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Distribution: weekly

  • International Criminal Court (ICC)

    The U.S. has announced sanctions including asset freezes and visa bans against two officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

    International Criminal Court

    • The ICC is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The Hague, Netherlands.
    • It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
    • It is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals.
    • The ICC lacks universal territorial jurisdiction, and may only investigate and prosecute crimes committed within member states, crimes committed by nationals of member states, or crimes in situations referred to the Court by the UNSC.

    Issues with ICC

    The ICC has faced a number of criticisms from states and society, including objections about-

    • its jurisdiction, accusations of bias, questioning of the fairness of its case-selection and trial procedures, and doubts about its effectiveness

    Implications of US sanction

    • The US action is perceived as a setback to the international rules-based multilateral order, and the decision to sanction anybody assisting the ICC will deter victims of violence in Afghanistan from speaking out.
    • The unilateral sanctions would encourage other regimes accused of war crimes to flout the ICC’s rulings.

    B2BASICS

  • Assam Rifles and the tussle between MoD and MHA

    The Delhi High Court has granted 12 weeks to the Union government to decide on whether to scrap or retain the dual control structure for Assam Rifles. Presently it comes under both the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

    What is the Assam Rifles?

    • Assam Rifles is one of the six central armed police forces (CAPFs) under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
    • The other forces being the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
    • It is tasked with the maintenance of law and order in the North East along with the Indian Army and also guards the Indo-Myanmar border in the region.
    • It has a sanctioned strength of over 63,000 personnel and has 46 battalions apart from administrative and training staff.

    Making of the regiment

    • Assam Rifles is the oldest paramilitary force raised way back in 1835 in British India with just 750 men.
    • Since then it has gone on to fight in two World Wars, the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and used as an anti-insurgency force against militant groups in the North East.
    • Raised as a militia to protect British tea estates and its settlements from the raids of the NE tribes, the force was first known as Cachar Levy.
    • It was reorganized later as Assam Frontier Force as its role was expanded to conduct punitive operations beyond Assam borders.

    How is it unique?

    • It is the only paramilitary force with a dual control structure. While the administrative control of the force is with the MHA, its operational control is with the Indian Army, which is under the MoD.
    • This means that salaries and infrastructure for the force is provided by the MHA, but the deployment, posting, transfer and deputation of the personnel is decided by the Army.
    • All its senior ranks, from DG to IG and sector headquarters, are manned by officers from the Army. The force is commanded by Lt. General from the Indian Army.
    • The force is the only central paramilitary force (CPMF) in a real sense as its operational duties and regimentation are on the lines of the Indian Army.
    • However, its recruitment, perks, promotion of its personnel and retirement policies are governed according to the rules framed by the MHA for CAPFs.

    Why do both MHA and MoD want full control?

    • MHA has argued that all the border guarding forces are under the operational control of the ministry and so Assam Rifles coming under MHA will give border guarding a comprehensive and integrated approach.
    • MHA sources also say that Assam Rifles continues to function on the pattern set during the 1960s and the ministry would want to make guarding of the Indo-Myanmar border on the lines of other CAPFs.
    • The Army, for its part, has been arguing that there is no need to fix what isn’t broken.
    • Sources say the Army is of the opinion that the Assam Rifles has worked well in coordination with the Army and frees up the armed forces from many of its responsibilities to focus on its core strengths.
    • It has argued that giving the control of the force to MHA or merging it with any other CAPF will confuse the force and jeopardize national security.

  • Reforming tax system

    The article discusses two recent measures announced by the government to bring in the transparency in the tax system.

    Issue of lower tax collection and way out

    • An economic contraction this year will severely impact tax collections.
    • Changing tax rates or the tax base in response is difficult and a hurried approach can have wider consequences.
    • So, the only tool available is to urge voluntary compliance.
    • Compliance is achieved through a fine balance between enforcement and encouragement.
    • Despite enforcement-driven measures in the past the taxpaying population has remained at only 6 per cent.
    • Thus, the only way to boost collections is to build trust between the administration and the taxpayer.

    Relation between complexity of system and compliance

    • A taxpayer has to interact with the tax system at numerous instances.
    • While interacting, if the taxpayer perceives the system to be complex, such perception affects compliance.
    • Perceived complexity can discourage individuals from filing returns.
    • This could reflect simply in the difference between the number of taxpayers and the returns filed: which is around 20 million.
    • Such behaviour is bound to impact tax collection.

