Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 19 and 21
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with surveillance by the government
Context
The ‘Pegasus Project’ report says that over “300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers, including those used by ministers, opposition leaders, journalists, the legal community, businessmen, government officials, scientists, rights activists and others”, were targeted using spyware made by the Israeli firm, NSO Group.
Threat to press freedom
- Revelations highlight a disturbing trend with regard to the use of hacking software against dissidents and adversaries.
- A significant number of Indians reportedly affected by Pegasus are journalists.
- This is not surprising since the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders has ranked India 142 out of 180 countries in 2021.
- The press requires (and in democracies is afforded) greater protections on speech and privacy.
- Privacy and free speech are what enable good reporting.
- This has been recognised in Supreme Court decisions.
- In the absence of privacy, the safety of journalists, especially those whose work criticises the government, and the personal safety of their sources is jeopardised.
- Such a lack of privacy, therefore, creates an aura of distrust around these journalists and effectively buries their credibility.
Issues with the legal provision
- Provisions of law under the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 and the Information Technology (IT) Act of 2000 are used by the government for its interception and monitoring activities.
- While the provisions of the Telegraph Act relate to telephone conversations, the IT Act relates to all communications undertaken using a computer resource.
- Both provisions are problematic and offer the government total opacity in respect of its interception and monitoring activities.
- Section 69 of the IT Act and the Interception Rules of 2009 are even more opaque than the Telegraph Act, and offer even weaker protections to the surveilled.
- No provision, however, allows the government to hack the phones of any individual since the hacking of computer resources, including mobile phones and apps, is a criminal offence under the IT Act.
Issues with surveillance system
- Surveillance itself, whether under a provision of law or without it, is a gross violation of the fundamental rights of citizens.
- Violation of freedom of speech: The very existence of a surveillance system impacts the right to privacy and the exercise of freedom of speech and personal liberty under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution, respectively.
- It prevents people from reading and exchanging unorthodox, controversial or provocative ideas.
- No scope for judicial scrutiny: There is also no scope for an individual subjected to surveillance to approach a court of law prior to or during or subsequent to acts of surveillance since the system itself is covert.
- No oversight: In the absence of parliamentary or judicial oversight, electronic surveillance gives the executive the power to influence both the subject of surveillance and all classes of individuals, resulting in a chilling effect on free speech.
- Against separation of power: Constitutional functionaries such as a sitting judge of the Supreme Court have reportedly been surveilled under Pegasus.
- Vesting such disproportionate power with one wing of the government threatens the separation of powers of the government.
- The existing provisions are insufficient to protect against the spread of authoritarianism since they allow the executive to exercise a disproportionate amount of power.
Way forward
- There needs to be oversight from another branch of the government.
- Judicial oversight: Only the judiciary can be competent to decide whether specific instances of surveillance are proportionate, whether less onerous alternatives are available, and to balance the necessity of the government’s objectives with the rights of the impacted individuals.
- Surveillance reforms: Not only are existing protections weak but the proposed legislation related to the personal data protection of Indian citizens fails to consider surveillance while also providing wide exemptions to government authorities.
- Surveillance reform is the need of the hour in India.
Consider the question “Discuss the threats posed by the use of surveillance systems by the government. Suggest the measures to deal with these threats.”
Conclusion
The only solution to the problem of spyware is immediate and far-reaching surveillance reform.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Limits on China's role in Afghanistan
Context
Amid the gloom that has enveloped Afghanistan, one hope for many countries has been China’s potential role in stabilising it.
Factors that call for China to play role in Afghanistan
- Scope for India-China cooperation: In the past, even India thought that Afghanistan would be a natural area for India and China to work together.
- But little came out of the understanding after the Wuhan summit in 2018.
- Northern neighbours: Afghanistan’s northern neighbours, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan all have expanding political and economic ties with China but have traditionally relied on Russia for their security.
- They might support a larger role for Beijing in Afghanistan in partnership with Russia.
- Iran, Kabul’s western neighbour, also has deepening ties with China.
- Bilateral cooperation with the U.S.: Washington, now locked in an escalating confrontation with Beijing, sees Afghanistan as a potential area of bilateral cooperation.
- Role of Pakistan: Beijing is indeed critical in Pakistan’s plans for Afghanistan.
- Afghan leaders have also been eager to draw China’s BRI into their plans for economic modernisation.
- China was also important for Kabul’s political calculus in limiting Pakistan’s quest for dominance.
Two challenges in China playing role in stabilising Afghanistan
1) Caution in Chinese policy
- The first relates to the deep sources of caution in Chinese policy.
- Neither the prospect of mining Afghanistan’s natural resources nor the vanity of being the newest superpower will compel China to rush into the Afghan vacuum.
- China has deep concerns about Taliban’s ideology and its potential role in fomenting instability in its restive Muslim-majority province, Xinjiang.
- Beijing cannot depend on its special relationship with the Pakistan army to ensure the security of China’s frontiers as well as its investments in Afghanistan.
