COVID-19: Technology at Service of Justice System

Case Name: IN RE: GUIDELINES FOR COURT FUNCTIONING THROUGH VIDEO. CONFERENCING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

Even as the world is going through turbulent situation, the institution of justice delivery system can never afforded to be brought to a halt. It has been rightly remarked by Martin Luther King Jr., 

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".

Hence, the current situation calls for a robust justice delivery system across the world. In this regard, the Supreme Court of India has left no stone unturned to ensure speedy justice delivery to every segment of the society.

Guidelines:

Given that social distancing is the need of the hour to prevent communication of COVID-19, the apex court exercised its power under Article 142 (inherent powers) to balance the public health and justice delivery.

It issued a slew of guidelines to streamline functioning of courts via video conferencing during national lockdown.

These guidelines are:

1. The measures that have been and that shall be taken by this Court and by the High Courts, to reduce the need for the physical presence of all stakeholders within court premises and to secure the functioning of courts in consonance with social distancing guidelines and best public health practices shall be deemed to be lawful.
2. The Supreme Court of India and High Courts have been authorized to adopt measures required to ensure the robust functioning of the judicial system through the use of video conferencing technologies;
3. In light of the peculiarities of the judicial system in every state, every High Court is authorised to determine the modalities which are suitable to the temporary transition to the use of video conferencing technologies;
4. The concerned courts shall maintain a helpline to ensure that any complaint in regard to the quality or audibility of feed shall be communicated during the proceeding or immediately after its conclusion. No grievance can be raised afterwards. 
5. The District Courts in each State shall adopt the mode of Video Conferencing prescribed by the concerned High Court.
6. The Court shall duly notify and make available the facilities for video conferencing for such litigants who do not have the means or access to video conferencing facilities. 
7. Until appropriate rules are framed by the High Courts, video conferencing shall be mainly employed for hearing arguments whether at the trial stage or at the appellate stage. 
• But evidence shall not be recorded without the mutual consent of both the parties by video conferencing. 
• If it is necessary to record evidence in a Court room the presiding officer shall ensure that appropriate distance is maintained between any two individuals in the Court.

Economics Special: Technology Missions on Cotton and Jute

Technology Mission on Cotton (TMC)	Jute Technology Mission (JTM)
The Govt. of India launched in 2000	The Govt. of India launched in 2012
The objective of TMC was as under: To improve the yield and quality of cotton To increase the income of the cotton growers To improve the quality of processing of cotton, particularly in respect of trash, contamination, etc.	It is major initiative for overall development of the jute industry and growth of the jute sector during the 11th Plan
It has four Mini Missions as under: Mini Mission I: Cotton Research & Technology Generation Mini Mission II: Transfer of Technology & Development Mini Mission III: Development of Market Infrastructure Mini Mission IV: Modernization / Setting up of new G&P factories.	It has four Mini Missions as under: Mini Mission-I: strengthening agriculture research and development in jute sector for improving the yield and quality.   Mini Mission-II: transfer of improved technology and agronomic practices in production and post harvesting phase. Mini-Mission-III: market linkage of raw jute is provided in all jute growing states.   Mini Mission-IV: modernization of jute industry, upgradation of skills and market promotion.
For MM-III & IV Ministry of Textiles was the nodal agency and The Cotton Corporation of India Ltd. (CCI) was the implementing agency.

Regimes controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and Indian position.

It was a situation equivalent to adding fuel to the fire when India -who denied to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 - conducted its nuclear test in 1974 at Pokhran.

Jawaharlal Nehru,before he became the nation's first Prime Minister, announced:

"As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal."

Nuclear program of India.

• 1944. India's started its nuclear program started and its three-stage programme in nuclear technology was founded by Dr. Homi Bhabha, when he founded the nuclear research center, the Institute of Fundamental Research. India's loss of territory to China in a brief Himilayan border war in October 1962, provided the New Delhi government impetus for developing nuclear weapons as a means of deterring potential Chinese aggression.
• 1972. India ratified the Biological Weapon Convention (BWC).
• 1974. India conducetd its first nuclear test (code-named "Smiling Buddha"), which it called a "peaceful nuclear explosion." It used plutonium produced in the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor. As a consequence, it raised concerns that nuclear technology supplied for peaceful purposes could be diverted to weapons purposes. 
• 1975. As a result of the test of 1975, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was formed.Its purpose was to curb the proliferation of certain non-weapons specific nuclear technology that could be readily turned to weapons development. Nations already signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) saw the need to further limit the export of nuclear equipment, materials or technology.
• 1996. India ratified the Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC).
• 1998. India performed further nuclear tests (code-named "Operation Shakti"). In 1998, as a response to the continuing tests, the United States and Japan imposed sanctions on India, which have since been lifted.
• 2010. The National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon confirmed a significant shift in nuclear weapon use policy from "No first use" to "no first use against non-nuclear weapon states".