    Recent government measures to bring transparency

    1) New taxpayer’s charter with some new features

    • The charter is a document that lists a taxpayer’s rights and obligations.
    • A taxpayer’s charter is often perceived as a means to build taxpayer’s trust.
    • The rights and obligations mentioned in India’s new charter are in line with global practices.
    • There are 3 interesting additions in the new charter: 1) commitment to reducing compliance costs 2) holding its authorities accountable 3) publishing a periodic report of service standards.
    • A tax ombudsman can ensure that some of these standards are met, however, in 2019, the cabinet approved the abolition of the quasi-judicial post.

    2) Faceless assessment

    • This relates to the frequent complaint of taxpayers about corruption and delay.
    • To end personal interface, e-assessment was introduced in 2019.
    • Developing this idea further, faceless assessment now seeks to further automate the case selection and the distribution function of the assessing officer.
    • The intent is to divest and distribute the functions of a single assessing officer so that assessment is carried out in a fair manner.

    Consider the question “What are the factors responsible for low tax compliance in India? What are the steps taken by the government to increase compliance?

    Conclusion

    If the commitment to a fair and impartial system and a time-bound resolution of matters is to be met, the new processes, with reviews and anonymity, must ensure efficiency in case selection and consistency in assessment.

  • Priority Sector Lending (PSL)

    The RBI has released a revised priority sector lending guidelines to augment funding to segments including start-ups and agriculture.

    New Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines

    • Bank finance of up to ₹50 crores to start-ups, loans to farmers both for installation of solar power plants for Solarization of grid-connected agriculture pumps and for setting up compressed biogas (CBG) plants have been included as fresh categories eligible for finance under the priority sector.
    • This has come to align it with emerging national priorities and bring a sharper focus on inclusive development, after having wide-ranging discussions with all stakeholders.
    • It will enable better credit penetration to credit deficient areas, increase the lending to small and marginal farmers and weaker sections, boost credit to renewable energy, and health infrastructure
    • The targets prescribed for ‘small and marginal farmers’ and ‘weaker sections’ are being increased in a phased manner.
    • Higher credit limit has been specified for farmer producer organisations (FPOs)/farmers producers companies (FPCs) undertaking farming with assured marketing of their produce at a pre-determined price.

    Back2Basics: Priority Sector Lending

    • PSL is an important role given by the (RBI) to the banks for providing a specified portion of the bank lending to few specific sectors like agriculture and allied activities, micro and small enterprises, poor people for housing, students for education and other low-income groups and weaker sections.
    • This is essentially meant for an all-round development of the economy as opposed to focusing only on the financial sector.
    • The broad categories of priority sector for all scheduled commercial banks are as under:
    1. Agriculture and Allied Activities (Direct and Indirect finance)
    2. Small Scale Industries (Direct and Indirect Finance)
    3. Small Business / Service Enterprises
    4. Micro Credit
    5. Education loans
    6. Housing loans

  • What is Project Dolphin?

    In his Independence Day Speech this year, PM has announced the government’s plan to launch a Project Dolphin. The proposed project is aimed at saving both river and marine dolphins.

    Project Dolphin

    • The Project will be on the lines of Project Tiger, which has helped increase the tiger population.
    • So far, the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), which implements the government’s flagship scheme Namami Gange, has been taking some initiatives for saving dolphins.
    • Now, Project Dolphin is expected to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

    About Gangetic Dolphin

    • The Gangetic river system is home to a vast variety of aquatic life, including the Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica).
    • It is one of five species of river dolphin found around the world.
    • It is found mainly in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems.
    • An adult dolphin could weigh between 70 kg and 90 kg. The breeding season of the Gangetic dolphin extends from January to June.
    • They feed on several species of fishes, invertebrates etc.

    Why is it important to save dolphins?

    • The construction of dams and barrages and increasing pollution has led to a decline in the population of aquatic animals in the rivers in general and of dolphins in particular.
    • Aquatic life is an indicator of the health of river ecosystems.
    • As the Gangetic dolphin is at the top of the food chain, protecting the species and its habitat will ensure

    Aquatic life as an indicator of the health of a river system

    • Globally, there have been such examples. For instance, the Rhine Action Plan (1987) of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR) brought back the salmon.
    • The return of the migratory fish is taken as an indicator of the river’s improved health.
    • Salmon used to migrate from the North Sea to the Rhine every year and reproduce, but this stopped when pollution increased in the river.
    • After a chemical accident in 1986 that caused the death of fish and microorganisms, the Action Plan was launched.
    • This led to an improvement in the quality of the river water, and the salmons began to return.

