Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mt Sinabung
Mains level: Pacific ring of fire
Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung volcano sent a cloud of hot ash as high as 3 km today, in its first big eruption since August last year.
Mount Sinabung
- It is a Pleistocene-to-Holocene stratovolcano in the Karo plateau of Karo Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia.
- It is created by the subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate under the Eurasian Plate.
- It erupted in 2010 after a 400-year-long hiatus and has been continuously active since September 2013.
Why frequent eruptions?
- Indonesia straddles the “Pacific ring of fire” with nearly130 active volcanoes, more than any other country.
- Sinabung had been inactive for centuries before it erupted again in 2010.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- The Barren Island volcano is an active volcano located in the Indian Territory.
- Barren Island lies about 140 km east of Great Nicobar
- The last time the Barren Island volcano erupted was in 1991 and it has remained inactive since then.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2018)
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 3 only
(d) 1 and 3
What is the Pacific ring of fire?
- The Pacific Ring of Fire is a region around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
- It includes the Pacific coasts of South America, North America and Kamchatka, and some islands in the western Pacific Ocean.
- It is a direct result of plate tectonics: specifically the movement, collision and destruction of lithospheric plates under and around the Pacific Ocean.
- The collisions have created a nearly continuous series of subduction zones, where volcanoes are created and earthquakes occur.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan
Mains level: Disable friendly infrastructure
Union Minister for Social justice and Empowerment has launched the “Sugamya Bharat App”.
Sugamya Bharat App
- The Sugamya Bharat App is a simple to use Mobile App with an easy registration process, requiring only 3 mandatory fields, namely, Name, Mobile number and Email-id.
- Registered users can raise issues related to accessibility being faced.
- The App is made accessible for ease of use for persons with disabilities also with features such as font size adjustment, color contrasting option, text to speech, and having an integrated screen reader in Hindi and English.
- It is available in 10 regional languages, namely, Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Odiya, Kannada, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Malayalam.
- The App also has the provision of easy photo uploads with a geotagging option of the premise where accessibility intervention is required.
Its features
- The app, a Crowdsourcing Mobile Application is a means for sensitizing and enhancing accessibility in the 3 pillars of the Accessible India Campaign i.e. built environment, transportation sector and ICT ecosystem in India.
- The app provides for five main features, 4 of which are directly related to enhancing accessibility, while the fifth is a special feature meant only for Divyangjan for COVID related issues.
The accessibility-related features are:
- Registration of complaints of inaccessibility across the 3 broad pillars of the Sugamya Bharat Abhiyaan;
- Positive feedback of examples and best practices worth emulating being shared by people as jan-bhagidhari;
- Departmental updates and guidelines and circulars related to accessibility.
Back2Basics: Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan
- Accessible India Campaign or Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan is a program that is set to be launched to serve the differently-able community of the country.
- The flagship program has been launched on 3 December 2015, the International Day of People with Disabilities.
- The program comes with an index to measure the design of disabled-friendly buildings and human resource policies.
- The initiative also in line with Article 9 of the (UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) which India is a signatory since 2007.
- The scheme also comes under the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 for equal Opportunities and protection of rights which provides non-discrimination in Transport to Persons with Disabilities.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with new Rules under IT Act
The article discusses the issues with the new rules issues under the IT Act.
Issues with the new rules
1) No discussion
- Last week, the Union Government issued a set of rules under the Information Technology Act, superseding rules issued under Section 79 of that statute in 2011.
- This has happened in the absence of open and public discussion and without any parliamentary study and scrutiny.
2) Concerns over legal basis
- The Union Government has chosen to pass these rules under the requirement to outline the due diligence that Internet intermediaries have to follow in order to be able to claim their qualified legal immunity under Section 79 of the IT Act.
- These rules at the outset appear unlawful even with respect to whether they could have been issued under the Information Technology Act in the manner chosen by the government, leave alone their constitutionality with respect to fundamental rights.
- The government’s gazette notification has further claimed that the rules were also issued under the legal authority to specific procedure for blocking web content under Section 69A of the IT Act.
- However, rules overseeing government web content blocking powers have already been issued for that section in 2009, and not superseded.
3) Using rule making power to issue primary legislation
- The ability to issue rules under a statute — i.e. to frame subordinate legislation — is by its nature a limited, constrained power.
- The executive branch is subordinate to what Parliament has permitted it and cannot use its rule-making power to seek to issue primary legislation by itself.
- With the present Internet content and social media rules, the Union Government has done precisely that.
- The executive branch has created new rules that apply only to “significant social media intermediaries” — a term that appears nowhere in the Information Technology Act.
- The rules have grown to include a chapter on how digital news sites have to be registered before the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
- However, digital news service registration is not required under the IT Act and streaming video content has not been included under the ambit of the Cinematograph Act.
Consider the question “What are the challenges in the regulation of Big Tech to democracies? Suggest the measures to deal with these challenges.”
Conclusion
Instead of advancing Internet content control, India needs to advancing surveillance law reform or enacting a strong statutory data protection framework.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Road to decarbonisation
The article deals with the common threads running through the recent flash floods in Uttarakhand and the severe cold that snapped the power grid in Texas.
Time-bound net zero carbon target
- Most governments and corporates are in agreement over what needs to be done to reach the target of net-zero carbon emission target. Which include:
- Fossil fuels must be steadily but inexorably replaced by clean energy electricity should be increasingly generated from solar and wind.
- Transport should switch from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles.
- Energy demand should be conserved and more efficiently consumed.
- Technology and innovation must remain the centrepiece of all activities.
- Governments and corporates have also to agree on removing the legacy obstacles that lie on the pathway.
3 Legacy obstacles need to be removed
- Two events last month will explain better the reasons for this concern.
