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  • Why the Personal Data Protection Bill matters

    The existing data protection framework based on IT Act 2000 falls short on several counts. The Personal Data Protection Bill seeks to deal with the shortcoming in it. The article explains how the two differs.

    Need for new data protection regime

    • The need for a more robust data protection legislation came to the fore in 2017 post the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) v. Union of India.
    • In the judgment, the Court called for a data protection law that can effectively protect users’ privacy over their personal data.
    • Consequently, the Committee of Experts was formed under the Chairmanship of Justice (Retd) B.N. Srikrishna to suggest a draft data protection law.
    • The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, in its current form, is a revised version of the draft legislative document proposed by the Committee.

    Issues with the existing data protection framework

    • The Information Technology Act, 2000 governs how different entities collect and process users’ personal data in India.
    • However, entities could override the protections in the regime by taking users’ consent to processing personal data under broad terms and conditions.
    • This is problematic given that users might not understand the terms and conditions or the implications of giving consent.
    •  Further, the frameworks emphasise data security but do not place enough emphasis on data privacy.
    • As a result, entities could use the data for purposes different to those that the user consented to.
    •  The data protection provisions under the IT Act also do not apply to government agencies.
    • Finally, the regime seems to have become antiquated and inadequate in addressing risks emerging from new developments in data processing technology.

    How the new regime under Data Protection Bill 2019 is different

    • First, the Bill seeks to apply the data protection regime to both government and private entities across all sectors.
    • Second, the Bill seeks to emphasise data security and data privacy.
    • While entities will have to maintain security safeguards to protect personal data, they will also have to fulfill a set of data protection obligations and transparency and accountability measures.
    • Third, the Bill seeks to give users a set of rights over their personal data and means to exercise those rights.
    • Fourth, the Bill seeks to create an independent and powerful regulator known as the Data Protection Authority (DPA).
    • The DPA will monitor and regulate data processing activities to ensure their compliance with the regime.

    Concerns

    • Under clause 35, the Central government can exempt any government agency from complying with the Bill.
    • Similarly, users could find it difficult to enforce various user protection safeguards (such as rights and remedies) in the Bill.
    • For instance, the Bill threatens legal consequences for users who withdraw their consent for a data processing activity.
    • Additional concerns also emerge for the DPA as an independent effective regulator that can uphold users’ interests.

    Consider the question “What are the issues with the present framework in India for data and privacy protection? How the Personal Data Protection Bill seeks to address these issues?”

    Conclusion

    The Joint Parliamentary Committee that is scrutinising the Bill is expected to submit its final report in the Monsoon Session of Parliament in 2021 Taking this time to make some changes in the Bill targeted towards addressing various concerns in it could make a stronger and more effective data protection regime.

  • Person in news: Jyotirao Phule (1827 –1890)

    The Prime Minister has paid tribute to the great social reformer, thinker, philosopher and writer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule on his birth anniversary.

    Mahatma Phule

    • Jotirao Govindrao Phule was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra.
    • His work extended to many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system and for his efforts in educating women and exploited caste people.
    • He and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were pioneers of women’s education in India. Phule started his first school for girls in 1848 in Pune at Tatyasaheb Bhide’s residence or Bhidewada.
    • He, along with his followers, formed the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society of Truth Seekers) to attain equal rights for people from exploited castes.
    • People from all religions and castes could become a part of this association which worked for the upliftment of the oppressed classes.
    • Phule is regarded as an important figure in the social reform movement in Maharashtra. He was bestowed with an honorific Mahātmā title by Maharashtrian social activist Vithalrao Krishnaji Vandekar in 1888.

    His social work

    Phule’s social activism included many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system, education of women and the Dalits, and welfare of downtrodden women.