    What has been done to save Gangetic dolphins so far?

    • Although efforts to save them were started in the mid-1980s, the estimates suggest the numbers have not risen as a result.
    • The Gangetic dolphin remains listed as Endangered by the IUCN.
    • After the launch of Ganga Action Plan in 1985, the government on November 24, 1986, included Gangetic dolphins in the First Schedule of the Indian Wildlife (Protection), Act 1972.
    • This was aimed at checking hunting and providing conservation facilities such as wildlife sanctuaries. For instance, Vikramshila Ganges Dolphin Sanctuary was established in Bihar under this Act.

    Conservation so far

    • The government has prepared The Conservation Action Plan for the Ganges River Dolphin 2010-2020.
    • It identified threats to Gangetic Dolphins and impact of river traffic, irrigation canals and depletion of prey-base on Dolphins populations.
    • On October 5, 2009, the then PM declared the Gangetic river dolphin as the national aquatic animal.
    • A notification was issued by the MoEFCC the following year. Now, the National Mission for Clean Ganga celebrates October 5 as National Ganga River Dolphin Day.

  • [Burning Issue] Rolling-out of National Digital Health Mission

    The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) announced by the PM on the 74th Independence Day has the potential to transform the healthcare sector, making it more technologically advanced, inclusive and delivery-driven.

    Digitizing Healthcare: A Backgrounder

    • The National Health Policy 2017 had envisaged creation of a digital health technology eco-system aiming at developing an integrated health information system.
    • A Digital Health ID was proposed to reduce the risk of preventable medical errors and significantly increase the quality of care.
    • In the context of this, the NITI Aayog, in June 2018, floated a consultation of a digital backbone for India’s health system — National Health Stack (NHS).
    • A committee headed by former Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman released the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) in July 2019.
    • It recognised the need to establish a specialised ecosystem, called the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) which finally landed on the tarmac on this Independence Day.

    The National Digital Health Mission

    • The NDHM is a digital health ecosystem under which every Indian citizen will now have unique health IDs, digitized health records with identifiers for doctors and health facilities.
    • The mission will significantly improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of health service delivery and will be a major step towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.8 of Universal Health Coverage, including financial risk protection.

    Components of the mission

    The suite of digital systems consists of Health ID, DigiDoctor, Health Facility Registry (HFR), Personal Health Records, e-Pharmacy, and Telemedicine.

    The mission envisages the creation of these core digital systems which are built to support timely access to safe, affordable healthcare for all citizens and will accelerate the country’s progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

    Unique features

    The mission has unique features which make it very attractive for all the stakeholders to be part of the system, some of which are as follows:

    Expected benefits

    (1) Prioritizing patients

    • Say, mortality from Covid-19 is significantly increased by comorbidities or the presence of other underlying conditions like hypertension or diabetes.
    • With digital health records, doctors can prioritise patients based on their test results.

    (2) Portability of health records

    • Portability of records fairly eases in a patient with the first hospital visit, or her/his most frequently visited hospital.
    • If she/he wishes to change a healthcare provider for cost or quality reasons, she can access her health records without carrying pieces of paper — prescriptions and test reports.
    • People will able to access their lab reports, x-rays and prescriptions irrespective of where they were generated, and share them with doctors or family members — with consent.

    (3) Easy facilitation

    • This initiative will allow patients to access healthcare facilities remotely through e-pharmacies, online appointments, teleconsultation, and other health benefits.
    • Besides, as all the medical history of the patient is recorded in the Health ID card, it will help the doctor to understand the case better, and improved medication can be offered.
    • It is non-prescriptive — unlike its predecessor from a few years ago, it steers away from designing a monolithic EMR (an electronic medical record) and instead only provides data facilitation exchange between patients, providers and payers.

    (4) Technology impetus in policymaking

    • Meanwhile, it is also not just individuals who could emerge beneficiaries of the scheme.
    • With large swathes of data being made available, the government too can form policies based on geographical, demographical, and risk-factor based monitoring of health.

    Various Issues

    The imminent adoption of NDHM in the absence of a data protection law has led for the policymakers to plan for two policies — security of health systems, and privacy of personal health records.

    With the unavailability of information security laws related to healthcare in India, the following could be the repercussions or could lead to violation of the mandatory requirements:

    (1) High Probability of Data Breach:

    The data breach occurs when any person or corporate generates, collects, stores, transmits or discloses digital health information in contravention to the provisions or standards laid down.