- A chunk of the Nanda Devi broke off and triggered flash floods downstream that then washed away or damaged several hydroelectric dams and led to the loss of hundreds of lives
- A severe cold snap crashed the electricity grid system in Texas, plunging a wide swathe of the state into darkness.
- These two events were unrelated, other than possibly by the link of climate change, but on examination of the reasons for the consequential material and human misery, they offer common insight.
1) Poorly designed planing system
- In both cases, the authorities were caught unprepared. This is despite the fact that there had been precedents.
- One reason for this lack of preparedness could be the presumption, based on historical data.
- The lesson is that whilst the past is a useful guidepost, it is an imperfect one especially in view of the spate of natural disasters across the world in recent times, and that planners should be cautious about linear extrapolations.
- Certainly, for the journey of decarbonisation, there is little of the distant past for them to hang onto.
2) Siloed and fragmented physical and regulatory oversight mechanisms
- The tragedy in Uttarakhand reflected the costs of institutional fragmentation and lack of coordination in decision making.
- The suggestions made in the aftermath of the Kedarnath flooding regarding land use and watershed management and the best means of securing an optimal balance between construction and the Himalayan ecology.
- But the suggestion had not been implemented in large part because energy is a concurrent subject and there is no one ministerial or regulatory body responsible for this domain.
- Further, these recommendations required the coming together of various non-energy ministries which, given the current vertically siloed structures of responsibility and accountability in our system, did not happen.
- The glacial burst may have been beyond anyone’s control; the consequential downstream damage was avoidable.
3) The lack of investment in energy infrastructure
- One reason why solar and wind did not pick up the power slack in Texas was because the grid was not resilient enough to absorb the surge in the flow of intermittent renewable electrons.
- India’s transmission system is not capable of managing the energy transition.
- This problem will clearly have to be addressed if decarbonisation is to proceed smoothly.
- But to do so, many issues will have to be resolved.
- Not least, how much will it cost to upgrade the infrastructure? How will it be financed?
- Who will take the lead on driving this change e?
- Questions that are easier to set out than answer.
Way forward
- To ensure that decarbonisation translates into effective action on the ground, policymakers will have to build structures that reflect the woven, multidimensional, interdependent and interconnected nature of the energy ecosystem.
- This means creating mechanisms that facilitate inter-ministerial and inter-state collaboration within the country and multilateral cooperation internationally.
Consider the question “There are legacy obstacles in the road to decarbonisation. What are these obstacles and suggest the pathway to remove these obstacles?”
Conclusion
In order to achieve the targets on carbon emission, India needs to draw on these lessons and build robust systems, regulatory mechanisms and facilitate investment in the creation of resilient energy infrastructure.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Operation Green
Mains level: Paper 3- Expanding Operation Green
The article compares the performance of Operation Flood with Operation Green and offers several lessons for the success of Operation Green.
Operation Green and its expansion
- There were three basic objectives when OG was launched.
- First, that it should contain the wide price volatility in the three largest vegetables of India (TOP).
- Second, it should build efficient value chains of these from fresh to value-added products with a view to give a larger share of the consumers’ rupee to the farmers.
- Third, it should reduce the post-harvest losses by building modern warehouses and cold storages wherever needed.
- The Union budget for the FY 2021-22 proposes the expansion of Operation Green (OG) beyond tomatoes, onions, and potatoes (TOP) to 22 perishable commodities.
- The move reflects the government’s intentions of creating more efficient value chains for perishables.
Comparing performance of OG with horticulture sector
- A closer examination of the scheme reveals that it is nowhere near achieving its objectives.
- ICRIER research reveals that price volatility remains as high as ever.
- It also reveals that farmers’ share in consumers’ rupee is as low as 26.6 per cent for potatoes, 29.1 per cent in the case of onions, and 32.4 per cent for tomatoes (see graph).
- In cooperatives like AMUL, farmers get almost 75-80 per cent of what consumers’ pay.
- Operation Flood (OF) transformed India’s milk sector, making the country the world’s largest milk producer, crossing almost 200 million tonnes of production by now.
- Although OG is going to be more challenging than OF there are some important lessons one can learn from OF.
Lessons from operation flood
- First and foremost is that results are not going to come in three to four years.
- OF lasted for almost 20 years before milk value chains were put on the track of efficiency and inclusiveness.
- There has to be a separate board to strategise and implement the OG scheme, more on the lines of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for milk.
- Second, we need a champion like Verghese Kurien to head this new board of OG.
- The MoFPI can have its evaluation every six months, but making MoFPI the nodal agency for implementing OG with faceless leaders is not very promising.
- Third, the criteria for choosing clusters for TOP crops under OG is not very transparent and clear.
- The reason is while some important districts have been left out from the list of clusters, less important ones have been included.
- What is needed is quantifiable and transparent criteria for the selection of commodity clusters, keeping politics away.
- Fourth, the subsidy scheme will have to be made innovative with new generation entrepreneurs, startups and FPOs.
- The announcement to create an additional 10,000 FPOs along with the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund and the new farm laws are all promising but need to be implemented fast.
Consider the question “What are the objectives of Operation Green? How far has Operation Green succeeded in achieving its objectives?”
Conclusion
These lessons from Operation Flood will help in securing the success of the expanded Operation Green.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Lateral entry
This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the Indian Express.
Background
- Earlier this month, the UPSC issued an advertisement seeking applications for the posts of Joint Secretary and Director in central government Departments.
- These individuals, who would make a “lateral entry” into the government secretariat, would be contracted for three to five years.
- These posts were “unreserved”, meaning were no quotas for SCs, STs and OBCs.
UPSC begins lateral entry
- The new ad is for the second round of such recruitments.
- Earlier, the government had decided to appoint experts from outside the government to positions of Joint Secretary in different Ministries/Departments and at the level of Deputy Secretary/Director in 2018.
