📰 Centre wants Supreme Court to get tough with FB, YouTube
Finds efforts by Internet giants to curb circulation of online videos of sexual violence against women, children inadequate
•Finding the efforts by Internet giants to curb circulation of online videos of sexual violence against women and children inadequate, the government is likely to seek “stricter directions” to service providers, such as Facebook and YouTube, from the Supreme Court.
•The directions sought will include considerably reducing the time taken by the intermediary to comply with content removal requests under certain Sections of the IT Act to less than 10 hours from about 36 hours at present, an official source said.
Monitoring tools
•The government also wants that the service providers be asked to employ agencies for identification and removal of sexually violent content, particularly videos relating to child pornography and rape, besides deploying “proactive monitoring tools.”
•This was discussed during a high-level meeting earlier this week to firm up recommendations on removal of sexually violent content, particularly videos relating to child pornography and rape.
•The meeting, chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, was attended by Electronics and IT and Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Director of the Intelligence Bureau Rajiv Jain.
Tracking the origin
•During the meeting, while evaluating the progress on previous Supreme Court orders in this regard, it was found that the compliance by the service providers was mediocre.
•Additionally, the government is also keen on intermediaries sharing certain data with law enforcement agencies to identify the origin of such content.
•The issue of tracing the origin of “unlawful” content is already a bone of contention between the government and WhatsApp, which was recently pulled up by the Centre after being misused to spread fake news.
•“Intermediaries should be asked to keep a complete trail of forwarding of unlawful content…and verify and maintain identifiers of the users that can help attribute information to the users,” the source added.
•Currently, on the issue of assistance to law enforcement agencies on identification of offender, the response is “often delayed and meta data of end to end communication is not provided…They need to ensure 100% compliance as far as requests from law enforcement agencies are concerned.”
•In October last year, the Supreme Court gave several directions for removal of sexually violent content from the Internet. Ministry of Home Affairs was later tasked with monitoring compliance on some agreed action points by both the government and the service providers. The on going proceedings in the matter started after Supreme Court took suo moto note of a letter by a NGO on rampant circulation of sexual abuse videos.
•The source said that government has compiled a keyword repository of over 500 English and Hindi words. “These have been shared with the intermediaries so that they can issue warning message for searching about child pornography or rape and gang rape videos. We have seen only partial compliance by the internet giants.”
•Likewise, on earlier instruction to set up an easy reporting mechanism for public on their platform, “Facebook has complied partially, while Whatsapp and Twitter are yet to comply.”
📰 After UAE, Pakistan offers help to flood-hit Kerala
Decision comes amidst growing criticism of the Central government’s decision to decline foreign aid for rehabilitation work in the State
•Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday offered to help flood-hit Kerala. The Pakistani leader’s comments came in the backdrop of growing criticism of the Indian government’s decision to decline foreign aid for flood relief and rehabilitation in the State.
•“On behalf of the people of Pakistan, we send our prayers and best wishes to those who have been devastated by the floods in Kerala, India. We stand ready to provide any humanitarian assistance that may be needed,” the newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan said in a social media post that drew widespread appreciation among his social media followers in Pakistan and Gulf countries.
‘Domestic resources’
•Islamabad’s statement came a day after India said it would depend on “domestic resources” for providing short and long term help in Kerala. “In line with the existing policy, the government is committed to meeting the requirements for relief and rehabilitation through domestic efforts,” the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said on Wednesday.
•It was understood that by ‘existing policy’, the MEA was indicating at the decision taken in 2004 to avoid foreign support in the context of the deadly tsunami that affected a large number of countries in the Indian Ocean region.
‘More considerate’
•However, India’s decision to decline aid from abroad drew criticism from veteran diplomats and officials who said that the Central government should have been more considerate regarding the offer of support from the Gulf countries, especially from the United Arab Emirates that has offered ₹700 crore.
•“…as country we can give rather than take assistance, but 80% Indians in the Gulf are Malayalis. Offer of flood relief assistance from region must be treated with sensitivity. Saying no is simple, but for Kerala-in-crisis, it’s not so simple,” said former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao.
•Former Foreign Secretary and National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon made a distinction between foreign support for immediate relief and long term rehabilitation. “…the 2004 decision was not to accept foreign participation in relief but accept it for long term rehabilitation case by case,” said Mr. Menon, elaborating that rescue teams in Kerala required no foreign help, but such help could be utilised for “rebuilding houses, bridges, roads etc.”
