📰 Himachal, Kerala and T.N. top development index
Aim is to instil competition among States to improve performance: NITI Aayog
•Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu have been ranked highest in terms of being on track to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable DevelopmentGoals (SDG), according to a first-of-its-kind index released by NITI Aayog on Friday.
•The index comprises a composite score for each State and Union Territory based on their aggregate performance across 13 of the 17 SDGs. The score, ranging between 0 and 100, denotes the average performance of the State/UT towards achieving the 13 SDGs and their respective targets. The average Indian score was 57.
•“The SDG Index Score for Sustainable Development Goals 2030 ranges between 42 and 69 for States and between 57 and 68 for UTs,” the report said.
•“Among the States, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh are the front runners, with an SDG India Index score of 69. Among the UTs, Chandigarh is the front runner with a score of 68.”
•Tamil Nadu has a score 66, and is the top scorer on the goals to do with eradicating poverty and also providing clean and affordable energy.
•“The aim of the index is to instil competition among States to improve their performance across social indices as the States’ progress will determine India’s progress towards achieving the set goals by 2030,” NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said. Using the index, States will be monitored on a real-time basis.
•“Kerala’s top rank is attributed to its superior performance in providing good health, reducing hunger, achieving gender equality and providing quality education,” the report said. “Himachal Pradesh ranks high on providing clean water and sanitation, in reducing inequalities and preserving the mountain ecosystem.”
•“Among the UTs, Chandigarh takes the lead because of its exemplary performance in providing clean water and sanitation to its people,” it said. “It has further made good progress towards providing affordable and clean energy, generating decent work and economic growth, and providing quality education.” Overall, the average score for the States was the worst when it came to gender equality (36), in creating sustainable cities and communities (39), in enabling industry, innovation, and infrastructure (44), and in eradicating hunger (48).
📰 Move fast and fix things: on safeguarding users' privacy
Individual users’ privacy cannot be safeguarded on platforms such as Facebook without institutional reform
•Facebook’s motto was to “move fast and break things”. By now we have all heard various variations of it to mock the social networking platform which is identified globally for privacy breaches and misinformation campaigns — even interfering in the election processes of major democracies. The latest in this torrent of disclosures is the investigation by The New York Times documenting a range of private deals struck by Facebook for reciprocal sharing of user data with the knowledge of top management. Some deals permitted access even to private chats. But rather than merely documenting a violation of user trust by Facebook, which has received extensive commentary, let us focus on walking towards solutions.
•Here, it is important to consider how the underlying cause for our deficient national response is a lack of institutional capacity to respond to such challenges. It is instructive to take just data protection and privacy and go instance-by-instance to see how the government response is best summed up as, ‘move slow and calm things’.
Scandals unnoticed
•Even prior to the disclosures by Cambridge Analytica, Indian civil society activists had fought against Facebook very publicly on net neutrality. The company had proposed to offer users without Internet on their phones a platform called “Free Basics”, with a bouquet of essential websites. In December 2015 it argued that by facilitating access to websites beyond Facebook, its intent was purely altruistic. This deal was opposed on grounds of net neutrality by those who recognised that Facebook would become a gatekeeper to the Internet. The opposition to “Free Basics” won, with a ban on it being imposed by the telecom regulator. However, one subsidiary argument which largely went unnoticed was that Facebook was not clearly stating how it would use the personal data of users on the Free Basics platform. While three years ago, when the net neutrality campaign was on, this may have seemed to be a distant fear, today there is a clear realisation that this would have been a reasonable inference to make. Then, as now
, there is no data protection authority or an office of a privacy commissioner to investigate and independently audit platforms such as Free Basics.
•Undaunted, Facebook continued its corporate blitzkrieg, building a digital conglomerate. These were primarily through acquisitions but also data sharing practices, in which any application which got access to Facebook data had to share it back with Facebook. This practice of data hoarding became clear when after acquiring WhatsApp, it changed its privacy policy with effect from September 2016. It allowed sharing a user’s metadata between WhatsApp and Facebook, without clearly explaining what was being shared and how it was being used. Changes to these terms of service were challenged in a public interest petition in the Delhi High Court, which dismissed this legal challenge, noting among other things that at the time the status of the fundamental right to privacy was disputed, based on an objection by the Central government.