    1. Education
    • In 1848, aged 21, Phule visited a girls’ school in Ahmadnagar, run by Christian missionaries.
    • He realized that exploited castes and women were at a disadvantage in Indian society, and also that education of these sections was vital to their emancipation
    • Phule first taught reading and writing to his wife, Savitribai, and then the couple started the first indigenously run school for girls in Pune.
    • The conservative upper caste society of Pune didn’t approve of his work. But many Indians and Europeans helped him generously.
    1. Women’s welfare
    • Phule watched how untouchables were not permitted to pollute anyone with their shadows and that they had to attach a broom to their backs to wipe the path on which they had travelled.
    • He saw young widows shaving their heads, refraining from any sort of joy in their life. He saw how untouchable women had been forced to dance naked.
    • He made the decision to educate women by witnessing all these social evils that encouraged inequality.
    • He championed widow remarriage and started a home for dominant caste pregnant widows to give birth in a safe and secure place in 1863.
    • His orphanage was established in an attempt to reduce the rate of infanticide.
    • Along with his longtime friend Sadashiv Ballal Govande and Savitribai, he started an infanticide prevention centre.
    • Phule tried to eliminate the stigma of social untouchability surrounding the exploited castes by opening his house and the use of his water-well to the members of the exploited castes.
    1. Views on religion and caste
    • Phule recast Aryan invasion theory, proposing that the Aryan conquerors of India, were in fact barbaric suppressors of the indigenous people.
    • He believed that they had instituted the caste system as a framework for subjugation and social division that ensured the pre-eminence of their Brahmin successors.
    • He saw the subsequent Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent as more of the same sort of thing, being a repressive alien regime.
    • But he considered the British to be relatively enlightened and not supportive of the varnashrama dharma system instigated and then perpetuated by those previous invaders.
    • In his book, Gulamgiri, he thanked Christian missionaries and the British colonists for making the exploited castes realise that they are worthy of all human rights.
    • His critique of the caste system began with an attack on the Vedas, the most fundamental texts of Hindus. He considered them to be a form of false consciousness.
    • He is credited with introducing the Marathi word ‘Dalit’ (broken, crushed) as a descriptor for those people who were outside the traditional varna system.
    • He advocated making primary education compulsory in villages. He also asked for special incentives to get more lower-caste people in high schools and colleges.

    Satyashodhak Samaj

    • On 24 September 1873, Phule formed Satyashodhak Samaj to focus on the rights of depressed groups such as women, the Shudra, and the Dalit.
    • Through this the samaj opposed idolatry and denounced the caste system.
    • Satyashodhak Samaj campaigned for the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for priests.
    • Phule established Satyashodhak Samaj with the ideals of human well-being, happiness, unity, equality, and easy religious principles and rituals.
    • A Pune-based newspaper, Deenbandhu, provided the voice for the views of the Samaj.
    • The membership of the samaj included Muslims, Brahmins and government officials. Phule’s own Mali caste provided the leading members and financial supporters for the organization.

    Published works

    • Tritiya Ratna, 1855
    • Manav Mahammand (Muhammad) (Abhang)
    • Gulamgiri, 1873
    • Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Poostak, April 1889
    • Sarvajanic Satya Dharmapustak, 1891

  • Places in news: Thwaites Glacier

    The melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – also called the “Doomsday Glacier”– has long been a cause of concern because of its high potential of speeding up the global sea-level rise happening due to climate change.

    Thwaites Glacier

    • Called the Thwaites Glacier, it is 120 km wide at its broadest, fast-moving, and melting fast over the years.
    • Because of its size (1.9 lakh square km), it contains enough water to raise the world sea level by more than half a meter.
    • Studies have found the amount of ice flowing out of it has nearly doubled over the past 30 years.
    • Thwaites’s melting already contributes 4% to global sea-level rise each year. It is estimated that it would collapse into the sea in 200-900 years.
    • Thwaites is important for Antarctica as it slows the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean. Because of the risk it faces — and poses — Thwaites is often called the Doomsday Glacier.

    What have previous studies said?