•Some diplomats have however maintained that the issue of aid for Kerala should be resolved through internal consultation at the earliest to avoid any long term fallout. “It appears that the offer from UAE came without prior consultation with India,” said former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal.
📰 Accepting help: on UAE's aid to Kerala
Junk the precedent; taking aid from countries for disaster relief is no sign of weakness
•The clearest indication so far that India would turn down offers of financial assistance from foreign governments for relief and rehabilitation work in Kerala came on Wednesday. And yet, it only added to the confusion. The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said that “in line with the existing policy”, the Central government would meet requirements in Kerala through “domestic efforts”. Various governments have made specific offers to Kerala, from about ₹700 crore from the UAE to about ₹35 lakh from the Maldives. The spokesperson added that only PIOs, NRIs or international foundations could send money from overseas to the Prime Minister’s or Chief Minister’s relief fund. But as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan indicated, this clarity about existing policy is missing in the Central government’s National Disaster Management Plan. Put out in 2016, the Plan states that India will not appeal for foreign aid in the wake of a disaster. But it goes on to say: “… if the national government of another country voluntarily offers assistance as a goodwill gesture in solidarity with the disaster victims, the Central Government may accept the offer.” The condition applies that the Union Home Ministry would consult the MEA and assess the requirements “that the foreign teams can provide”. So, what exactly is government policy? Is it laid out in the NDMP document that has an opening message from Prime Minister Modi? Or is it based on the decision of the UPA government to refuse aid or assistance in the wake of the 2004 tsunami — a decision born out of a sense of false pride and a misplaced sense of shame — that became a sort of convention thereafter?
•It is not only this mismatch between convention and written document that has created space for the current controversy. Irrespective of what was agreed upon in the past, democracies should be supple enough to respond to emergencies in ways that benefit the greater common good. It serves well no citizen of India for the government to stand on mere precedent or pride to turn down genuine offers of help, in terms of funds or expert teams — or to even ask for help. Offers of aid from foreign governments must naturally be scrutinised to see if they compromise national security and other interests. But to stand on notions of self-reliance in a multilateral world, to spurn a helping hand, is to be beholden to a strange pride. There is no shame in taking help, just as there should be no hesitation in offering it. India has a longstanding tradition of rushing help elsewhere. Leaving Centre-State politics, if any, aside, the government should not just gracefully accept the assistance for Kerala, it should junk the 2004 precedent.
📰 Get over the superpower syndrome
No one will think India is any more powerful if it turns away foreign assistance for flood-hit Kerala
•The current debate on whether foreign assistance should be accepted for relief and reconstruction work following the devastating floods in Kerala is an unnecessary distraction for the Central and State governments at a time of a grave crisis. The need now is to use all assistance, Indian and foreign, to rebuild Kerala. The figures being bandied about will not meet even a fraction of the cost of rebuilding the infrastructure and bringing the State to normalcy. Bilateral and multilateral assistance will take a long time in coming, and the sooner we make up our mind the better. Seeing ghosts of spies, interventionists and terrorists will not help us recover and be productive once again.
Dreams of the high table
•It was the United Progressive Alliance government that decided not to seek external assistance for disaster relief — from foreign countries or even the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The context of that decision was India’s superpower dream. It was felt that India should demonstrate that it had the strength to withstand and counter calamities and also help its neighbours, as it did in the case of the December 2004 tsunami and piracy attacks in the Indian Ocean. India had felt that this would strengthen its case for seeking to be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and also hasten the prospect of superpower status by 2020. Since permanent membership of the Security Council entails additional financial commitment on its part, India’s low level of mandatory contribution to the UN, calculated based on its capacity to pay, was also a matter of concern at that time. India thought it would be beneficial for it if it were to show that it was spending money abroad over and above the mandatory contribution.
•But the policy of not accepting foreign assistance has not taken India even one step towards fulfilling its ambitions. It has been given admission into the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement it did not want, and the Missile Technology Control Regime because its system of missile control was unmatchable, but not membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or even the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
Fearing the foreign hand
•The other concern was the old fear of the foreign hand, the spies who would come with the package, interfere in the country’s internal affairs, and also take away valuable information. The development of technology is such that foreigners do not need to come in hordes to India to know what is happening or to influence decision-making here. Google and Facebook know more about us than we do, and are capable of manipulating our national priorities and plans. India should not be mixing up its 20th century fears with the realities of the 21st century.