Q.In light of the growing need for Lateral Entry in top secretarial posts, discuss the need for enhancing the professional competence of Civil Servants in India.(150W)
What is ‘Lateral Entry’ into government?
- NITI Aayog, in 2017 had recommended the induction of personnel at middle and senior management levels in the central government.
- These ‘lateral entrants’ would be part of the central secretariat which in the normal course has only career bureaucrats from the All India Services/ Central Civil Services.
What are the ranks invited for this entry?
- A Joint Secretary, appointed by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), has the third-highest rank (after Secretary and Additional Secretary) in a Department.
- It functions as the administrative head of a wing in the Department.
- Directors are a rank below that of Joint Secretary.
What is the government’s reasoning for lateral entry?
- Lateral recruitment is aimed at achieving the twin objectives of bringing in fresh talent as well as augments the availability of manpower.
- Government has, from time to time, appointed some prominent persons for specific assignments in government, keeping in view their specialised knowledge and expertise in the domain area.
- Indeed, the first ARC had pointed out the need for specialization as far back as 1965.
- The Surinder Nath Committee and the Hota Committee followed suit in 2003 and 2004, respectively, as did the second ARC.
- In 2005, the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) recommended an institutionalized, transparent process for lateral entry at both the Central and state levels.
Why is lateral entry sometimes criticised?
- Groups representing SCs, STs and OBCs have protested the fact that there is no reservation in these appointments.
- Some argue that the government is opening back doors to bring its own lobby openly.
Mentor’s comment: Why is lateral entry necessary?
For the sake of political economy
- Pushback from bureaucrats, serving and retired, and the sheer institutional inertia of civil services has existed largely unchanged for decades have prevented progress.
- The importance of economic effectiveness has risen concurrently.
- That stagnation means the civil services as they exist today—most crucially, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)—are unsuited to the country’s political economy in many ways.
- The need for having bureaucrats act as binding agents, no longer exist.
- Others, such as socioeconomic development, have transmuted to the point where the state’s methods of addressing them are coming in for a rethink.
Conclusion
- Pushback is inevitable since every smallest policy change is resisted in our country.
- It is both a workaround for the civil services’ structural failings and an antidote to the complacency that can set in a career-based service.
- The second ARC report points out that it is both possible and desirable to incorporate elements of a position-based system where lateral entry and specialization are common.
Way forward
- India’s civil services need reform. There is little argument about this.
- These are not entirely new in India.
- Domain experts have been brought in from outside the services to head various committees, advisory bodies and organizations.
- Internal reforms—such as insulation from political pressure and career paths linked to specialization—and external reforms such as lateral entry are complementary.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IAEA
Mains level: Irritants in the deal and threats posed by Iran's nuclear programme
The move by the US administration under Biden to revive the Iran nuclear deal has once again turned the spotlight on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which played a key role in enforcing the original nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew the US in 2018.
Try this question from CSP 2020:
Q.In India, why are some nuclear reactors kept under “IAEA Safeguards” while others are not?
(a) Some use Uranium and others use thorium.
(b) Some use imported uranium and others use domestic supplies.
(c) Some are operated by foreign enterprises and others are operated by domestic enterprises.
(d) Some are State- owned and others are privately-owned.
What is IAEA?
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons.
- As the preeminent nuclear watchdog under the UN, the IAEA is entrusted with the task of upholding the principles of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970.
- It was established as an autonomous organisation on July 29, 1957, at the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
- Though established independently of the UN through its own international treaty, the agency reports to both the UN General Assembly and the UNSC.
What are its safeguards?
- Safeguards are activities by which the IAEA can verify that a State is living up to its international commitments not to use nuclear programmes for nuclear-weapons purposes.
- Safeguards are based on assessments of the correctness and completeness of a State’s declared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.
- Verification measures include on-site inspections, visits, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
Basically, two sets of measures are carried out in accordance with the type of safeguards agreements in force with a State.
- One set relates to verifying State reports of declared nuclear material and activities.
- Another set enables the IAEA not only to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material but also to provide assurances as to the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in a State.
Why in news again?
- The IAEA and Iranian diplomats struck a “temporary” deal to continue inspection of Iran’s nuclear plants for three more months, which keeps at least the diplomatic path to revive the deal open.
- However, there have always been questions about the Agency’s ability to work independently, without being drawn into big power rivalries.
IAEA success: Civil nuclear solution
- The IAEA is active in championing civil nuclear solution to a number of areas like health, which is one of the main areas of peaceful application of nuclear know-how.
- That apart, in recent years, the IAEA is also active in dealing with climate change, pandemic containment and in the prevention of Zoonotic diseases.
- The IAEA was the first to announce that the North Korean nuclear programme was not peaceful.
- North Korea finally expelled IAEA observers and as a result, there are no on-the-ground international inspectors in North Korea.
- The world is reliant on ground sensors and satellite imageries to observe North Korea’s nuclear actions.
Issues with IAEA
- What the IAEA missed in terms of real authority over sovereign states, it compensated for that by cultivating some tall leadership whose actions kept the issue of non-proliferation on the multilateral table.
- It proved to be ineffective to prevent power politics from influencing nuclear negotiations.
- This was particularly visible when Pakistan pursued a nuclear weapons programme in the 1980s and despite overwhelming evidence in possession of the American authorities.
- They did not pursue the case effectively through the IAEA because of the cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan on the Afghan front.
- IAEA does not have any power to override the sovereign rights of any member nation of the UN.
- The uneven authority produced results when in the case of Iran when the Agency’s efforts were backed by big powers.
- One major criticism of the IAEA is that it never challenges the nuclear dominance of the five permanent members of the UNSC, who themselves hold some of the biggest nuclear arsenals of the world.