- The growing attacks on CPEC projects in Pakistan, underline the difficulty of pursuing economic development amid endemic violence.
2) Priorities of Taliban
- The second set of problems relate to the priorities of Taliban.
- It remains to be seen whether the economic development of Afghanistan is a top priority for the Taliban or not.
- Also, is it open to let in foreign capital and all the baggage that comes with it?
- More fundamentally, there is no clarity on the role of economic modernisation in Taliban’s fierce insistence on the creation of an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan.
Conclusion
It is against this backdrop that the chances of China playing a major role in stabilising Afghanistan remain slim.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Conjugal rights
The Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing a fresh challenge to the provision allowing restitution of conjugal rights under Hindu personal laws.
What is the provision under challenge?
- Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, which deals with restitution of conjugal rights.
What are conjugal rights?
- Conjugal rights are rights created by marriage, i.e. the right of the husband or the wife to the society of the other spouse.
- The law recognizes these rights— both in personal laws dealing with marriage, divorce etc and in criminal law requiring payment of maintenance and alimony to a spouse.
- The concept of restitution of conjugal rights is codified in Hindu personal law now, but has colonial origins and has genesis in ecclesiastical law.
- Similar provisions exist in Muslim personal law as well as the Divorce Act, 1869, which governs Christian family law.
- Incidentally, in 1970, the United Kingdom repealed the law on restitution of conjugal rights.
How can a case under Section 9 be filed?
- If a spouse refuses cohabitation, the other spouse can move the family court seeking a decree for cohabitation.
- If the order of the court is not complied with, the court can attach property.
- However, the decision can be appealed before a High Court and the Supreme Court.
- Normally, when a spouse files for divorce unilaterally, the other spouse files for restitution of conjugal rights if he or she is not in agreement with the divorce.
- The provision is seen to be an intervention through legislation to strike a conciliatory note between sparring spouses.
Why has the law being challenged?
- The law is being challenged now on the main grounds that is violative of the fundamental right to privacy.
- The plea argues that court-mandated restitution of conjugal rights amounted to a “coercive action” on the part of the state, which violates one’s sexual and decisional autonomy, and right to privacy and dignity.
- In 2019, a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
- The verdict in the privacy case set the stage for potential challenges to several laws such as the criminalization of homosexuality, marital rape, restitution of conjugal rights, the two-finger test in rape investigations.
Question over gender-neutrality
- Although the law is ex-facie (‘on the face if it’) gender-neutral since it allows both wife and husband to seek restitution of conjugal rights, the provision disproportionately affects women.
- Women are often called back to marital homes under the provision and given that marital rape is not a crime, leaves them susceptible to such coerced cohabitation.
- It will also be argued whether the state can have such a compelling interest in protecting the institution of marriage that it allows legislation to enforce the cohabitation of spouses.
What has the court said about the law earlier?
Supreme Court:
- In 1984, the Supreme Court had upheld Section 9 holding that the provision “serves a social purpose as an aid to the prevention of break-up of marriage”.
- Leading up to the Supreme Court intervention, two High Courts — those of Andhra Pradesh and Delhi — had ruled differently on the issue.
AP High Court:
- In 1983, AP High Court had for the first time struck down the provision and declared it null and void. It cited the right to privacy among other reasons.
- The court also held that in “a matter so intimately concerned the wife or the husband the parties are better left alone without state interference”.
- The court had, most importantly, also recognised that compelling “sexual cohabitation” would be of “grave consequences for women”.
Delhi High Court:
- In the same year, a single-judge Bench of the Delhi High Court took a diametrically opposite view of the law and upheld the provision.
- From the definitions of cohabitation and consortium, it appears that sexual intercourse is one of the elements that go to make up the marriage.
- But it is not the summum bonum (the ultimate aim). As if marriage consists of nothing else except sex.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bad Banks
Mains level: Asset reconstruction
The Government has launched a Bad Bank with all the regulatory approvals in place.
What is a Bad Bank?
- A bad bank conveys the impression that it will function as a bank but has bad assets to start with.
- Technically, it is an asset reconstruction company (ARC) or an asset management company that takes over the bad loans of commercial banks, manages them and finally recovers the money over a period of time.
- Such a bank is not involved in lending and taking deposits, but helps commercial banks clean up their balance sheets and resolve bad loans.
- The takeover of bad loans is normally below the book value of the loan and the bad bank tries to recover as much as possible subsequently.
Global examples of Bad Bank
- US-based BNY Mellon Bank created the first bad bank in 1988, after which the concept has been implemented in other countries including Sweden, Finland, France and Germany.
- However, resolution agencies or ARCs set up as banks, which originate or guarantee to lend, have ended up turning into reckless lenders in some countries.
Do we need a bad bank?
- The idea gained currency during Rajan’s tenure as RBI Governor.
- The RBI had then initiated an asset quality review (AQR) of banks and found that several banks had suppressed or hidden bad loans to show a healthy balance sheet.
- However, the idea remained on paper amid lack of consensus on the efficacy of such an institution.