•The assistance from the UN and Red Cross are of less concern. India has been the biggest contributor to the UN Development Programme and the biggest recipient of assistance. It is a party to the regulations of the UN and its conditionalities for assistance. It is true that India does not want foreigners with huge UN salaries to come and destroy the morale of its relief workers. But its needs for technology and best practices can be obtained from the UN by careful planning and consultations. India will also be able to choose the nationalities of the people it deploys. Nothing should stop it from getting what it needs from the UN, as they can raise the funds and source them from anywhere.
•In the case of bilateral assistance, India needs to examine offers case by case. The reported offer from the United Arab Emirates of ₹700 crore makes Abu Dhabi a bigger donor than New Delhi. This is not a casual offer routinely made. First of all, the UAE authorities genuinely felt grieved over the calamity that hit Keralites, who have served their country well over the years. They felt obliged to help Kerala at a time of distress in accordance with the Islamic faith. Similar is the case of Qatar, which has offered ₹35 crore.
•The news that the Government of India would decline the offer came like a tornado after the flood. Such a decision will be very unpopular in Kerala and it will affect the electoral fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Such an inflexible attitude on the basis of an earlier decision will not be appreciated. This may also have a negative impact on India’s relations with the UAE, whose authorities were directly involved in raising the funds and in conveying the offer to the Prime Minister.
Look for best practices
•Now there are reports that the gift from the UAE has not been rejected out of hand. This would be wise. India should also hold discussions with the UN and the Red Cross with a view to formulating plans for reconstruction using the latest technology and international best practices. It should set aside its superpower syndrome at a time of national emergency.
📰 Why history matters so much
Its importance in shaping our political ethos is undiminished, but the subject has no place in the competitive education culture
•Why is history such an important school subject? And why does it not receive the importance it deserves? These two were among the major questions debated at a conference recently held in Kolkata. A brief answer to the second question is that history cannot compete with science subjects in the market that shapes and controls education today. Yet, history is an important subject because it moulds the outlook of the younger generation. By turning the past into a narrative, history creates a public ethos and influences culture. From architecture to film, and from ancient India to Partition, the Kolkata conference, organised by the History for Peace initiative of the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, covered a broad canvas to trace the complex relationship between history and culture.
•I can think of few other gatherings where school teachers got a chance to discuss their classroom experience with scholars of history and culture. The outcome was a richer understanding of the constraints that a poorly functioning system of education places on a society’s capacity to cope with its present difficulties and imagine sustainable solutions.
Debates over texts
•The history syllabus and textbooks have been at the heart of a deep political controversy in India. India is not alone in this respect. No country in the world is immune to debates about the past and how it should be presented to school children. To take just two instances, America’s discomfort with Hiroshima and Britain’s discomfort with Gandhi continue to be reflected in their school syllabi.
•The main reason why portrayal of the past in school textbooks arouses controversy is that a publicly shared past imparts a collective memory and identity. Textbooks are viewed as officially approved documents — even if they are privately produced and have no official sanction — and are therefore believed to be associated with state power. Significantly, they do shape the perceptions of the young because children are impressionable. Children introduced to a certain version of the past at school acquire a disposition which can be politically mobilised in the future.
•Debates over school textbooks seldom take into account the significance of curricular design and the preparation of a syllabus. When criticising poor quality textbooks, people do not recognise that the problem may be at the level of syllabus and curriculum. Similarly, when good textbooks are appreciated, people seldom realise the effort required in redesigning the curriculum and syllabus.
•The new history textbooks brought out by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) from 2006 onwards are a case in point. They have survived the change of government. One reason for their longevity is their professional quality. They have no single authors. Teams of eminent historians worked through deliberation and dialogue, first drafting a new syllabus and then the text itself. They represent the spirit of the National Curriculum Framework, 2005, which is still in place, which gives precedence to inquiry through direct exposure to evidence. The textbooks based on it do not narrate a long story. Instead, they enable children to explore different, often divergent, themes, such as lives of peasants and women, architectural styles, etc. Archival material is cited as evidence, and debates among historians are highlighted to demonstrate the difficulties of interpreting evidence.
