India, co-builder of Hawaii telescope, wants it shifted out of proposed site
GS Paper III
Topic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life
Prelims: The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)
What’s the News?
- Protestors in Hawaii have blocked access to the mountain of Mauna Kea, to prevent the construction there of the Thirty Meter Telescope.
- The proposed site is considered sacred to indigenous Hawaiians, and also has too many observatories for one more such massive establishment to come up, say groups that have contested the site.
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT):
- It will be the first truly global ground-based optical/infrared observatory.
- It is getting built at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA.
Significance:
- The Thirty Meter Telescope is a new class of extremely large telescopes that will allow us to see deeper into space and observe cosmic objects with unprecedented sensitivity.
- It will allow astronomers to address fundamental questions in astronomy ranging from understanding star and planet formation to unraveling the history of galaxies and the development of large-scale structure in the universe.
- It will enable to detect and investigate black holes that reside in the center of many distant galaxies, as well as study in detail the black hole in the center of our own Milky Way.
- TMT will be able to characterize and study the properties of exoplanets leading us closer to finding out if life exists beyond the Earth. Finally, the advanced capabilities of the TMT will very likely lead to discoveries that we cannot anticipate and scientific impact far beyond what we envision today.
Reasons behind protest:
- The protestors do not want the TMT to be built on Mauna Kea, a site that is sacred to Native Hawaiians.
- The telescope’s opponents say that they want to protect the mountain, and that it already houses too many observatories.
India’s Position:
- India would like the project to move to an alternate site if all the procedures and permits there are in place.
- The difficulty is that even if construction [in Mauna Kea] were to go ahead, there could be future agitations.
- The telescope needs 492 precisely polished mirrors and India is to contribute 83 of them. The project delay has meant that these manufacturing contracts have also been delayed.
Building telescope somewhere else:
- The project does have a backup site: the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, one of Spain’s Canary Islands.
- The community in La Palma has been mostly supportive.
Drawbacks to the La Palma site:
- Because it is lower in elevation than Mauna Kea, the TMT would need to peer through more of Earth’s atmosphere.
- Having more water vapour between the TMT and the stars would make the quality of the telescope’s observations worse than they would be at higher elevation.
Complications:
- TMT project will likely need hundreds of millions of dollars from the US National Science Foundation to finish its construction. US legislators might be less willing to fund a project that is not on US soil.
- The environmental group Ecologists in Action has been speaking out this week against the idea of building the telescope on La Palma, saying it would harm a natural area of great value.
- For Japan, China and India, the Canary Islands site is farther away and less desirable than Hawaii.
Conclusion:
The project should be moved to an alternate site if all the procedures and permits there are in place.
SC for curbs on powers of Speaker
GS Paper II
Topic: Indian Constitution- historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.
Mains: Need to amend anti-defection law
What’s the News?
The Supreme Court on 21st January asked Parliament to amend the Constitution to strip Legislative Assembly Speakers of their exclusive power to decide whether legislators should be disqualified or not under the anti-defection law.
Court’s observation:
The judgment came on an appeal filed by Congress legislator Keisham Meghchandra Singh against the Manipur Assembly Speaker for the disqualification of Minister T. Shyamkumar, who after contesting in the Congress ticket, switched sides to favour the BJP.
- ‘’The Speaker also belongs to a political party,’’ the court observed.
- It asked why disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) should be kept in-house and not be given to an “outside” authority.
- Even the final authority for removal of a judge is outside the judiciary and in Parliament.
Court’s suggestion:
- Disqualification petitions under the Tenth Schedule should be adjudicated by a mechanism outside Parliament or the Legislative Assemblies.
- The court suggested a permanent tribunal headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or a former High Court Chief Justice.
- Only swift and impartial disqualification of defectors would give “real teeth” to the Tenth Schedule.
Background of tenth schedule:
- The recurrence of this evil phenomenon led to the 1985 Anti-Defection Law, which defined three grounds of disqualification of MLAs — giving up party membership; going against party whip; and abstaining from voting.
- The Tenth Schedule of Indian Constitution is popularly known as the Anti-Defection Act. Original constitution had no such provisions. It was included in the Constitution in 1985 by the Rajiv Gandhi government.
- The main intent of the law was to deter “the evil of political defections” by legislators motivated by the lure of office or other similar considerations.
Loopholes in anti-defection law:
Initially, the law allowed defections if it involved one-third members, i.e. It had provisions regarding exemption from disqualification in case of a ‘split’ in a political party. But undesirably it resulted in mass defections instead of individual defections.
91st amendment, 2003:
- It deleted the provision allowing split:
The issue of mass defection because of the 1/3rd rule was remedied through the 91st amendment which increased the bar from one third to two third. Thus at least two-thirds of the members of a party have to be in favour of a ‘merger’ for it to possess validity in the eyes of the law.
- It barred the appointment of defectors as Ministers until they are re-elected, whichever is earlier.
- Speaker/ chairman of the house is the authority to decide on defection cases. Speaker sits as a tribunal while deciding on defection cases. No court has any jurisdiction. However, the decision can be brought to court after Kihoto Hollohan case of 1992.
Kihoto Hollohan case of 1992:
- The anti-defection law states that the speaker’s decision is final on defections and it is not subject to judicial review.
- While the SC upheld the Speaker’s discretionary power, it underscored that the Speaker functioned as a tribunal under the anti-defection law, thereby making her/his decisions subject to judicial review.
Shrimanth Balasaheb Patel & Ors vs Speaker Karnataka Legislative Assembly & Ors (2019):
- The three-judge SC bench upheld the then Karnataka Speaker’s decision of disqualification of the 17 rebel MLAs.
- However, it struck down his ban on the MLAs from contesting elections till 2023, negating the only possible permanent solution to the problem.
Steps needed:
- The cases of coalition should be covered under the legal scheme of anti-defection, the real object and purpose of the 10th Schedule will not get accomplished.
- Instead of making Speaker the authority for disqualification, the decision should be made by the president or the governor on the advice of the Election Commission. This would make the process similar to the disqualification procedure as given in Representation of Peoples Act (RPA).
Conclusion:
It is time Parliament had a rethink on whether disqualification petitions ought to be entrusted to a Speaker as a quasi-judicial authority when such Speaker continues to belong to a particular political party either de jure or de facto.
Mains question:
‘’Recently held Karnataka by-election results have widely put to display the ineffectiveness of the Anti-Defection Law.’’ In the light of above statement, analyze the issues plaguing the Anti-Defection law and the need to relook the anti-defection law.