Daily Hindu Editorials

👉Three interesting happenings in the world of science from the week gone by: Why men have a thing for blondes; a mutant to fight plastic waste pollution; and an eye in the sky looking for life👈 👉Why men have a thing for blondes Scientists have now made it easier to solve murder mysteries… so long as the murderer leaves a DNA sample behind and doesn’t dye their hair after the crime. The colour of human hair is determined by genes, and 124 of them were discovered just last week. Analysing and comparing the hair colour and DNA data of nearly 300,000 people of European origin, the study published in Nature Genetics has improved our understanding of how pigmentation genes evolved by adapting to the external environment and social cues. It will also help understand diseases like skin and prostate cancer, and explain why men have a thing for blondes. 👉A mutant to fight plastic waste pollution The days of plastic waste are numbered. And all because scientist...

👉Each of the five judges in the collegium must heed the lessons of history👈 On April 24, 1973, two events occurred that have united India ever since. Sachin Tendulkar was born in Bombay, and in Delhi the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Kesavananda Bharati, by a narrow 7-6 majority. Tendulkar would take time to make an impact, but Kesavananda had an immediate fallout. 👉The cruellest month The next day, on April 25, 1973, three of the seven judges who delivered the majority judgment which went against the government’s position were superseded for the position of Chief Justice of India. Justices J.M. Shelat, K.S. Hegde and A.N. Grover were superseded by Justice A.N. Ray, who had ruled in the government’s favour. Justice Ray took over as Chief Justice on April 26, 1973. The supersession of 1973 set the stage for the Emergency of June 1975. During the Emergency, the tamed Supreme Court went on to rule that the very right to life, under Article 21 of the Constitut...

👉The Centre’s arguments for its stand against elevating Justice K.M. Joseph are flawed👈 The Centre’s objections to the elevation of Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice K.M. Joseph to the Supreme Court are unpersuasive and raise suspicion whether his appointment is being blocked for extraneous reasons. Basically, there are two broad reasons proffered for freezing the appointment. First, that Justice Joseph is much too junior in the all-India list of judges, with 11 Chief Justices ranked above him. Second, that there is an imbalance in the regional representation in the Supreme Court, something that his appointment will only skew by adding another judge from Kerala. Neither of these reasons holds good. Seniority is not the sole consideration while elevating a High Court judge to the apex court. Inter se seniority is a consideration when a puisne judge is made a Chief Justice, but it is not sacrosanct in elevation to the Supreme Court. There are quite a few instances of senior judg...

👉The rupee is sliding on account of rising oil prices and FII outflows👈 The Indian rupee is again under pressure as rising oil prices have combined with higher U.S. bond yields to spur demand for the dollar. After a strong showing in 2017, when the rupee appreciated 6% against the greenback, the currency has been buffeted by crosswinds that have caused it to weaken by about 4.5% so far this year. With global oil prices continuing a steady climb on the back of tight output controls marshalled by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Brent crude futures have gained almost 12% through 2018. This in turn has bloated India’s crude import bill and widened the trade deficit appreciably. While merchandise exports shrank 0.66% in March to $29.11 billion, the monthly bill for the import of goods, including oil, rose 7.2% to $42.8 billion, widening the trade shortfall to $13.69 billion. Foreign institutional and portfolio investors — who had pumped in close to $30 billion i...

👉Patents for trivial improvements on drugs, though statutorily barred, are routinely granted👈 Over the last few years the Indian Patent Office (IPO) has been focussing on granting patents expeditiously and reducing the backlog of pending applications. Newly recruited examiners have been sending in examination reports rapidly in a race to reduce the examination timeline and increase the grant rate. There needs to be some caution here as the IPO has set an example of having one of the toughest standards in the world to distinguish real innovation from trivial tweaks — a change brought about by the introduction of the anti-evergreening provisions in the Patents Act. India hit the headlines when it incorporated certain anti-evergreening provisions such as Sections 3(d), 3(e) and 3(i) into the Patents Act to restrict patentability of a host of secondary patents — essentially alternative forms of already existing patented drugs aimed at further extending their term of protection....