off by stars like our sun in their death throes can spin asteroids to such high speeds that they break apart into successively smaller fragments.

Around 90 per cent of the stars in the universe, including our own Sun, are “main sequence” stars. When these stars use up all of their hydrogen fuel they balloon to hundreds of times their normal size. This phase — known as the “giant branch” — lasts a few million years, which is too short in cosmic terms.

During this time, the stars not only grow in size but also experience a huge increase in their luminosity while they emit electromagnetic radiation. As per the study, the inflated stars then shed their expanded outer layers and collapse into a dense remnant– known as a white dwarf.

According to the lead authors of the paper, Dimitri Veras from the University of Warwick in the UK and Daniel Scheeres at the University of Colorado, the increasingly intense radiation emitted by main-sequence stars during the “giant branch” phase will be absorbed by asteroids.

As per the study, this radiation will be redistributed internally and then emitted from a different location within the asteroid. It will create an imbalance, which in turn will create a torque effect gradually spinning up the asteroid. This will lead them to break-up speed at one full rotation every two hours. This effect is known as the YORP effect, named after four scientists — Yarkovsky, O’Keefe, Radzievskii, and Paddack — who contributed ideas to the concept.

Source: Indian Express, 12/02/2020

Reforming competition law for the digital age

It’s important to address the issue of data dominance that an acquisition in the tech industry could throw up.

At a recent event, the chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) cautioned against the creation of large digital platforms and the agglomeration of data in the hands of a few entities. However, the extent to which this is a policy concern merits careful evaluation, keeping in mind the fact that political considerations have long dictated the government’s response to e-commerce players and other digital platforms. Any attempt to reform competition law for the digital age must instead focus on the actual cause for harm and then tailor remedies that address this cause.

Amazon’s brick-and-mortar competitors, politically relevant and well-organised through associations such as the Confederation of All India Traders, have for long complained about deep discounting practices. The technology behemoth has also been accused of using its vast data insights to directly compete with sellers while distributing their products on its platform. This erosion of platform neutrality had earlier influenced key choices in India’s Foreign Direct Investment policy, including a clear preference for marketplace models over inventory-based models. Subsequently, in February 2019, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade published a draft national e-commerce policy advocating drastic measures such as restrictions on cross-border data flows and mandating big tech companies to open their data for the benefit of Indian startups.

These responses have invited criticism on the basis that they are more about knee-jerk politics than well-informed policy. The recent call for reform of antitrust law and competition policy must be appreciated with these developments and criticisms in the background.

The Indian Competition Act 2002 has broadly operated along the lines of antitrust law in the United States, which is to say that its foundations have been rooted in arguments of economic efficiency. These arguments that trace their origins to Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox (1978) did not factor in the evolution of data as an economic asset. For Bork, anti-competitive behaviour meant practices that resulted in price distortion.

Data-driven innovation, on the other hand, is centred on identifying efficiency gaps in traditional business models and fixing them using an assortment of data mining and predictive analytics. In the course of advancing efficiency, digital platforms also gain from network effects. In simple terms, the more the number of consumers and sellers transacting over a platform, the more essential and indispensable the platform becomes to both sides. Apparently, consumers benefit from this phenomenon as platforms vie to get them on board. However, existing sellers would stand to be in an unequal bargaining position with the digital platform. Moreover, startups would find it difficult to compete with dominant technology platforms because the latter already control vast amounts of data. Competition law has been struggling for a while to capture this.

Before the present competition law came to be, the practice was to clamp down on businesses that expanded in size and scale. This was motivated by the philosophy that big is evil. The Competition Law Review Committee, chaired by Injeti Srinivas, submitted a report to the ministry of corporate affairs in July 2019, which echoes this philosophy. In order to tackle big ticket digital platform acquisitions, the report advocates scrutiny of mergers above a certain deal value over the existing practice of scrutinising mergers based on asset value. This is on account of many digital platforms falling short on assets and being valued instead for their network and data wealth.

It is true that many of the bigger digital platforms have wiped out competition by simply acquiring smaller platforms. Yet, experience suggests that many of these acquisitions eventually fail, leading to heavy losses for the acquirer. For example, Flipkart recently shut down the online retail platform Jabong that it had earlier acquired for $70 million.