    (2) Data Ownership and Standardization Issues:

     An owner shall have the right to give/refuse or withdraw consent for the storage and transmission of digital health data. In terms of standardization, it is very important to transform the data before loading it to the target system.

    (3) Data Normalization Issues:

    Data Normalization is done to reduce data redundancy and improve data integrity. In view of the unavailability of such laws, it could bring redundancy as data could exist in multiple forms.

    (4) Data Collection, Storage and Transmission Challenges:

    The purpose of data generation, collection, storage and transmission is to facilitate health and clinical research and health care quality. But the unavailability of data protection and information security laws (for maintaining CIA- confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) could lead to the collection of data without informing the owner, lack of privacy controls while storing in the cloud and transmitting the data without the consent of the owner.

    (5) Illegal data selling and theft: Unavailability of appropriate laws could lead to incidents where digital health data is acquired or accessed without proper authorization. For example, monetizing the patient data for the purpose of research and innovation may also be misused by its illegal selling without the knowledge of the patient, thereby, leaking his sensitive data amounting to the violation of data privacy.

    (6) Data Quality Issues- There could be the following data quality issues that can be encountered without the proper laws in place:

    • Duplicated data: Repeated data making it difficult to uniquely identify the record;
    • Inconsistent data formats: Storing the same data in multiple tables from different data sources;
    • Inaccurate data: Either the data is obsolete or has errors in it;
    • Excessive data: Unusable data could be a waste of storage and cost;
    • Poorly Defined data: Causes misunderstanding around the proper methodology for data management.

    India has not yet enacted specific and full-fledged legislation on data protection. Of course, the Parliament of India had amended the Information Technology Act (2000) (“IT Act”) to include specific section 43A, but it only includes corporates and not individuals regarding compensation for failure to protect data.

    Other inherent issues

    • A fragmented private healthcare market consisting of single-doctor clinics, nursing homes, non-profits and corporate hospitals have varying adoption rates of digitization.
    • Corporate hospitals like Max, Apollo, Fortis, etc. have voluntarily adopted electronic health records standards notified by the government.
    • However, it is not possible for a patient to digitally transfer their health records from one type of hospital or a healthcare provider to another.
    • Critical to that is also the role of doctors, who will play a significant role in maintaining electronic digital data.
    • The growth path is powered by clinicians and we haven’t really been successful in filling the void.
    • India currently has 0.8 doctors per 1,000 patients, in comparison to over 2 per 1,000 in China and 2.6 in the US. The WHO recommends 1 doctor to 1,000 patients.

    Making it happen

    Many countries are lightyears ahead of India in their use of digital health records, but none has anchored its vision as robustly around the public health records, as has the current iteration of the NDHM.

    Making it a success will have to fill the voids discuss above.

    To enable seamless data exchange, all users must be incentivized or mandated to adopt a standard language of communication.  The spiraling burden for documentation had led to absurd situations. It is imperative that India, while embracing global standards, seriously rethinks what to document, when, why, and most importantly, by whom.

    Conclusion

    There is no doubt that NDHM launched will significantly improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of health services delivery including building a paperless system and will facilitate online consultation with the doctors. But data protection and privacy are the keys to the success of this mission.

    The usual conclusion rests with a generic statement-

    “These tectonic shifts won’t all happen all of sudden. Or within the cyclical tenure of bureaucrats or politicians. And they won’t occur in the absence of the long-overdue overhaul of healthcare delivery in India. But when they do, they will advance medicine and health for all.”

     

    References

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/mains/how-the-proposed-national-digital-health-mission-could-transform-health-system-in-india-what-are-the-concerns-with-it-10-marks/

    http://www.mondaq.com/india/healthcare/980800/national-digital-health-mission-harnessing-technology-to-strengthen-healthcare-in-india

    https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/08/15/explained-what-is-the-national-digital-health-mission-how-does-a-health-id-card-help.html

  • New Official Languages in J&K

    The Union Cabinet has approved a Bill to introduce Hindi, Kashmiri and Dogri as official languages in Jammu and Kashmir, in addition to Urdu and English. As of now, the official language is Urdu and Kashmiri is recognised as a regional language.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Consider the following languages:

    1. Gujarati
    2. Kannada
    3. Telugu

    Which of the above has/have been declared as ‘Classical Language/ Languages’ by the Government?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 2 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Languages in J&K

    • In the undivided Jammu and Kashmir state, various ethnicities spoke Kashmiri, Pahari, Gojri, Ladakhi, Dogri, Balti and Punjabi as their mother tongues.
    • Urdu and Hindi had become a means for inter-community communication.
    • In 1889, Maharaja Pratap Singh, the third ruler of the Hindu Dogra dynasty, replaced Persian with Urdu as the court language.
    • It was an anomaly that the three languages — Dogri, Hindi and Kashmiri — which are spoken by nearly 70 per cent of the population of Jammu and Kashmir were not approved for use in official business.