    • A 2019 study by New York University had discovered a fast-growing cavity in the glacier. Then last year, researchers detected warm water at a vital point below the glacier.
    • The study reported water at just two degrees above freezing point at Thwaites’s “grounding zone” or “grounding line”.
    • The grounding line is the place below a glacier at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf.
    • The location of the line is a pointer to the rate of retreat of a glacier.
    • When glaciers melt and lose weight, they float off the land where they used to be situated. When this happens, the grounding line retreats.
    • That exposes more of a glacier’s underside to seawater, increasing the melting rate resulting in the glacier speeding up, stretching out, and thinning, causing the grounding line to retreat ever further.

    What has the new study revealed?

    • The recent Gothenburg study used an uncrewed submarine to go under the Thwaites glacier front to make observations.
    • The submersible called “Ran” measured among other things the strength, temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
    • There is a deep connection to the east through which deepwater flows from Pine Island Bay, a connection that was previously thought to be blocked by an underwater ridge.

    Why this is a cause of worry?

    • The warm water is approaching the pinning points of the glacier from all sides, impacting these locations where the ice is connected to the seabed and where the ice sheet finds stability.
    • This has the potential to make things worse for Thwaites, whose ice shelf is already retreating.

  • Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT)

    The Government of India’s decision to abolish the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT), under the Tribunal Reforms Ordinance, 2021, has triggered a wave of criticism with filmmakers.

    The FCAT was the place filmmakers walked into as a penultimate resort to challenging edits suggested to their films by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

    Plunging into crisis

    • FCAT is only one of many tribunals in the country that were either abolished or amalgamated under the Ordinance.
    • Earlier, if a filmmaker fails to clear the Examining Committee (EC) and Revising Committee (RC) hurdles of the CBFC, the FCAT was the next step of recourse, but that is no longer the case.
    • FCAT only charged a nominal fee to hold the screening for its members, and it would pass its judgment immediately.

    Fighting the system

    • FCAT’s panel is predominantly made up of members from industry veterans who arrive at a judgment after balancing both CBFC and the filmmaker’s points of view.
    • Most of CBFC’s decisions were overruled by the Tribunal and that has reassured constitutional rights under Article 19 to filmmakers to express themselves freely.
    • A judge will only look at the issue from a legal perspective, not whether a particular edit will constrict the flow of the movie.

    Re-classifying certification

    • To avoid such issues, the Government constituted the ‘Shyam Benegal Committee’ in January 2016.
    • The committee recommended regulations for film certification — a move away from the current practice adopted by CBFC, and submitted its report in April 2016.
    • According to many, a revamp of the certification system that doesn’t require censoring or cuts is the need of the hour.

  • Indus and Ganges river dolphins are two different species

    Detailed analysis of South Asian river dolphins has revealed that the Indus and Ganges River dolphins are not one, but two separate species.

    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.

    Indus Dolphin is the divergent specie

    • Currently, they are classified as two subspecies under Platanista gangetica. The study estimates that Indus and Ganges river dolphins may have diverged around 550,000 years ago.
    • The international team studied body growth, skull morphology, tooth counts, colouration and genetic makeup and published the findings last month in Marine Mammal Science.

    Conservation status

    • The Indus and Ganges River dolphins are both classified as ‘Endangered’ species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
    • It is the national aquatic animal and had been granted non-human personhood status by the government in 2017.
    • It is also protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972).
    • Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS) in Bihar is India’s only sanctuary for the Gangetic dolphin.
    • It has been categorised as endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species by the IUCN
    • Physical barriers such as dams and barrages created across the river, the declining river flows reduced the gene flow to a great extent making the species vulnerable.

  • Freedom of Navigation Operations

    The US Navy has had “asserted navigational rights and freedoms approximately 130 nautical miles west of Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), without requesting India’s prior consent, consistent with international law”.

    Try this question:

    Q.What do you mean by Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs)? What are its legal backings?  Discuss its significance.