•This was appealed against in the Supreme Court. The apex court sensed the seriousness in this plea and announced that a Constitution Bench would be constituted. When in August 2017 the right to privacy judgment came, there was hope that it would lead to greater accountability with the horizontal application to private platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook. Instead, as documented in an order in September 2017, the Union government submitted it had constituted a data protection committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge, Justice B.N. Srikrishna, on the same issue. In a sense, this amounts to pushing for a deferral of the hearing. The WhatsApp-Facebook case is still pending in the Supreme Court.
Cambridge Analytica alarm
•By March 2018 the Cambridge Analytica exposé gathered steam. Blockbuster reports by The New York Times and The Observer documented the compromising of personal data of Facebook users to micro-target them with subtle forms of political campaigning without their knowledge. This was reportedly aimed at influencing their voting preferences and the outcome of elections.
•This immediately acquired a cynical hue in India, with a whodunnit approach in which petty and personal allegations flew in television debates. Suspicion pointed to the Indian National Congress as per the statement of Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower. Meanwhile, the government, through the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, responded in two principal ways. First, it wrote to Facebook, with the complete text and responses not made public. Second, there were strongly worded press interactions, which included ministerial statements to summon Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to India.
•Concurrently the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT in April 2018 also started examining this issue. While it did invite public comments, its proceedings have not been disclosed. Subsequently, the matter at the ministerial level was referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which launched a preliminary investigation in September 2018. Till date, there is little public information on movement in this investigation. We know little on how Indians were impacted beyond the unexamined statistic that 562,000 Indians were impacted by Cambridge Analytica. High on emotion and rhetoric, there is little to show in terms of results.
Public welfare, institutions
•Let us remember that many of these problems go much beyond Facebook, to the entire wave of digitisation from the big building blocks down to a fine grain of Indian society. Who will guarantee that such changes serve public welfare? Not Facebook. This task must fall to public institutions. This seems unlikely at present.
•Movement on a privacy law has become gridlocked in recent months. A draft law to safeguard it is beset with controversy in a closed drafting process without much transparency. It has no clear path to enactment, and is not listed for the ongoing winter session of Parliament. On the other hand, the government has prioritised more data collection and privacy-impairing legislation. These include the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, which is listed for discussion and voting. Another instance is the political firestorm after Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification authorising digital surveillance by 10 Central government agencies.
•Let us suppose that by a stroke of luck, we get a data protection law. What form it takes and the fine detail will be crucial. Will it protect us? Take, for instance, the transitory provisions (contained under Section 97 of the draft Data Protection Bill) which permit the government to delay notification for three years. Imagine a law passed by Parliament today completely coming into force only by the end of December 2021! It would be delaying the administration of a remedy despite a clear diagnosis.
•The government must act with urgency. While we should continue focussing scrutiny on large platforms such as Facebook, it cannot be done just by the smarts and technical negotiations of everyday users. We also must not forget that Facebook, despite its unethical conduct, is of enduring value to millions of Indians. To properly harness digitisation, we now have the challenge of developing and prioritising institutions of governance to protect users. This must start immediately with a strong, rights-protecting, comprehensive privacy law. At present, despite having the second highest number of Internet users in the world, India has little to show as a country in investigatory outcomes, measured regulatory responses or parliamentary processes which safeguard users. Regretfully, unless things change dramatically even the most outrageous revelations will at best lead to statements of empty bombast and bluster. Now is the time to ‘move fast and fix things’.
📰 Island hopping — on Maldives-China FTA
The Maldives’ FTA with China signals a drift in Delhi-Male ties
•The announcement of a free trade agreement between the Maldives and China is another sign of Beijing’s success in its outreach in South Asia. After its push for maritime linkages across the Indian Ocean, including naval exercises and port projects, and for the enhancement of regional connectivity through the Belt and Road Initiative, China seems to be ready to ramp up business ties across South Asia. China already has an FTA with Pakistan, and is exploring or negotiating FTAs with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The negotiations with the Maldives took about three years and were completed in September this year; it was ratified overnight by Parliament in Male. The agreement is expected to be signed this week, during President Abdulla Yameen’s first state visit to China. While New Delhi has made no public statement, it has reportedly made its displeasure known, particularly on the speed and stealth with which the negotiations were completed. However, apart from the actual FTA, the rapid growth in China-Maldives ties has not been hidden from anyone. This is driven by massive infrastructure projects, including the development of Hulhule island and the “Friendship” bridge connecting it to Male. Apart from investments of $1 billion, Chinese companies are exploring tourism prospects in the Maldives, leases to resort islands, and reclamation projects.