    Official languages in India

    • Article 343 of the Indian constitution stated that the official language of the Union is Hindi in Devanagari script instead of the extant English.
    • Later, a constitutional amendment, The Official Languages Act, 1963, allowed for the continuation of English alongside Hindi in the Indian government indefinitely until legislation decides to change it.
    • The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union is “the international form of Indian numerals”, which are referred to as Arabic numerals in most English-speaking countries.
    • Despite the misconceptions, Hindi is not the national language of India; the Constitution of India does not give any language the status of the national language.
    • The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given recognition, status and official encouragement.

    Other classical languages

    • In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language to Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu.
    • Classical language status is given to languages which have a rich heritage and independent nature.

  • Black Holes Merger

    Billions of years ago, a collision between two black holes sent gravitational waves rippling through the universe. In 2019, signals from these waves were detected at the gravitational wave observatory LIGO (United States) and the detector Virgo (Italy).

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Recently, scientists observed the merger of giant ‘blackholes’ billions of light-years away from the Earth. What is the significance of this observation?

    (a) ‘Higgs boson particles’ were detected.

    (b) ‘Gravitational waves’ were detected.

    (c) Possibility of inter-galactic space travel through ‘wormhole’ was confirmed.

    (d) It enabled the scientists to understand ‘singularity’.

    Why in news?

    • The cause of curiosity is the mass of one of the parent black holes, which defies traditional knowledge of how black holes are formed.

    What exactly was detected?

    • It was a signal from a gravitational wave, a relatively new field of discovery.
    • Gravitational waves are invisible ripples that form when a star explodes in a supernova; when two big stars orbit each other; and when two black holes merge.
    • Travelling at the speed of light, gravitational waves squeeze and stretch anything in their path.

    Detecting gravitational waves

    • Gravitational waves were proposed by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity over a century ago.
    • It was only in 2015, however, that the first gravitational wave was actually detected — by LIGO. Since then, there have been a number of subsequent detections of gravitational waves.
    • The signal detected at LIGO and Virgo, as described by the LIGO Collaboration, resembled “about four short wiggles” and lasted less than one-tenth of a second.

    Where did it come from?

    • Subsequent analysis suggested that GW190521 had most likely been generated by a merger of two black holes. The signal likely represented the instance that the two merged.
    • It was calculated to have come from roughly 17 billion light-years away, and from a time when the universe was about half its age.

    Some questions to verify

    • The findings led to further questions.
    • One of the two merging black holes falls in an “intermediate-mass” range — a misfit that cannot be explained by traditional knowledge of how black holes form.

    Why is it unusual?

    • All the black holes observed so far belong to either of two categories.
    • One category ranges between a few solar masses (one solar mass is the mass of our Sun) and tens of solar masses. These are thought to form when massive stars die.
    • The other category is of supermassive black holes. This range from hundreds of thousands, to billions of times that of our sun.
    • According to traditional knowledge, stars that could give birth to black holes between 65 and 120 solar masses do not do so — stars in this range blow themselves apart when they die, without collapsing into a black hole.

    Observing for the first time

    • In the merger leading to the GW190521 signal, the larger black hole was of 85 solar masses —well within this unexpected range, known as the pair-instability mass gap.
    • It is the first “intermediate-mass” black hole ever observed. (In fact, the smaller black hole to is borderline, at 66 solar masses.)
    • The two merged to create a new black hole of about 142 solar masses. Energy equivalent to eight solar masses was released in the form of gravitational waves, leading to the strongest ever wave detected by scientists so far.

    Possible reasons for its formation

    • The researchers suggest that the 85-solar-mass black hole was not the product of a collapsing star, but was itself the result of a previous merger.
    • Formed by a collision between two black holes, it is likely that the new black hole then merged with the 66-solar-mass black hole — leading to gravitational waves and the signal received by LIGO and Virgo.

