Prashant Mavani, is an expert in current affairs analysis and holds a MSc in Management from University of Surrey (U.K.). Above all he is a passionate teacher.

• Supreme Court collegium’s decision

• Collegium: Comprising the Chief Justice of India and four senior judges

• It has said it would indicate the reasons behind decisions on the initial appointment of candidates to High Court benches, their confirmation as permanent judges and elevation as High Court Chief Justices and to the Supreme Court, and transfer of judges and Chief Justices from one High Court to another.

• Marks a historic and welcome departure from the entrenched culture of secrecy surrounding judicial appointments.

• A certain degree of discreetness is necessary and inevitable as in many cases the reasons will pertain to sitting judges.• It is important to strike the right balance between full disclosure and opaqueness.

• Given the perception that family members and former colleagues of judges are more likely to be appointed high court judges, it is essential that a system to widen the zone of consideration is put in place.

• There are 387 vacancies in the various High Courts as on October 1.

• “to ensure transparency, yet maintain confidentiality in the Collegium system”

• The mammoth task of filling these vacancies would be better served if a revised Memorandum of Procedure for appointments is agreed upon soon.

• A screening system, along with a permanent secretariat for the collegium, would be ideal for the task.

• The introduction of transparency should be backed by a continuous process of addressing perceived shortcomings.

• The present disclosure norm is a commendable beginning.

• When we attained Independence in 1947, we continued to adopt the civil service system inherited from the British.

• The first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was aware that the colonial civil service system was unsuitable for a politically free, socially feudal and economically poor country such as ours.

• The IAS has continued to be deeply hierarchical and rule-bound rather than being driven by domain knowledge. • Seniority is the basic criterion.• The goal of the training imparted is still that of creating the all knowing “intelligent

generalist”.

• Over the last 70 years, many incremental changes were made.

• Meanwhile, our erstwhile “mother country”, the U.K., went ahead even as early as the 1950s to radically restructure its civil service. • The famous Fulton Commission shifted the focus from a system based only on seniority and

“experience” to one which gave pride of place to domain knowledge.• This would avoid such ‘atrocities’ such as the secretary, water resources becoming the defence

secretary, and the joint secretary, health being promoted as additional secretary, home ministry, which are commonplace today.

Deeper changes

• But changing the character of the personnel system would not by itself be enough. • Organisational changes in the area of government ministries departments are also needed.

• Creation of “clusters/sectors”: A key component of the new training programme would be to assess and develop domain knowledge, and the director being trained for the sector. Once “streamed”, the civil servants can then spend the rest of their careers “rotating” within the sectors concerned.

• Security cluster: home, defence, security and intelligence and maybe even the foreign service, atomic energy, space and information technology.

• Economic cluster: finance, commerce and industry.

• Engineering cluster: public enterprises, heavy industries, electronics, telecommunications, and micro, small and medium enterprises.

• Energy cluster: petroleum, coal, power and new and renewable energy.

• Chemical cluster: chemicals and petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals

• Transport sector: roads, ports, shipping and civil aviation, railways.

• Social sector: health including the Indian Council of Medical Research, education, social welfare and social justice and empowerment, women and child development.

• Rural sector: rural development, agriculture, agricultural research and education, Khadi and Village Industries Commission, water resources.

• Science and technology sector: science and technology, scientific and industrial research, biotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, earth sciences, and environment and forests.

• Bonn: 23rd Conference of Parties (COP-23) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).• It will cover a wide range of issues: including adjusting to living in a warmer world with the

associated impacts, known as adaptation to climate change and reduction in greenhouse gases, referred to as mitigation.

• The meeting will primarily concentrate on various aspects associated with the implementation of the Paris Agreement (PA), which was negotiated at COP-21and entered into force, or became legally binding, on November 4, 2016.• The discussions will be about the implementation of targets that were decided by each

country ahead of the Paris meeting, referred to as the nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and the finance, capacity building and technology transfer required by developing countries from rich nations.

• COP-23 will be presided by Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji. • It is fitting that a Pacific island nation chairs this year’s COP as the very existence of low-lying

islands is threatened by sea level rise due to climate change.

Procedures of the UNFCCC

• The meetings in Bonn will include the session of COP-23, the 13th session of the

Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol

(CMP 13) and the second part of the first session of the Conference of the Partiesserving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1.2).

• The decision-making bodies for the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement are the COP, the CMP and the CMA, respectively.

• In addition, the Bonn meetings will include the 47th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 47), which assists on science and

technology, and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 47), which supports the work of the three bodies through assessment and review.

• Also, the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Paris Agreement will meet and is taskedwith important issues such as NDCs, adaptation, transparency, and global stocktake.

Warming target

• At the Paris COP, countries agreed to try and limit global warming to 1.5°C but since previous discussions had centred on the Lakshman rekha of 2°C, this required renewed understanding of the policies and actions required to stay within a lower target.• Half a degree reduction may seem really small, but in terms of the impacts on

ecosystems, geophysical cycles and diverse life forms on earth, this is a substantial difference.

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has therefore undertaken the task of preparing a special report on the impacts of a warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and the global response needed to achieve these.

• Many scientists who research climate change, however, believe that we are on our way to a world that is 4°C warmer and that limiting warming to less than 1.5°C is a pipe dream.

• A recent paper in Nature Geoscience by R.J. Millar and colleagues analyses scenarios to demonstrate that limiting warming to 1.5 °C is not yet a geophysical impossibility.

• But this would imply continuing to strengthen pledges for 2030, deepening the mitigation targets rapidly and deeply.