•While this can be seen as a natural outcome of the Maldives’ development plans, there are reasons for India to worry. The Yameen government also said this week that it is not satisfied with the working of the FTA with India. That statement, made by the Fisheries Minister at a press conference in Colombo, is likely to be discussed in detail between New Delhi and Male. Second, the manner in which the FTA was rushed through Parliament in a matter of minutes at midnight, with opposition members complaining they had not received enough notice, suggests a haste that would naturally worry India. The move also shows that the Yameen government is not inclined to pay much heed to international concerns over internal unrest. One reason for Mr. Yameen keeping India out of the loop on the FTA talks may be New Delhi’s new policy of engaging with the Maldivian opposition, especially former President Mohammad Nasheed. The biggest worry for India is that the FTA will draw the Maldives more closely into China’s security net. Although Mr. Yameen has categorically stated that the Maldives will remain a “demilitarised zone”, there are concerns that the PLA-Navy might be looking for a military base in the islands linked to projects in Djibouti, Gwadar and Hambantota. The docking of three Chinese naval warships in Male harbour in August, the first such “goodwill visit”, was significant in this respect. China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean presents a challenge to India as it looks to define its place in the U.S.-led “Indo-Pacific” realignment.
📰 Centre’s surveillance order challenges Supreme Court verdict on privacy: experts
In its 2017 judgment, the apex court had asked the government to always carefully and sensitively balance individual privacy and the legitimate concerns of the state.
•The December 20 order allowing 10 different Central agencies to snoop on people is seen as a challenge to the nine-judge Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court, which directed the government to protect informational privacy of every individual.
•In its 2017 judgment, the apex court had asked the government to always carefully and sensitively balance individual privacy and the legitimate concerns of the state, even if national security was at stake.
•The December 20 order allows central agencies — from the Intelligence Bureau to the Central Board of Direct Taxes to the Cabinet Secretariat (RAW) to the Commissioner of Delhi Police — to intercept, monitor and de-crypt “any information” generated, transmitted, received or stored in “any computer resource”.
•The government order is based on Section 69 (1) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Rule 4 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009.
‘Blanket powers’
•“I would say the balance tilts heavily in favour of the government. A wide range of government bodies have been given blanket powers. There is no common thread among these agencies. For example, why should the Central Board of Direct Taxes get access to your encrypted material?” senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, who was one of the leading counsel in the privacy case before the apex court, said.
•Mr. Poovayya pointed out that the order does not provide the procedure or the object for such an exercise or the quantum of period for which a person’s private data could be intercepted. “A subsequent government press release explaining that prior approval of the Union Home Secretary would be taken before snooping has no legal value… It is only meant for the consumption of the Press. The point is the notification is silent about due procedure,” he said.
•“This order cannot be a basis for interception. It can only be understood as nominating the agencies, who on a case-to-case basis and subject to oversight, will obtain orders from designated judicial authorities to intercept… Any other interpretation will result in a serious invasion of individual privacy recognised in the K.S. Puttuswamy (privacy) judgment,” senior advocate K.V. Vishwanathan reacted.
•Experts say the December 20 order may be challenged in the apex court. The privacy judgment has already asked the government “to be sensitive to the needs of and the opportunities and dangers posed to liberty in a digital world”.
📰 Central teams assessing drought damage
State govts. have sought ₹17,000 cr. as assistance for 2 crore hectares of affected land
•Inter-ministerial teams are visiting six States to assess the impact of drought in the summer monsoon season. State governments have requested drought relief assistance from the Centre to the tune of almost ₹17,000 crore for two crore hectares of affected land, according to Agriculture Ministry data.
•Rainfall shortages have hit hard in three States of the Deccan plateau — Maharshtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh — as well as the western States of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Jharkhand and Odisha have also been affected. However, the Odisha government, which has already declared drought for kharif 2018, has not yet submitted a memorandum for assistance from the Centre.