IAEA and India
- The IAEA-certified the nuclear power plant at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan in 2012, which drew criticism as the power plant had two incidents of leakage of nuclear material earlier that year.
- The second incident affected at least four workers who worked in the nuclear power plant and had caused concern among the scientific community.
Iran challenge
- The coming weeks will, however, test the 63-year old organisation as Iran remains suspicious of the exact intentions of the Biden administration.
- The current episode, which involves regional political concerns like Saudi-Iran and Iran-Israel rivalries as well as the American interests in the region, will certainly test the IAEA.
- It will also test the ability of the IAEA to deal with powerful states from its position of “uneven authority”.
- The main negotiation on this front is dependent on Tehran’s demand for lifting American sanctions. Iran has said its compliance will depend on the lifting of sanctions.
Future prospects
- The issues involved between Iran and the U.S. indicate that they are not part of the mandate of the IAEA.
- Iran also requires assurance that once activated, the deal will not be abandoned in future by an American President in the way that Trump had done in 2018.
- Tying all the loose ends of this difficult negotiation will be the biggest challenge for all parties.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TRIPS Agreement
Mains level: TRIPS regulations
India and South Africa have jointly moved a proposal at the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) council for a waiver to help more countries get access to medicines and vaccines during the pandemic.
Q.WTO and multilateralism is dying in the face of a greater reliance on plurilateral and bilateral trade pacts. Discuss. (250W)
What is the TRIPS Agreement?
- The TRIPS is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
- It establishes minimum standards for the regulation by national governments of different forms of intellectual property (IP) as applied to nationals of other WTO member nations.
- Its agreement was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990 and is administered by the WTO.
- The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the multilateral trading system for the first time and remains the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property to date.
Why did India move such a proposal?
- TRIPS waiver would deal with the question of equity along with global growth and livelihoods.
- It is not only that we are coming in the way of life but it is very simple economics, asserted India’s ambassador.
- For a commercial business of $30-40 billion of annual vaccine output of a few companies, we are coming in the way of $6-7 trillion of global GDP output in one year.
Premise behind it
- In 2001, developing countries, concerned that developed countries were insisting on an overly narrow reading of TRIPS, initiated a round of talks that resulted in the Doha Declaration.
- The Doha declaration is a WTO statement that clarifies the scope of TRIPS, stating for example that TRIPS can and should be interpreted in light of the goal “to promote access to medicines for all.”
Global response for the move
- Fifty-seven WTO members have backed the proposal brought out by India.
- But the EU, U.S., Japan and Canada have opposed the idea stressing the importance of intellectual property for innovation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Stockholm+50
Mains level: Progress of global climate action
Stockholm+50 is a high-level meeting that the Government of Sweden plans to hold in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the first UN conference on the human environment – the 1972 Stockholm Conference.
The 1972 Stockholm Conference
- The UN Conference on the Human Environment, also known as the Stockholm Conference, was the first UN conference on the environment and was held between 5 and 16 June 1972 in Stockholm.
- The meeting’s outcome document – the Stockholm Declaration – included several principles that are still important for environmental management.
- Another result of the meeting was the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Environment Day, held annually on 5 June.
Try this PYQ:
Q.The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international treaty drawn at:
(a) United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972
(b) UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992
(c) World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 2002
(d) UN Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, 2009
Background
- It’s been a generation since global leaders met in Stockholm in 1972 to discuss environmental challenges.
- Then the concerns were for the local environment; there was no talk of climate change or even the depletion of the ozone layer.
- All that came later. In 1972, the discussion was on the toxification of the environment as water and air were foul.
Progress for 50 years
- The toxification of the environment is still a pressing concern; countries have indeed cleaned up locally but added to the emissions in the global atmosphere.
- Now, we are out of time as climate change impacts are spiralling out of control.
Perils of Ecological Globalization
- The fact is we stitched up the global ecological framework in terms of the many agreements only.
- During this time, we also signed another agreement on free-trade — the economic globalisation agreement.
- But we never really understood how these two frameworks — ecological and economic globalisation — would counteract each other.
- As a result, we have worked to build an economic model based on discounting the price of labour and of the environment.
Expectations from Stockholm+50
- The aim of Stockholm+50 is to contribute to concrete action.
- It aims at leveraging sustainable consumption and production patterns and nature-based solutions in order to achieve climate-neutral, resilient, circular and inclusive economies.
- The narrative and result will be further developed together with interested governments and other partners.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Amazonia satellite
Mains level: Not Much
The successful launch of Brazil’s Amazonia-1 satellite by the Indian Space Research Organisation marks a new high point in space cooperation between the two countries.
Note why Amazonia-1 Satellite is distinct in itself. It paves for statement based MCQs.
Amazonia-1 Satellite
- The Amazônia-1 or SSR- is the first Earth observation satellite entirely developed by Brazil.
- It is optimized to peer at the cloud-covered region of its namesake, the Amazon forest since it has infrared capabilities that allow it to look at the forest cover regardless of the weather.
- Brazil plans to use the satellite to “alert deforestation” in the region, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said in an Amazonia 1 mission description.
Significance of the launch
- This confirms the infinite potential of the India-Brazil partnership to overcome our development challenges through high technology.
- The launch also marked the first dedicated mission of ISRO’s commercial arm NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL).
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Fifth Science Policy
The article elaborates on the various aspect of the 5th Science Policy.
Scientific publication from India and issues with it
- From the report published by the National Science Foundation of the U.S. in December 2019, India was the third-largest publisher of peer-reviewed science and engineering journal articles and conference papers, with 135,788 articles in 2018.
- This milestone was achieved through an average yearly growth rate of 10.73% from 2008, which was greater than China’s 7.81%.