Major regimes on use of nuclear technology and Indian position.

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). 1968. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty, which was brought with objective to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. It was opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force in 1970.
India is one of the four UN member states that have never joined the NPT (others being Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan). The reason being the failure of the NPT to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons or the motivation to acquire them. While Article VI of the treaty obligates the nuclear weapons states to liquidate their nuclear stockpiles and pursue complete disarmament, the non-nuclear states see no signs of this happening as the five authorized nuclear weapons states (all five permanent members of the Security Council) still have 22,000 warheads between them and have shown a reluctance to disarm further.

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). 1975. Unlike the NPT (which focuses on the curb on proliferation of the nuclear weapons), the NSG is a multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation by controlling the export and re-transfer of materials that may be applicable to nuclear weapon development and by improving safeguards and protection on existing materials.

As the Pokhran test of 1974 showed that certain non-weapons specific nuclear technology that could be readily turned to weapons development, the formation of NSG was considered inevitable.The provisions of this group prohibit the members from engaging in trade of nuclear materials and technologies with the countries that have not signed NPT.

India is not a member of the NSG but in a meeting of 2008, the NSG participating governments agreed to grant India a "clean waiver" from its existing rules, which forbid nuclear trade with a country which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was to facilitate the implementation of the civil nuclear deal between India and USA in 2008.

Also, during a state visit to India in November 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama announced U.S. support for India's participation in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime, "in a phased manner,".

During a visit to India in December 2010, French President Sarkozy also expressed his country's backing for India's inclusion in Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The United Kingdom has for a long time been a supporter of India's inclusion in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Australia Group. 1985. Keeping into mind the disaster caused by the use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war (1984), the Australian government proposed creating the group in April 1985 as a means of uniting 15 countries that had independently established national controls on chemical weapons-related exports. At the first meeting in June 1985, the Australia Group initially focused on chemical weapons but by 1990 had extended its activities to include biological weapons. 

India has ratified the Biological Weapon Convention (BWC), 1972 and Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC), 1992. India has a well-developed biotechnology infrastructure and highly qualified scientists for working with lethal pathogens. Some of India's facilities are being used to support research and development of Biological Weapon for defence purposes and not for attacking purposes.

Also, after signing CWC, it destroyed its stockpile of chemical weapons completely by 2009.

Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). 1987.The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is an informal and voluntary partnership between 34 countries to prevent the proliferation of missile and unmanned aerial vehicle technology capable of carrying a 500 kg payload at least 300 km. It was created with the objective to curb the spread of unmanned delivery systems for nuclear weapons, specifically delivery systems that could carry a minimum payload of 500 kg a minimum of 300 km.

The MTCR rests on adherence to common export policy guidelines (the MTCR Guidelines) applied to an integral common list of controlled items (the MTCR Equipment, Software and Technology Annex).Each MTCR member is supposed to establish national export control policies for ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, space launch vehicles, drones, remotely piloted vehicles, sounding rockets, and underlying components and technologies that appear on the regime's Material and Technology Annex. Members can add items to or subtract them from the annex through consensus decisions.

Of all the control regimes, this regime has prevented India from acquiring the technologies for missile purposes and satellite launching purposes. Historically, the US imposed sanction on the USSR in 1990, as even after agreeing to adhere to the MTCR Guidelines, Russia sought to transfer cryogenic rocket engines to India which resulted in imposition of sanctions on both the countries by the US. Although the Russians cancelled the sale of technology and consequently the sanctions on them were lifted, the sanctions against India remained in place until their expiry in May 1994.

In 2008 India voluntarily committed to following the MTCR export control guidelines.

The Wassenaar Arrangement. 1996.It is the successor to the Cold War-era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), and was established on 12 July 1996, in Wassenaar, the Netherlands, which is near The Hague. The Wassenaar Arrangement is considerably less strict than COCOM, focusing primarily on the transparency of national export control regimes.

Every six months member countries exchange information on deliveries of conventional arms and dual-use goods to non-Wassenaar members that fall under eight broad weapons categories: battle tanks, Armored combat vehicles (ACVs), large-caliber artillery, military aircraft, military helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems, and small arms and light weapons.