Countries and challenges• This is the first COP after the United States pulled out of the PA and the

implications of this at a global platform are likely to become more evident.• Several states and cities within the U.S. along with thousands of businesses and celebrities

have used this chance to initiate voluntary actions across the country.

According to earlier reports from the UN and other groups, the NDCs, when added up, fall short of what is needed to keep global temperature rise below 2°C and will likely take us about a degree higher.

• Further, most NDCs are conditional — they depend on financial and technological support from rich countries for their full implementation.

Since the planet and its inhabitants will still have to deal with the impacts of climate change, our only hope is to see a greater readiness on the part of all nations to compromise on their erstwhile hard positions, and sincerity to make progress in reducing emissions and building climate resilience in their development.

• June 2017: Bombay High Court quashed an order by the Maharashtra Forest Department to shoot a tigress in the Bramhapuri region after she killed two persons.• The death warrant was overturned• PIL: The tigress’s behaviour had been forged by illegal human intrusion into her territory.

• Forest departments have gone against the advice of conservation researchers.• The released tigress went on to kill two others in Bor• Such actions go against conservation science.• Trans locating a large carnivore as a response to conflict does not work.• The stress of relocation, with hostility from other predators already present, often drives them to

greater aggression.

• Countries such as Namibia have shown that well-managed trophy-hunting schemes help conserve charismatic mega-fauna, by pumping revenue from hunting licences back into conservation. • Selected individuals, often old and infirm, are sacrificed, but the species wins.

• A major challenge for India in the coming years will be to engage rural communities in conservation

• India will seek to reaffirm its regional leadership in environmental and climate diplomacy as it hosts the first Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation Disaster Management Exercise (BIMSTEC DMEx 2017) starting October 10.

• BIMSTEC was ineffective so far but this move is a welcome sign.

• The BIMSTEC region, comprising 22% of the global population, is exposed to an ever-increasing threat from natural disasters.

• The first step would be to devise a Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) regional action plan.

• Setting up of research taskforces on various climate change and environment risks.

• 800,000 persons die by suicide globally and over 1,33,000 in India every year.• Reasons: family problems and ill health to mental illness, debt, unemployment, failure in

exams and relationships.

• It is evident that a breakdown in safety nets augments social vulnerabilities and builds insurmountable distress.• Note: 70% of persons who died by suicide in India lived on an annual income of ₹1 lakh.

• The way forward• Responsive health systems• The Bhore Committee had stated that every Indian should be able to access health care

“without the humiliation of proving their financial status, or the bitterness of accepting charity”. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stand true even today.

• At a societal level, widening gaps linked to power and control may have defeated values of empathy and engaged compassion. Within families and across social groups, a mutual sense of responsibility and affiliation towards each other must be reinforced, through rituals and culture, social training or self-learning. Being kinder helps save lives and even as we celebrate diversity and agency, values of interdependence have to be strengthened.

Will consult States on bringing petro products into GST: PM

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, the status of the energy sector in India is highly uneven and stressed the need to develop energy infrastructure and access to energy in Eastern India.

• Interacting with CEOs and experts of oil and gas from across the world in New Delhi, Mr Modi flagged the potential of biomass energy and also invited participation and joint ventures in coal gasification.

• He welcomed all possibilities for innovation and research in the oil and gas sector. He also welcomed the suggestion made for a comprehensive energy policy.

• The Prime Minister indicated that as India moves towards a cleaner and more fuel-efficient economy, its benefits should expand horizontally to all sections of the society and in particular to the poorest.

• NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said, many participants recommended the inclusion of oil and gas in the GST framework. He quoted the Prime Minister as saying that there is need to talk to states over the issue. Mr. Kant said, the Prime Minister also focused on the use of bio-gas and emphasized the importance of development in eastern India. He said, according to experts, India can decrease the import of gas and oil by 10 percent by 2022 and can emerge as a strong oil and gas based economy.

Gujarat HC commutes death term of 11 Godhra convicts

• The Gujarat High Court has commuted the deathsentence of 11 convicts in the 2002 Godhra train carnage case to life imprisonment.

• The high court today also upheld the life sentence awarded by the special SIT court to 20 others in the case.

• A division bench of Justices Anant S Dave and G R Udhwani of the high court pronounced the judgement on appeals filed by the convicts as well as the prosecuting agency.

• The high court also ordered the state government and the railways to pay a compensation of 10 lakh rupees to the kin of those killed in the train burning incident.

• The special SIT court had in March, 2011 convicted 31 persons. The trial court sentenced 11 persons to death and 20 others to life imprisonment, while acquitting 63.

SC bans sale of crackers in Delhi

• The Supreme Court today extended its order of last November banning the sale of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR till the 31st of this month.

• A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri said, the apex court's September 12 order temporarily lifting the stay and permitting sale of firecrackers would be effective from November 1.

• The top court, through the 2016 order, had suspended all licences which permit the sale of fireworks, wholesale and retail within the territory of NCR.

• The Nobel economics prize has been awarded to Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago for his contribution to behavioural economics.

• Swedish Academy of Sciences Secretary GoeranHansson said today that the 9-million-kronor (1.1 million US Dollars) prize was awarded to the economist for his understanding of the psychology of economics.

• The Nobel committee said Thaler's work shows howhuman traits affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes.

• Thaler, 72, is a pioneer in behavioural economics, a research field in which insights from psychological research are applied to economic decision making, a background paper from the academy said.

Questions

1. Considering India’s strategic point of view, briefly discuss the importance of protecting Silliguri Corridor.

2. Briefly discuss some of the recent steps taken by GST Council in making Goods and Services Tax a Good and Simple Tax.

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