Problem of perception
•These books mark a major step forward in the teaching of history, but older ways of teaching and conventional textbooks have persisted. As a presentation at the Kolkata conference pointed out, the history teacher at school is often someone who has not studied history or enjoyed it. So, despite a shift in historiography, old problems continue to affect the system. One of these is the perception that history is all about wars, kings and dates. Another is the tenacity of dividing India’s past into three long chunks: ancient, medieval and modern. These categories flatten out the complexity and richness of India’s history, wasting the opportunity of studying it with the aim of arousing curiosity and imparting tools of inquiry. The examination system also reinforces flat perceptions by asking questions that are best answered with the help of guidebooks. The 2005 curricular revolution has made little impact on this wider scene.
•In most States, the use of history to build collective memory and identity continues. Assam-like situations suggest that education is not perceived as a means of resolving a problem. The fear that incoming migrants would push the regional language into minority status or hurt the State’s cultural identity shows how poor the State’s trust in education is.
•On the contrary, schools are actively engaged in creating a delusion of an ongoing collective ‘self’ which thrives on a monolithic ‘other’. Teachers of social sciences work in an atmosphere of relentless regimentation of children’s bodies, thoughts and emotions. Fear pervades life at school, taking many forms. It forms the core of the intensely competitive environment that our schools, including the most reputed ones, love to sustain. In that environment, the teacher’s attempt to make children reflective and sensitive to details gets drowned in the din of everyday life.
The importance of history
•Schooling adds a dimension to culture that we do not quite understand. As public institutions, schools carry many burdens the society is not always aware of. Government schools cope with bureaucratic norms and private schools cope with parental pressure to maintain heightened competition. The natural sciences bear the brunt of this pressure. For the growing middle class, including the vast multitude of first-generation educated, science and mathematics represent the golden route to high income jobs in medicine and engineering, including information technology. The social sciences and humanities do not figure in this landscape, yet they also suffer the consequences of the command that the entrance test culture wields over schools.
•Although history has no place in the competitive culture of education, its importance in shaping the larger political ethos of the country remains undiminished. Children depend on adults to learn about the past, and that is what makes history the most challenging school subject. Ironically, poorly taught history matters even more than well-taught history, simply because when history does not arouse curiosity or impart the tools of analysis, it creates an emotional barrier for further inquiry.
📰 Another step in the battle against leprosy
Amendments to laws that discriminate against leprosy patients
•Over 110 Central and State lawsdiscriminate against leprosy patients. The biased provisions in these statutes were introduced prior to medical advancements; now, modern medicine (specifically, multi-drug therapy) completely cures the disease. These laws stigmatise and isolate leprosy patients and, coupled with age-old beliefs about leprosy, cause the patients untold suffering.
•The Personal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018, seeks to make a start in amending these statutes. It attempts to end the discrimination against leprosy persons in various central laws: the Divorce Act, 1869; the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939; the Special Marriage Act, 1954; the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955; and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956.
•The Bill eliminates leprosy as a ground for dissolution of marriage or divorce. The condition under Section 18 (2) (c) of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, that a Hindu wife is entitled to live separately from her husband without forfeiting her claim to maintenance if the latter is “suffering from a virulent form of leprosy”, has been omitted. The amendments introduced in the Bill omit the provisions which stigmatise and discriminate against leprosy-affected persons.
•The Bill is meant to provide for the integration of leprosy patients into the mainstream. It is in keeping with the UN General Assembly Resolution of 2010 on the ‘Elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members’ that it was introduced. India has signed and ratified the Resolution.
•The proposed law follows a National Human Rights Commission recommendation a decade ago to introduce amendments in personal laws and other statutes.
•Further, the Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions, in its 131st Report on ‘Petition praying for integration and empowerment of leprosy-affected persons’, had examined various statutes and desired that concerned Ministries and State governments urgently wipe clean the anachronistic and discriminatory provisions in prevalent statutes.
•The Law Commission of India, in its 256th Report, ‘Eliminating discrimination against persons affected by leprosy’, had also recommended removing the discriminatory provisions in various statutes against leprosy patients.