    Freedom of Navigation Operations

    • FONOPs are closely linked to the concept of freedom of navigation, and in particular to the enforcement of relevant international law and customs regarding freedom of navigation.
    • It involves passage conducted by the US Navy through waters claimed by coastal nations as their exclusive territory.
    • It is carried under the US policy of exercising and asserting its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms around the world”.
    • It says these “assertions communicate that the US does not acquiesce to the excessive maritime claims of other nations, and thus prevents those claims from becoming accepted in international law”.

    Significance of FONOPs

    • FONOPs are a method of enforcing UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and avoiding these negative outcomes by reinforcing freedom of navigation through practice.
    • It is exercised by sailing through all areas of the sea permitted under UNCLOS, and particularly those areas that states have attempted to close off to free navigation as defined under UNCLOS.

    What about EEZs?

    • An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
    • It is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
    • It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles from the coast of the state in question.
    • It is also referred to as a maritime continental margin and, in colloquial usage, may include the continental shelf.
    • The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit.
    • The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a “sovereign right” which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea.
    • The surface waters, as can be seen on the map, are international waters.

    Is FONOP violative of India’s EEZ?

    • As per India’s Territorial Waters Act, 1976, the EEZ of India “is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial waters, and the limit of such zone is two hundred nautical miles from the baseline”.
    • India’s “limit of the territorial waters is the line every point of which is at a distance of twelve nautical miles from the nearest point of the appropriate baseline”.
    • Under the 1976 law, “all foreign ships (other than warships including submarines and other underwater vehicles) shall enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters”.

    Back2Basics: UNCLOS

    • The Law of the Sea Treaty formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982 at Montego Bay, Jamaica. It entered into force in 1994.
    • The convention establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans and replaces previous U.N. Conventions on the Law of the Sea
    • The convention defines the distance of 12 nautical miles from the baseline as Territorial Sea limit and a distance of 200 nautical miles distance as Exclusive Economic Zone limit.

  • People are free to choose religion: Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court has said people are free to choose their own religion and lashed out at a PIL claiming that there is mass religious conversion happening across the country.

    Right to freedom of Religion

    Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all persons in India. It provides that all persons in India, subject to public order, morality, health, and other provisions:

    • Are equally entitled to freedom of conscience, and
    • Have the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion.

    It further provides that this article shall not affect any existing law and shall not prevent the state from making any law relating to:

    • Regulation or restriction of any economic, financial, political, or secular activity associated with religious practice.
    • Providing social welfare and reform.
    • Opening of Hindu religious institutions of public character for all the classes and sections of the Hindus.

    What did the Supreme Court say?

    • Instead, a Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman said people have a right under the Constitution to profess, practise and propagate religion.
    • Justice Nariman said every person is the final judge of their own choice of religion or who their life partner should be. Courts cannot sit in judgment of a person’s choice of religion or a life partner.
    • Religious faith is a part of the fundamental right to privacy.
    • Justice Nariman reminded Mr Upadhyay of the Constitution Bench judgment which upheld inviolability of the right to privacy, equating it with the rights to life, dignity and liberty.

  • SARTHAQ Plan

    Union Education Minister has launched ‘Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education (SARTHAQ), the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 implementation plan for school education.

    SARTHAQ

    • SARTHAQ keeps in mind the concurrent nature of education and adheres to the spirit of federalism.
    • The plan delineates the roadmap for the implementation of NEP 2020 for the next 10 years.
    • States and Union Territories have been given the flexibility to adapt the plan with “local contextualization”.
    • They have been allowed to modify the plan as per their needs and requirements.

    Envisaged outcomes

    • Increase in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), transition rate and retention rate at all levels and reduction in dropouts and out of school children.
    • Access to quality ECCE and Universal Acquisition of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by Grade 3.
    • Improvement in Learning Outcomes at all stages with an emphasis on teaching and learning through mother tongue/local/regional languages in the early years.
    • Integration of vocational education, sports, arts, knowledge of India, 21st-century skills, values of citizenship, awareness of environment conservation, etc. in the curriculum at all stages.
    • Introduction of Experiential learning at all stages and adoption of innovative pedagogies by teachers in classroom transaction.
    • Integration of technology in educational planning and governance and availability of ICT and quality e-content in classrooms.