  • [pib] Global Innovation Index 2020

    India has climbed 4 spots and has been ranked 48thby the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the Global Innovation Index 2020 rankings.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2016:

    Q.India’s ranking in the ‘Ease of Doing Business Index’ is sometimes seen in the news. Which of the following has declared that ranking?

    a) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

    b) World Economic Forum

    c) World Bank

    d) World Trade Organization (WTO)

    About the Global Innovation Index

    • The GII is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and World Business a British magazine.
    • It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the WIPO, in partnership with other organisations and institutions.
    • It is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
    • The GII is commonly used by corporate and government officials to compare countries by their level of innovation.
    • The theme of the 2019 GII is Creating Healthy Lives – The Future of Medical Innovation, which aims to explore the role of medical innovation as it shapes the future of healthcare.

    Components of GII

    Five input pillars capture elements of the national economy that enable innovative activities under GII are:

    1. Institutions,
    2. Human capital and research,
    3. Infrastructure,
    4. Market sophistication, and
    5. Business sophistication.

    Two output pillars capture actual evidence of innovation outputs:

    1. Knowledge and technology outputs and
    2. Creative outputs

    India’s performance this year

    • In midst of the COVID -19 pandemic, it comes as uplifting news for India and is a testament of its robust R&D Ecosystem.
    • India was at the 52nd position in 2019 and was ranked 81st in the year 2015.
    • The WIPO had also accepted India as one of the leading innovation achievers of 2019 in the central and southern Asian region, as it has shown a consistent improvement in its innovation ranking for the last 5 years.

  • Issues with the Gopalakrishnan Committee Report

    The article highlights the importance of non-personal data collected by the government and lack of any reference to it in the Gopalakrishnan Committee report.

    Background

    • The Committee of Experts on the Non-Personal Data Governance Framework headed by K Gopalakrishnan has recommended making privately held non-personal data “open”.
    •  This has raised concerns about state interference in the private data ecoystem.

    Importance of data collected by government agencies

    • The report is a missed opportunity to address the governance frameworks around data created by government agencies.
    • Some of the most important non-personal data sets are held by the government, or result from taxpayer funding.
    • Such data can be useful in either framing public policy or creating and providing new services.

    Why government data should be open to citizens: 5 Reasons

    • First, the state should be transparent about information that it has. This will improve accountability.
    • Second, if taxpayer money has funded any of the data sets, then it is an obligation of the state to return the fruits of that funding to the taxpayer.
    • Third, by permitting the reuse of government data sets, we avoid the need for duplication.
    • Fourth, government data sets, curated according to publicly verified standards, can lead to increased confidence in data quality and increased usage.
    • Finally, free flow of information can have beneficial effects on society in general.

    Government policies promoting openness of data

    • The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, mandates the disclosure of government data on a suo moto basis.
    • One of the nine pillars of the Digital India Policy is “information for all”.
    • The National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP), 2012 requires all non-sensitive information held by public authorities to be made publicly accessible in machine readable formats (subject to conditions).
    • The government has also set up an Open Government Data Platform to provide open access to data sets held by ministries and other agencies of the government.
    • Various States have also either created their own data portals or have provided data sets to the Open Government Data Platform.

    Challenges in making the data open to society

    • There are two reasons for our failure to create an open data-based society.
    • The first is lack of clarity in some of the provisions of the NDSAP or the relevant implementation guidelines.
    • The second is the inability to enforce guidelines appropriately.
    • Data sets released by governments are often inconsistent, incomplete, outdated, published in non-machine readable or inconsistent formats, include duplicates, and lack quality (or any) metadata, thereby reducing re-usability.

    Issues with Gopalakrishnana Committee Report

    • The Gopalakrishnan Committee could have evaluated what is going wrong with existing policies and practice pertaining to government data.
    • The report is a missed opportunity to address the governance frameworks around non-personal data sets in a country created by government agencies, or those resulting from taxpayer money.
    • The report largely focuses on the dangers posed by data collection by private sector entities.
    • This has raised concerns about state interference in the private data ecoystem.
    • Many of the concerns that should be addressed in the report that are central to the governance of the data ecosystem have remained in the background.
    • For instance, India’s cybersecurity framework continues to be inadequate, while even the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee report of 2018 highlighted the need to restrict the growing power of the state to carry out surveillance.

    Consider the question “What are the key recommendation made by the Gopalakrishnan Committee for the regulation of non-personal data? What are the shortcomings in of the report in your opinion?”

    Conclusion

    Since data governance is a relatively new concept in India, the government would be better served in taking an incremental approach to any perceived problems. This should begin with reforming how the government itself deals with citizens’ data.