- However, China and the United States had about thrice and twice the number, respectively, of India’s publications.
- Also, the publications from India are not impactful.
- From the report, in the top 1% of the most cited publications from 2016 (called HCA, or Highly Cited Articles), India’s index score of 0.7 is lower than that of the U.S., China and the European Union.
- An index score of 1 or more is considered good.
- The inference for India is that the impact, and hence the citation of publications from India, should improve.
Patents filed by India
- The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) through their Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is the primary channel of filing international patent applications.
- In its report for 2019, WIPO says India filed a modest number of 2,053 patent applications.
- Compared to the 58,990 applications filed by China and 57,840 by the U.S., India has a long way to go.
- The Indian Government put in place the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy in 2016 to “stimulate a dynamic, vibrant and balanced intellectual property rights system”.
- One of the objectives is human capital development.
- The mission to foster innovation, replicate it at scale and commercialise it is a work in progress consequent to the policy.
India’s Science Policies
- There have been four science policies till now, after 1947, with the draft of the fifth policy having been released recently.
- India’s first science policy adopted in 1958.
- It led to the establishment of many research institutes and national laboratories, and by 1980.
- The focus in the second science policy, Technology Policy Statement, in 1983, was technological self-reliance and to use technology to benefit all sections of the society.
- The Science and Technology Policy 2003, the first science policy after the economic liberalisation of 1991, aimed to increase investment in research and development and brought it to 0.7%.
- The Scientific and Engineering Research Board (SERB) was established to promote research.
- In 2013, India’s science policy included Innovation in its scope and was called Science, Technology and Innovation Policy.
- The focus was to be one of the top five global scientific leaders, which India achieved.
What 5th science policy seeks to achieve
- The draft of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020 (STIP2020) has an ambitious vision to “double the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers, Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) and private sector contribution to the GERD every 5 years” .
- It also aims to “position India among the top three scientific superpowers in the next decade”.
- It also defines strategies to improve funding for and participation in research. India’s Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is currently around 0.6% of GDP.
- This is quite low when compared to the investments by the U.S. and China which are greater than 2% and Israel’s GERD is more than 4%.
- The policy seeks to define strategies that are “decentralized, evidence-informed, bottom-up, experts-driven, and inclusive”.
Solutions to improve funding
- STIP2020 defines solutions to improve funding thus: all States to fund research, multinational corporations to participate in research, fiscal incentives and support for innovation in medium and small scale enterprises.
- The new measures should not become a pretext to absolve the Union and State governments of their primacy in funding research; the government should invest more into research.
Other critical focus areas
- 1) Other critical focal areas ar inclusion of under-represented groups of people in research.
- 2) Support for indigenous knowledge systems.
- 3) Using artificial intelligence.
- 4) Reaching out to the Indian scientific diaspora for collaboration.
- 5) Science diplomacy with partner countries.
- 6) Setting up a strategic technology development fund to give impetus to research.
Conclusion
More specific directives and implementation with a scientific temper without engaging in hyperbole will be key to the policy’s success; and its success is important to us because, as Carl Sagan said, “we can do science, and with it we can improve our lives”.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with the challenges of Big Tech
The article highlights the challenges in regulating the Big Techs.
Controlling Big Tech
- Recently, the Indian government announced a sweeping array of rules reining-in social media.
- Specifically, social media platforms are required to become “more responsible and more accountable” for the content they carry.
- India is by no means alone in taking steps to regulate at Big Tech.
- The social media companies would argue that they are self-regulating.
- The problem is that their actions are ad hoc, inconsistent and reactive
Issues
- A user can be removed from the platform if his post threatens the “unity, integrity, defence, security or Sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any foreign States”.
- In other words, the government is giving itself plenty of room to cut Big Tech down to size.
Why the issue needs government intervention: 3 arguments
1) Conflict of interest
- The government intervention rests on the presumption that it is never in the commercial interest of Big Tech to remove offensive speech.
- This is because as such content goes viral more readily, bringing in more eyeballs, more data and more advertising revenue.
- Big Tech proponents would contend that the companies are getting smarter about the risks of allowing such content on their systems and will inevitably find it in their self-interest to pre-emptively kill it.
2) State is the guardian of public interest
- A second argument in favour of government would be as follows: States are the guardians of the public interest.
- In democratic societies, governments are elected to represent the will of the people.
- So if there is a hard choice to be made about curtailing speech or permitting it, it seems only natural to turn to the public guardian.
- The counter to this theory would be that, in practice, even democratically elected governments are far from perfect.
- In fact according to The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, both India (ranked 53rd ) and the US (ranked 25th) are “flawed democracies”.
- In parallel, the argument for Big Tech to be the upholder of the public interest could rest on the theory that well-functioning markets are superior to flawed democracies in optimising social welfare.
- The counter-argument to this view would be that the tech industry is itself deeply flawed.
- There is a lack of sufficient choice of platforms; there are asymmetries in power between the companies and users and Big Tech is amassing data on the citizens and using this information for its own purposes, which makes the disparity even greater.
3) Bargaining power of BigTech
- A third perspective is to acknowledge it doesn’t matter who is the “true” upholder of the public interest.
- For all practical purposes, the outcome of the struggle between Big Government and Big Tech will be determined by relative bargaining power.
- While governments technically have the ability to take entire platforms offline within the borders of their countries, these platforms are now so enormous that their users would revolt.
- This is why we witnessed the audacity, recently, of Google and Facebook, threatening to de-platform Australia.
Consider the question “What are the challenges in the regulation of Big Techs? Suggest ways to deal with these challenges.”.