Decisions on firm acquisitions should be left to the acquirer and any ex ante competition scrutiny based on deal value must be avoided. Instead, real reform should address the truly worrisome cause — the data dominance that any acquisition in the tech industry could potentially result in. Even this idea of data dominance is too broad, with room for further refinement and granularity in competition oversight through merger control. Big data analytics is usually thought of as deriving value from four Vs; veracity, velocity, volume and variety of data. Of these, the enhancement of data variety on account of an acquisition is probably most harmful, as it permits technology platforms to extend their dominance to other sectors.

CCI must, therefore, benchmark the variety of data in the hands of the acquirer, compare that with the variety of data in the possession of the acquired, and then evaluate whether post-acquisition, the variety of data in the control of the merged entity or acquirer firm would be such that it can result in long-term undesirable consequences on data-driven innovation, including excessive centralisation of power. This is just one instance of fitting the remedy to the cause, and similar mindfulness to the actual harm must dictate any future reform of competition law to suit the digital age.

Ananth Padmanabhan is dean, Academic Affairs, Sai University and visiting fellow, Centre for Policy Research

Preventing Violence

Spiritual practices like prayer, meditation and yoga help us to overcome violent thoughts. Mohandas Gandhi said, “When I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagwad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me, and immediately I begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Gita.” Sage Valmiki, born as Ratnaker, took to robbery to take care of his family. Once Sage Narada passed through the jungle and was attacked by Ratnaker. Narada asked Ratnaker whether his family members will take responsibility for his sins. Ratnaker was surprised when his father and wife refused to share his sins. He came to his senses. After long years of meditation, when his body got covered by anthills, Narada came and removed those anthills and named him Valmiki, as ant-hill is called valmika in Sanskrit. Valmiki founded his ashram on the banks of the Ganga. He wrote the Ramayana in Sanskrit, consisting of 24,000 versus. Ratnaker had gotten transformed from robber to maharishi. A kernel of truth is at the heart of religion because spiritual experience, ethical behaviour and strong communities are essential for human happiness. While spiritual experience is a natural propensity of the human mind, we need not believe anything on insufficient evidence. So, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together. This will have a positive effect, leading to less violence and fewer violent thoughts.

Source: Economic Times, 18/02/2020

Monday, February 17, 2020

Quote of the Day

February 17, 2020

“The more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have.”

‐ Brian Koslow

“आप जितना अपने कार्यकलापों की जिम्मेदारी लेने के लिए तैयार रहते हैं, उतने ही विश्वसनीय बनते हैं।”

‐ ब्रायन कोसलो

Swarnajayanti Fellowships Scheme

Govt. of India had instituted a scheme "The Swarnajayanti Fellowships" to commemorate India's fiftieth year of Independence. Under this scheme a selected number of young scientists, with proven track record, are provided special assistance and support to enable them to pursue basic research in frontier areas of science and technology. The fellowships are scientist specific and not institution specific, very selective and have close academic monitoring..

Nature of Support:

The award consists of a Fellowship of Rs 25000/- per month in addition to the salary drawn from the parent Institute along with a Research Grant of Rs 5 lakh per annum by Department of Science and Technology for a period of 5 years, while the project submitted by the selected Fellows will be considered for funding by the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB) as per SERB norms, for recurring and non-recurring heads. Scientists selected for the award will be allowed to pursue unfettered research with a freedom and flexibility in terms of expenditure as approved in the research plan. The project should contain innovative research idea and it should have a potential of making impact on R&D in the discipline.

Duration:

The duration of the fellowship will be for a period not exceeding five years.

Followers

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

What is a curative petition?

What is a curative petition?

Here’s what will happen when our Sun dies

A new study reveals that the dying Sun will destroy the asteroid belt as we know it and also effect the asteroid beyond Neptune and Pluto.

Reforming competition law for the digital age

It’s important to address the issue of data dominance that an acquisition in the tech industry could throw up.

Preventing Violence

Monday, February 17, 2020

Quote of the Day

Swarnajayanti Fellowships Scheme

Nature of Support:

Duration:

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 55, Issue No. 7, 15 Feb, 2020

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