Centre notifies Good Samaritan SOPs
In a move that could go a long way in encouraging witnesses to report accidents to the police, the Centre issued a notification ensuring that the affidavit of “Good Samaritan”, a person who voluntarily declares himself to be an eyewitness, shall be treated by the investigating officer as a final statement. The notification is in response to Supreme Court directions in an October 2014 case of SaveLIFE Foundation asking the Centre to issue directions to save Good Samaritans until Parliament frames a law.
The court had directed the government to frame Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the examination of a Good Samaritan. In March, the court approved the guidelines and the SOPs issued by the government with certain modifications.
The crux of the guidelines is that no bystander rushing to the rescue of an accident victim should be subject to civil or criminal liability and/or be forced to be a witness. Any disclosure of personal information or offer to be a witness, in the event of the Good Samaritan also being an eyewitness to an accident, ought to be voluntary. Further, the examination of such a volunteer as a witness shall be done only on a single occasion and without harassment or intimidation.
“The affidavit of Good Samaritan, if filed, shall be treated as a complete statement by the police official while conducting the investigation. In case, the statement is to be recorded, the complete statement shall be recorded in a single examination,” the notification added.
The notification said the SOPs as laid down by the court under Article 32 (right to constitutional remedies), read with Article 142, is binding on the Union Territories and the States.
Reprieve for BSP, CPI as EC amends rules
In a major reprieve to three political parties which faced the possibility of losing their “national party” status and all the benefits associated with it, the Election Commission amended the rules under which it will now review the status of political parties every 10 years, instead of five.
After the 2014 general elections, the EC had issued show-cause notices to the Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party and the Communist Party of India, asking why their “national party” status should not be withdrawn. Subsequently, they had petitioned the Commission. Over two years later, the EC issued an Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) (Amendment) Order, amending the rules that mandated a review of the status of recognised political parties every five years.
According to the new rule, a recognised national or State party will not lose its status despite not having met the criteria in one general or Assembly election. For instance, the status of a party — that did not perform up to the mark in 2014 – will be reviewed in 2024. However, the eligibility criteria for recognition will remain the same.
The political parties are eligible for “national party” status if;
- the party wins 2% of seats in the Lok Sabha (as of 2014, 11 seats) from at least 3 different States.
- At a General Election to Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly, the party polls 6% of votes in four States and in addition it wins 4 Lok Sabha seats.
- A party gets recognition as State Party in four or more States.
There are currently six recognised parties: the Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress, BSP, NCP, CPI and CPI(M); and 64 recognised State parties.
Singapore ex-President S.R. Nathan dead
Indian-origin Singapore ex-President S.R. Nathan died in hospital. The 92-year-old veteran public servant, who was closely associated with Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, was hospitalised on July 31 after suffering a cerebral stroke.
Mr. Nathan was Singapore’s longest-serving president, a largely ceremonial post, and served as Ambassador to Malaysia and the United States, two of the most prestigious jobs in the Singapore government service.
Mr. Nathan was elected to two six-year terms between 1999 and 2011.
Ports to promote waterways
The Centre is framing a policy to enable all major ports to set up subsidiary companies to develop inland waterways. This is part of its plan to cut logistics costs for exporters by moving more cargo on water instead of over land.
The establishment of separate units will facilitate easy foreign funding for inland waterway projects by capitalizing on the financial credentials of the government owned ports. The objective of the government is to reduce logistics costs to make exports competitive and all ports will be asked to improve inland waterways in their periphery to divert large part of the cargo on waterways which is cost effective.
India’s biggest container port Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), which posted a profit of Rs.1,000 crore last year, has been asked to set up a subsidiary for this purpose. JNPT will set up a subsidiary that will take care of all rivers in Maharashtra. They will raise about Rs.4,000 crore at 2.75 per cent interest rate from foreign banks and this will improve economic viability of the projects.
JNPT will develop waterways on seven to eight rivers in Maharashtra which flow from Madhya Pradesh. Goa Port will be the next to follow and will develop inland waterways on two rivers. The Detailed Project Report (DPR) has been prepared.
Rs.80,000 crore is needed to develop 20,000 km inland waterways in the country and it cannot be met through Shipping Ministry’s annual budget of Rs.1,800 crore. The inland waterway projects are economically viable, but raising funds for them is not a successful practice in our country as they don’t have any financial credentials now. But foreign funds can be raised at low interest costs for such projects through the ports. All major ports have a combined turnover of Rs.4,000 crore and based on that an amount of Rs.50,000 crore can be raised as foreign loans at 2.75 per cent interest as against 12 per cent from Indian banks for inland waterway projects.
The shipping ministry has also urged the finance ministry to allocate 5 per cent of the money collected as cess on diesel and petrol for inland waterways.
Three strains of fungi to help recycle rechargeable batteries
Scientists have found a low-cost and environment-friendly method to recycle used rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, with the help of fungi. Old batteries often wind up in landfills or incinerators, potentially harming the environment. And valuable materials remain locked inside.
Now, a team of researchers at the University of South Florida in the U.S. is turning to fungi to drive an environmentally friendly recycling process to extract cobalt and lithium from tonnes of discarded batteries.
With huge growth in smartphones and all the other products with rechargeable batteries, the demand for lithium is rising rapidly, and it is not sustainable to keep mining new lithium resources. While other methods exist to separate lithium, cobalt and other metals, they require high temperatures and harsh chemicals.
To drive the process, three strains of fungi — Aspergillus niger, Penicillium simplicissimum and Penicillium chrysogenum, are used.
The team first dismantles the batteries and pulverises the cathodes. Then, they expose the remaining pulp to the fungus. Fungi naturally generate organic acids, and the acids work to leach out the metals. Through the interaction of the fungus, acid and pulverised cathode, we can extract the valuable cobalt and lithium. Results so far show that using oxalic acid and citric acid, two of the organic acids generated by the fungi, up to 85 per cent of the lithium and up to 48 per cent of the cobalt from the cathodes of spent batteries can be extracted.