Conclusion
While governments technically have the ability to take entire platforms offline within the borders of their countries, these platforms are now so enormous that their users would revolt. This is why we witnessed the audacity, recently, of Google and Facebook, threatening to de-platform Australia.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Buddha's Mudra, Vajrayana Sect
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has unearthed a Buddhist monastery, believed to be at least 900 years old, buried under a mound in a village situated in a hilly area of Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand.
Details of the excavation
- The findings were significant since the monastery is on the old route to Varanasi, 10 km from Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon.
- Archaeologists found four statues of the deity Tara in Varad Mudra and six statues of the Buddha in bhumisparsa Mudra
- So it is a significant finding as deity Tara’s statues mean this was an important centre of the Vajrayana sect of Buddhism.
- Vajrayana is a form of Tantric Buddhism, which flourished in India from the 6th to 11th century.
Tap to read more about Buddhism at:
Chapter 5 | Mauryan Period (400BC – 200BC)
Learning: Various Mudra of Buddha
PC: Pinterest
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: E-Daakhil
Mains level: Consumer greivances redressal mechanisms
The Union Government has informed that the ‘E-Daakhil’ portal for consumer grievance redressal is now operational in 15 states and Union Territories (UTs).
Try this question from our AWE initiative:
What are the objectives sought to be achieved through The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 to regulate commercial transactions? What are the issues with the rules? 10 marks
E-Daakhil
- The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, which came into force on July 20, 2020, has a provision for e-filing of consumer complaints in the consumer commissions and online payment of the fees for filing a complaint.
- A web application for e-filing of consumer complaints named ‘edaakhil.nic.in’ has been developed by NIC for the purpose.
- E-filing was launched by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) on September 7, 2020.
- Delhi was the first state to implement it on September 8, 2020.
Features of the portal
- The E-Daakhil portal empowers the consumer and their advocates to file the consumer complaints along with payment of requisite fees online from anywhere for the redressal of their complaints.
- It facilitates the consumer commissions to scrutinise the complaints online to accept, reject or forward the complaint to the concerned commission for further processing.
- The digital software for filing consumer complaints has many features like e-notice, case document download link and virtual hearing link, filing written response by the opposite party, fling rejoinder by complainant and alerts via SMS/e-mail.
- To facilitate the rural consumers for e-filing, it has been decided to integrate the common service centres (CSC) with the E-Daakhil portal.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Krishnadevaraya
Mains level: Vijayanagara empire
The first-ever epigraphical reference to the date of death of Vijayanagara king Krishnadevaraya has been discovered in the Tumakuru district of Karnataka.
Try this question from CS Mains 2016:
Q.Krishnadevaraya, the King of Vijayanagara was not only an accomplished scholar himself, but was also a great patron of learning and literature. Discuss.
Who was Krishnadevaraya?
- Krishna Devaraya was the emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire during 1509–1529. He was the third ruler of the Tuluva Dynasty and is considered to be its greatest ruler.
- He possessed the largest empire in India after the decline of the Delhi Sultanate.
- Krishnadevaraya earned the titles Kannada Rajya Rama Ramana (lit, “Lord of the Kannada empire”), Andhra Bhoja (lit, “Andhra Bhoja(Scholar) King”) and Mooru Rayara Ganda (lit, “King of Three Kings”).
- He became the dominant ruler of the peninsula of India by defeating the Sultans of Bijapur, Golconda, the Bahmani Sultanate and the Gajapatis of Odisha, and was one of the most powerful Hindu rulers in India.
- Indeed, when the Mughal Emperor Babur was taking stock of the potentates of north India, Krishnadevaraya was rated the most powerful and had the most extensive empire in the subcontinent.
- Portuguese travellers Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz also visited the Vijayanagara Empire during his reign.
His literary work
- The rule of Krishnadevaraya was an age of prolific literature in many languages, although it is also known as a golden age of Telugu literature.
- He was fluent in many languages like Kannada, Marathi, Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil.
- Eight Telugu poets were regarded as eight pillars of his literary assembly and known as Ashtadiggajas. He himself composed an epic Telugu poem Amuktamalyada.
- He took the title of Abhinava-Bhoja and Sakala-Kala-Bhoja (“Bhoja of all the arts”) in honour of Parmara emperor Bhoja who was a polymath, a master of 64 arts and a military genius.
What does the inscription say?
- As per the inscription, Krishnadevaraya died on October 17, 1529, Sunday.
- Incidentally, this day was marked by a lunar eclipse.
- The inscription also registers the gift of village Honnenahalli in Tumakuru for conducting worship to the god Veeraprasanna Hanumantha of Tumakuru.
- The Kalahasti inscription refers to the date of Achyutaraya’s (his successor) coronation as October 21, 1529 AD.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Caracal and its IUCN status
Mains level: Species Recovery Programme of NBWL
The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) and MoEFCC last month included the caracal, a medium-sized wildcat found in parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat, in the list of critically endangered species under the Species Recovery Programme.
Caracal in India
IUCN status: Least Concerned
- The wildcat has long legs, a short face, long canine teeth, and distinctive ears — long and pointy, with tufts of black hair at their tips.
- The iconic ears are what give the animal its name — caracal comes from the Turkish karakulak, meaning ‘black ears’.
- In India, it is called siya gosh, a Persian name that translates as ‘black Ear’.
- A Sanskrit fable exists about a small wild cat named deergha-karn or ‘long-eared’.
- While it flourishes in parts of Africa, its numbers in Asia are declining.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following pairs:
Wildlife: Naturally found in
- Blue-finned Mahseer: Cauvery River
- Irrawaddy Dolphin: Chambal River
- Rusty-spotted Cat: Eastern Ghats
Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched? (CSP 2018)
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
In history and myth
- The earliest evidence of the caracal in the subcontinent comes from a fossil dating back to the civilization of the Indus Valley c. 3000-2000 BC.
- The caracal has traditionally been valued for its litheness and extraordinary ability to catch birds in flight; it was a favourite coursing or hunting animal in medieval India.
- Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1351-88) had siyah-goshdar khana, stables that housed large numbers of coursing caracal.
- It finds mention in Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama, like a hunting animal in the time of Akbar (1556-1605).
- Descriptions and illustrations of the caracal can be found in medieval texts such as the Anvar-i-Suhayli, Tutinama, Khamsa-e-Nizami, and Shahnameh.
- The East India Company’s Robert Clive is said to have been presented with a caracal after he defeated Siraj-ud-daullah in the Battle of Plassey (1757).
Back2Basics: Species Recovery Programme of NBWL
- The programme is one of the three components of the centrally funded scheme, Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH).
- Started in 2008-09, IDWH is meant for providing support to protected areas, protection of wildlife outside protected areas and recovery programmes for saving critically endangered species and habitats.
- So far, the recovery programme for critically endangered species in India now includes 22 wildlife species.
- The NBWL in 2018 has added four species- the Northern River Terrapin, Clouded Leopard, Arabian Sea Humpback Whale, Red Panda- to the list.
- Other species include the Snow Leopard, Bustard (including Floricans), Dolphin, Hangul, Nilgiri Tahr, Marine Turtles, Dugongs, Edible Nest Swiftlet, Asian Wild Buffalo, Nicobar Megapode, Manipur Brow-antlered Deer, Vultures, Malabar Civet, Indian Rhinoceros, Asiatic Lion, Swamp Deer and Jerdon’s Courser.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mannathu Padmanabhan
Mains level: Not Much
The Prime Minister has tweeted tributes to Sri Mannathu Padmanabhan on his death anniversary.
UPSC is digging deeper in the regional freedom movements to get such questions beyond our knowledge base.Try this question from CSP 2020
Q.The Vital Vidhvansak, the first monthly journal to have the untouchable people as its target audience was published by:
(a) Gopal Babu Walangkar
(b) Jyotiba Phule
(c) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(d) Bhimarao Ramji Ambedkar
Here, we know something about options b, c and d. So it is less dicey to pull the odd man out.
Mannathu Padmanabhan
- Padmanabhan was an Indian social reformer and freedom fighter from the south-western state of Kerala.
- He is recognised as the founder of the Nair Service Society (NSS), which claims to represent the Nair community that constitutes 12.10% (From KMS 2011) of the population of the state.
- He fought for social equality, the first phase being the Vaikom Satyagraha, demanding the public roads near the temple at Vaikom be opened to low caste Hindus.
- He took part in the Vaikom (1924) and Guruvayoor (1931) temple-entry Satyagrahas; the anti-untouchability agitations. He opened his family temple for everyone, irrespective of caste distinction.
- He became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1946 and took part in the agitation against Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer’s administration in Travancore.
- As the first president of the Travancore Devaswom Board, he revitalised many temples which had almost ceased to function.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Regulating social media companies
The Digital Media Code seeks to balance the priorities and interests of several stakeholders. The article explains the various aspects of the code.
Guidelines and ethics code
- The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India (MeitY) has announced the proposed Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code.
- The guidelines will cover social networks, digital media companies, and OTT platforms.
- The guidelines will also make the nation’s sovereign stance clear on matters of ethics and the protection of freedom of expression of creators, publishers, and digital platform companies.
- The guidelines and ethics code seek to balance the questions of accountability and grievance redressal that are posed by the citizens of the country.
Balancing many priorities
- The ministry’s announcement reveals an approach that is aligned with the thinking of today without imposing unreasonable boundaries on the innovation and expression.
- The guidelines are designed to carefully balance the many priorities and contexts of all stakeholders.
- With this move, India continues to deepen its position as a leader in digital policy and technological innovation.
- These guidelines have been intentionally designed so that India’s next-gen digital media innovators can propel the acceleration of value generation and inclusive empowerment of their local users.
- Global companies that have large user bases in the country can also align with a common framework that protects creators and consumers alike.
Grievance redressal mechanism
- The proposal has mechanisms that empower every social and digital media intermediary to self-enforce effective mechanisms to address complaints from users.
- With a special focus on protecting the online safety and dignity of users, especially women, the guidelines have prioritised affirmative addressal of the most serious issues that have affected India’s digital population.
- The digital platform companies are empowered to report the first originator of the grievance-causing information.
- This will ensure that liability is limited while the country’s laws can be fully and effectively enforced on the actual perpetrators.
Addressing the arbitrary censorship
- Guidelines provide users with an opportunity to be heard — a vital defence against the arbitrary censorship that several social media platforms are increasingly embracing globally.
- The need of the hour is for every country to have a body of clearly-defined policy that is consistent with the principles of their democracies.
- The country’s guidelines will ensure that unlawful information has clear boundary conditions, liability is defined, the process for enforcement of orders is transparent.
- The guidelines will also ensure that all social and digital media companies can rely on a consistent definition of the ethics code that protects all participants in the digital ecosystem.
Conclusion
This light-touch, empowering, and inclusive regulatory architecture is exactly what the country was hoping for, and India’s citizens will applaud this move as a foundational pillar towards an Atmanirbhar India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Schedule 10
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with anti-defection law
The article highlights the shortcomings of the anti-defection law and its failure in ensuring the stability of the government.
Background of anti-defection law
- The anti-defection law was included in the Constitution as the Tenth Schedule in 1985.
- The main purpose was to preserve the stability of governments and insulate them from defections of legislators from the treasury benches.
- The law stated that any Member of Parliament (MP) or that of a State legislature (MLA) would be disqualified from their office if they voted on any motion contrary to the directions issued by their party.
Issues with the anti-defection law
1) Against the concept of representative democracy
- The provisions of the anti-defection law is not limited to confidence motions or money bills.