📰 ‘EPFO data not the right gauge of employment level’
Economists say the figures, showing a decline in net enrolment numbers, cannot be used for any correlation as the picture is complicated
•The recent downward revision in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation data for September-June does not imply a decrease in formal sector employment, according to labour economists, who add that there are several problems with the EPFO data and caution against its use as a gauge of formal sector employment in the country.
•The EPFO on Monday revised down the net enrolment numbers for the period from September 2017 to May 2018 by 5.54 lakh (12.4%) to 39.2 lakh from its earlier estimate of 44.74 lakh made last month.
•“There is precious little to be derived [from this data]... apart from the very welcome formalisation of a previously informal labour force,” Santosh Mehrotra, professor at JNU’s Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies told The Hindu. “This data is not very systematic,” Mr. Mehrotra added, saying that “while EPFO is cleaning it up, it is still not cleaned up altogether”.
‘No clarity’
•“EPFO data is a very complicated piece of work,” Abhijit Sen, former member of the Planning Commission, said. “There is a lack of clarity about the methodology being followed for this dataset.” “It is not clear what happens when a person changes jobs — and that happens very, very frequently,” Mr. Sen added. “When someone applies for a new policy and already has an older one, what does EPFO do? Does it merge the two policies? Does it delete one? Does it keep the older policy active? EPFO is not actually telling us… What should happen is that they must make a deduction somewhere, but it is not clear if this is happening.”
•Mr. Mehrotra further explained that people at the bottom of the pyramid get low wages, so they are not enthusiastic about their salaries getting cut for the Provident Fund (PF). Neither are their employers eager to pay PF. Accordingly, they have been outside the EPFO net; enterprises may not have registered at all, or may not have admitted that they employ enough people to meet the EPFO threshold.
•However, the new Goods and Services Tax regime created a certain incentive for many small enterprises to register themselves on the GST network, and so they may have registered under EPFO as well, he added. Thus, these are not new jobs being created; it is simply that they are newly registered under EPFO.
•“Changes in EPFO numbers are not always indicative of a change in employment levels since there are several reasons why EPFO numbers might change without a corresponding change in employment,” Mahesh Vyas, managing director and CEO of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), said.
•“Some examples are a worker quitting their job to start their own company, a worker being transferred to a foreign branch of an Indian company, employees retiring, and employees quitting once they get married. Of these, only the last two affect employment levels,” he said.
•Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council member Surjit Bhalla, while saying that the EPFO numbers are a good indicator for formal employment as well as changes in employment, added that they had certain drawbacks.
•“For example, a company employing 19 people may not be in EPFO, but as soon as it adds one more employee, all 20 are added to EPFO,” Mr. Bhalla said. “But the actual increase in employment has only been a single person. There are about six crore active members with at least one month of contributions in the year, so if you have a five lakh reduction in the estimate, it’s not a big deal.”
•He added that the estimates may include temporary employees whose contributions may not be continuous for the entire year, a point noted by the EPFO as well in its data release.
•Another major lacuna in the EPFO numbers, Mr. Sen said, was that it does not make clear whether the additions are to the total number of members (about 150 million) or to the number of active members who actually make payments and who number only about 60 million.
•“If this addition is simply people moving from the member to active member category, there is no new job creation, or even new formal job creation, at all,” Mr. Sen said.
📰 India to grow at 7.5% in 2018, 2019: Moody’s
‘Largely resilient to higher oil prices’
•The Indian economy is expected to grow by about 7.5% in 2018 and 2019 as it is largely resilient to external pressures like those from higher oil prices, Moody’s Investors Service said.
•In its Global Macro Outlook for 2018-19, Moody’s said the run-up in energy prices over the last few months will raise headline inflation temporarily but the growth story remains intact as it is supported by strong urban and rural demand and improved industrial activity.
‘Growth prospects solid’
•“Growth prospects for many of the G-20 economies remain solid, but there are indications that the synchronous acceleration of growth heading into 2018 is now giving way to diverging trends. The near-term global outlook for most advanced economies is broadly resilient, in contrast to the weakening of some developing economies in the face of emerging headwinds from rising U.S. trade protectionism, tightening external liquidity conditions and elevated oil prices,” it said.
•Moody’s put G-20 growth at 3.3% in 2018 and 3.1% in 2019. The advanced economies will grow 2.3% in 2018 and 2% in 2019. “We expect the Indian economy to grow around 7.5% in 2018 and 2019,” it said.