  • Maoist Attack in Sukma

    The article deals with the counterinsurgency strategies to deal with the issues of left wing extremism in India

    Threat of left-wing extremism

    • The killing of 22 security personnel by Maoists serves as a grim reminder that left-wing insurgency continues to be one of the biggest internal security threats for the country.
    • In the past few years, Maoist violence seemed to have been on a downward spiral.
    • The figures associated with the key indicators of violence like the number of incidents also support the contention that “insurgency is on the downward spiral”.
    • But the attack should thus serve as a wake-up call to those who had begun to get complacent about the Maoist threat.

    Approach in counterinsurgency strategy

    • One school believes that given the Maoist insurgency posturing itself as a “people’s war”, the mandate is for a people-centric approach of “winning hearts and minds”.
    • Others argues that an enemy-centric approach predicated on kinetic operations is best suited for the Maoist insurgency, where the fear of the population seceding from India is remote.
    • The success of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh in curbing the Maoist problem is often attributed to this enemy-centric approach.
    • However, there is robust scholarly work available that shows that the Andhra government based its counterintelligence strategy on a judicious mix of the enemy-centric and population-centric approaches.
    •  Andhra Pradesh had successfully implemented short-gestation-period developmental works in the Maoist-affected rural areas.
    • Moreover, the erstwhile state is also the first state to have a comprehensive surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy.
    • After the 2014 guidelines of the central government were brought out, many states have crafted attractive surrender and rehabilitation policies.
    • Another important question is whether the government should keep the option of talking to Maoists open.
    • The willingness to talk to rebel groups seems to incentivise insurgents and may demonstrate that violence pays.
    • But bringing an end to civil war invariably involves negotiating with the enemy.

    Way forward

    • Indian counterinsurgency has to work with a dual objective of defeating the insurgents militarily and fully quell the insurgent impulses.
    • This will need institutional overhauls.
    • In the last decade or so, insurgency-affected states have started to raise special forces on the lines of Greyhounds.
    • These forces are being given rigorous training in “counter-guerrilla” tactics and jungle warfare.
    •  Besides, the jungles around the interstate borders have always been the preferred hiding spaces for the Maoists.
    •  States must do more to synergise their efforts by launching coordinated operations, thereby denying Maoists any space for manoeuvrability.
    • These efforts need to be supplemented by well-crafted development schemes.
    • It is also important to segregate the population from the insurgents both operationally and ideologically.
    • The conflict over the distribution of resources can be mended with economic development.
    • But the bigger challenge would be to create a system where the tribal population feels that the government is representative, not repressive.
    • Opening negotiation channels and policies like surrender and rehabilitation can give such a representative sense to the rebels.

    Consider the question “Discuss the causes of left wing extremism in India. Suggest the way forward to deal with the issue.”

    Conclusion

    The government needs to follow these policies to end the challenge of left wing extremism from India.

  • Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency (SUPACE)

    The Supreme Court has unveiled its Artificial Intelligence (AI) portal SUPACE, designed to make research easier for judges, thereby easing their workload.

    SUPACE

    • A pet project of the former Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, the SUPACE is a tool that collects relevant facts and laws and makes them available to a judge.
    • The Supreme Court’s system is not designed to take decisions, but only to process facts and to make them available to judges looking for input for a decision.
    • The CJI had then said that AI is to the intellect, what muscle memory is to the mind.

    Its’ utility

    • SUPACE will produce results customized to the need of the case and the way the judge thinks.
    • This will be time-saving. It will help the judiciary and the court in reducing delays and pendency of cases.
    • AI will present a more streamlined, cost-effective and time-bound means to the fundamental right of access to justice.
    • It will make the service delivery mechanism transparent and cost-efficient.