- ARCs have not made any impact in resolving bad loans due to many procedural issues.
What is the stand of the RBI and government?
- While the RBI did not show much enthusiasm about a bad bank all these years, there are signs that it can look at the idea now.
- Experts, however, argue that it would be better to limit the objective of these asset management companies to the orderly resolution of stressed assets, followed by a graceful exit.
Good about the bad banks
- The problem of NPAs continues in the banking sector, especially among the weaker banks.
- The bad bank concept is in some ways similar to an ARC but is funded by the government initially, with banks and other investors co-investing in due course.
- The presence of the government is seen as a means to speed up the clean-up process.
- Many other countries had set up institutional mechanisms such as the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) in the US to deal with a problem of stress in the financial system.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Near-Earth Asteroid Scout
Mains level: Study of asteroids
Last week, NASA announced that its new spacecraft, named NEA Scout, has completed all required tests and has been safely tucked inside the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
For landing on Moon
- NEA Scout is one of several payloads that will hitch a ride on Artemis I, which is expected to be launched in November.
- Artemis I will be an uncrewed test-flight of the Orion spacecraft and SLS rocket.
- Under the Artemis programme, NASA has aimed to land the first woman on the Moon in 2024 and also establish sustainable lunar exploration programs by 2030.
What is NEA Scout?
- Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout, is a small spacecraft, about the size of a big shoebox. Its main mission is to fly by and collect data from a near-Earth asteroid.
- It will also be America’s first interplanetary mission using special solar sail propulsion.
- This type of propulsion is especially useful for small, lightweight spacecraft that cannot carry large amounts of conventional rocket propellant.
- NEA Scout will use stainless steel alloy booms and deploy an aluminium-coated sail measuring 925 square feet.
- The large-area sail will generate thrust by reflecting sunlight.
- Energetic particles of sunlight bounce off the solar sail to give it a gentle, yet constant push.
How will it study the asteroid?
- NEA Scout is equipped with special cameras and can take pictures ranging from 50 cm/pixels to 10 cm/pixels.
- It can also process the image and reduce the file sizes before sending them to the earth-based Deep Space Network via its medium-gain antenna.
- The spacecraft will take about two years to cruise to the asteroid and will be about 93 million miles away from Earth during the asteroid encounter.
Why should we study near-Earth asteroids?
- Despite their size, some of these small asteroids could pose a threat to Earth.
- Understanding their properties could help us develop strategies for reducing the potential damage caused in the event of an impact.
- Scientists will use this data to determine what is required to reduce risk, increase effectiveness, and improve the design and operations of robotic and human space exploration.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Our planetary system
Mains level: Not Much
Researchers have developed a model showing that the density, mass and iron content of a Mercury’s core is influenced by its distance from the Sun’s magnetic field.
About Mercury
- Mercury is the first and the smallest planet in our solar system.
- It is also the closest planet to Earth.
- Like the other three terrestrial planets, Mercury contains a core surrounded by a mantle and a crust.
- But unlike any other planet, Mercury’s core makes up a larger portion of the planet.
- MESSENGER was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury’s chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field.
- It was the analysis from the MESSENGER mission that tells: Mercury’s core is solid.
Mystery over the core
- It has long been known that Mercury’s core composition is made of liquid metal.
- The core itself is about 3,600 km across. Surrounding that is a 600 km thick mantle.
- And around that is the crust, which is believed to be 100-200 km thick.
- The crust is known to have narrow ridges that extend for hundreds of kilometres.
- This large core has long been one of the most intriguing mysteries about Mercury.
Why does Mercury have a large core?
- A new study reveals that the sun’s magnetism is the reason.
- The sun’s magnetic field influences the density, mass, and iron content of Mercury’s core.
- The four inner planets of our solar system—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are made up of different proportions of metal and rock.
- A gradient in which the metal content in the core drops off as the planets get farther from the sun.
- The researchers explain how this happened by showing that the sun’s magnetic field controlled the distribution of raw materials in the early forming solar system.
What are the key propositions?
- During the early formation of the solar system, when a swirling dust storm and gas encircled the sun, iron’s grain was drawn toward the centre by the sun’s magnetic field.
- At the time of planet formation from clumps of that dust and gas, planets nearer to the sun consolidated more iron into their centres than those farther away.
- Scientists also found that the density and proportion of iron in the planet’s core correlate with the strength of the magnetic field around the sun during planetary formation.
- Existing models on planetary formation were used to determine the speed at which gas and dust were pulled into the centre of our solar system during its formation.
- The magnetic field that the sun would have generated as it burst into being and calculated how that magnetic field would draw iron through the dust and gas cloud.
Cooling led solidification
- As the early solar system began to cool, dust and gas that were not drawn into the sun started to clump together.
- The clumps closer to the sun would have been exposed to a stronger magnetic field and thus would contain more iron than those farther away from the sun.
- As the clumps coalesced and cooled into spinning planets, gravitational forces drew the iron into their core.
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