- It applies to all votes in the House, on every Bill and every other issue.
- It even applies to the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils, which have no say in the stability of the government.
- Therefore, an MP (or MLA) has absolutely no freedom to vote their judgement on any issue.
- They have to blindly follow the direction of the party.
- This provision goes against the concept of representative democracy.
2) The act turns legislator to be an agent of the party
- There are two broadly accepted roles of a representative such as an MP.
- One is that they are agents of the voters and are expected to vote according to the wishes and for the benefits of their constituents.
- The other is that their duty to their constituents is to exercise their judgement on various issues towards the broader public interest.
- In this, they deliberate with other MPs and find a reasonable way through complex issues.
- The anti-defection law makes the MP neither a delegate of the constituency nor a national legislator but converts them to be just an agent of the party.
3) Broken chain
- The legislator is accountable to voters, and the government is accountable to legislators.
- In India, this chain of accountability has been broken by making legislators accountable primarily to the party.
- This means that anyone from the party having a majority in the legislature is unable to hold the government to account.
- This negates the concept of them having to justify their positions on various issues to the people who elected them to the post.
4) No incentive for MPs to understand policy choices
- If an MP has no freedom to take decisions on policy and legislative proposals, there would be no incentive to put in the effort to understand the different policy choices and their outcomes.
- The MP becomes just another number to be tallied by the party on any vote that it supports or opposes.
5) Weakening of the accountability mechanism
- While introducing the draft Constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar said that the presidential form (such as in the United States) had higher stability but lower accountability.
- This is because the President is elected for four years, and cannot be removed except for proven misdemeanour.
- In the parliamentary form, the government is accountable on a daily basis through questions and motions and can be removed any time it loses the support of the majority of members of the Lok Sabha.
- The drafting committee believed that India needed a government that was accountable, even at the cost of stability.
- The anti-defection bill weakens the accountability mechanism.
6) The act fails to provide stability
- The political system has found ways to topple governments by reducing the total membership through resignations.
- In other instances, the Speaker — usually from the ruling party — has delayed taking a decision on the disqualification.
- The Supreme Court has tried to plug this by ruling that the Speaker has to take the decision in three months, but it is not clear what would happen if a Speaker does not do so.
- The premise that the anti-defection law is needed to punish legislators who betray the mandate given by the voters also seems to be flawed.
- We have seen many of the defectors in States such as Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh being re-elected in the by-polls, which were held due to their disqualification.
Way forward
- The problem arises from the attempt to find a legal solution to what is essentially a political problem.
- If stability of government is an issue due to people defecting from their parties, the answer is for parties to strengthen their internal systems.
- If parties attract members on the basis of ideology, and they have systems for people to rise within the party hierarchy on their capabilities rather than inheritance, there would be a greater exit barrier.
Consider the question “How far has the anti-defection law succeeded in preventing the destabilisation of the governments? Give reasons in support of your argument.”
Conclusion
The anti-defection law has been detrimental to the functioning of our legislatures as deliberative bodies which hold the executive to account on behalf of citizens. It has turned them into fora to endorse the decision of the government on Bills and budgets. And it has not even done the job of preserving the stability of governments. The Tenth Schedule to the Constitution must be repealed.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Regulation of social media
The article examines the issues with Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Change in the immunity for social media platforms
- With the social media platforms amassing tremendous power, the Government of India and has over time sought to devise a core framework to governs social media.
- This framework known as the “intermediary liability” has been made legally through Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
- This framework has been supplemented by operational rules, and the Supreme Court judgment in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India.
- All this legalese essentially provides large technology companies immunity for the content that is transmitted and stored by them.
- Recently, the Government of India announced drastic changes to it through the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Issues with the Rules
1) Privacy concern
- The regulations do contain some features that bring accountability to social media platforms.
- For instance, they require that prior to a content takedown, a user should be provided adequate notice.
- However, there are several provisions in the rules that raise privacy concerns.
- Take traceability, where instant messaging platforms which deploy end-to-end encryption that helps keep our conversations private will now effectively be broken.
- This is because now the government may require that each message sent through WhatsApp or any other similar application be tied to the identity of the user.
- When put in the larger context of an environment that is rife with cybersecurity threats, an inconsistent rule of law and the absence of any surveillance oversight, this inspires fear and self-censorship among users.
- The core of the traceability requirement undermines the core value of private conversations.
2) Regulation without clear legal backing
- The rules seek to regulate digital news media portals as well as online video streaming platforms.
- Rules will perform functions similar to those played by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for TV regulation.
- For instance, as per Rule 13(4), this also now includes powers of censorship such as apology scrolls, but also blocking of content.
- All of this is being planned to be done without any legislative backing or a clear law made by Parliament.
- A similar problem exists with digital news media portals.
- The purview of the Information Technology Act, 2000, is limited.
- It only extends to the blocking of websites and intermediary liabilities framework, but does not extend to content authors and creators.
- Hence, the Act does not extend to news media despite which it is being stretched to do so by executive fiat.
- The oversight function will be played by a body that is not an autonomous regulator but one composed of high ranking bureaucrats.
- This provides for the discretionary exercise of government powers of censorship over these sectors.
Way forward
- This could have ideally been achieved through more deliberative, parliamentary processes and by examining bodies in other democracies, which face similar challenges.
- For instance, OFCOM, a regulator in the United Kingdom, has been studying and enforcing regulations that promise higher levels of protection for citizens’ rights and consistency in enforcement.
- Instead, the present formulation increases government control that suffers from legality and core design faults.
- It will only increase political control.
Consider the question “What is the purpose of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and what are the concerns with these rules?”
Conclusion
While every internet user in India needs oversight and accountability from big tech, it should not be at the cost of increasing political control, chilling our voices online and hurting individual privacy.
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