Maharashtra worst-hit
•The inter-ministerial teams will assess the damage and submit their reports to a sub-committee headed by the Agriculture Secretary.
•The sub-committee will send final recommendations for financial assistance from the National Disaster Response Fund to a high-level committee, headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
•Maharashtra is the worst affected in terms of land area, with more than 85 lakh hectares hit by drought conditions, according to data provided to Parliament by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh this week. Out of its 36 districts, 26 districts have been affected, and the State government has requested ₹7,522 crore in central assistance.
•In Karnataka, 24 out of 30 districts have been declared drought-hit, with 37 lakh hectares affected. The State has requested assistance of ₹2,434 crore. In Rajasthan, almost 35 lakh hectares have been affected, and the State has requested nearly ₹2,820 crore of central assistance.
📰 Automatically suspend members who enter well of house, panel tells speaker
The panel’s recommendation to Sumitra Mahajan comes at a time regular disruptions of the House have become the norm.
•The Lok Sabha’s Rules Committee on Friday recommended “automatic suspension” of members who enter the well of the house or willfully obstruct its business by shouting slogans despite being repeatedly warned by the Chair.
•The panel’s recommendation to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan comes at a time regular disruptions of the House have become the norm.
•The recommendation, to suspend five consecutive sittings or remainder of the session whichever is less, was made in a draft report placed before the committee in its meeting chaired by the speaker.
•Miffed over MPs holding placards inside the Lok Sabha and creating a ruckus, Ms. Mahajan called a meeting of the committee on Thursday.
•According to the draft report placed before the committee, an amendment of Rule 374A (1) of the Lok Sabha’s Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business, which deals with suspension of the member, has been recommended.
•Those members repeatedly asked by the Speaker to go to their own seats and warned shall be automatically suspended rather than being named by the speaker, it was proposed.
•At present the rules state that such members will only be suspended after they are named by the Speaker.
•“...in the event of a grave disorder occasioned by a member coming into the well of the house or abusing the rules of the house persistently and willfully obstructing its business by shouting slogans or otherwise, despite being repeatedly asked by the Speaker to go to their seats and warned, such member shall stand automatically suspended from the service of the house for five consecutive sittings or remainder of the session whichever is less,” the Rules Committee said in its draft report.
•Once the warning has been issued by the Speaker, the house would have to be adjourned for a reasonable period of time to enable the secretary general to enlist the names of members, the report adds.
•There were differences among members of the committee over the period of suspension. TMC MP Saugata Roy’s suggestion that the suspension should be for one day, was backed by MPs from other parties as well.
•The Rules Committee functions as an advisory body to the Speaker. It considers matters of procedure and conduct of business and makes recommendations for any amendment or addition to the rules. A proposal for an amendment to the rules can be made by any member of the House or by the presiding officer or committee.
•The proposals — after being examined by the Lok Sabha Secretariat and approved by the chairperson (the Speaker) — are placed before the Committee for consideration in the form of memoranda.
•Article 118(1) of the Constitution provides that each House of Parliament may make rules to regulate the procedure and conduct of its business.
•On April 1, 1950, the Speaker made an announcement in the House regarding appointment of a committee to examine suggestions that might be received from members from time to time for amendment of the Rules.
📰 U.S. plans for more than 5,000 troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan
One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a decision had been made and verbal orders had been given to start planning for the drawdown.
•President Donald Trump is planning to withdraw more than 5,000 of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said on Thursday, in the latest sign Mr. Trump’s patience is thinning with America’s longest war and overseas military interventions.
•On Wednesday, Mr. Trump rebuffed top advisers and decided to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria, a decision that contributed to U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis abruptly quitting on Thursday over significant policy differences with the president.
•One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a decision had been made and verbal orders had been given to start planning for the drawdown. The official said timelines were being discussed but it could happen in weeks or months.
•It is unclear how the United States with less than 9,000 forces in Afghanistan will be able to fulfill the full set of missions now underway, including training Afghan forces, advising them in the field, and waging an air campaign against the Taliban and other militant groups.
•Instead, the United States almost certainly would have to curtail its missions, something that could provide an opportunity for a resurgent Taliban to expand their offensives across Afghanistan.
•Mr. Mattis had argued for maintaining a strong U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to bolster diplomatic peace efforts. He resigned shortly after U.S. officials raised the possibility that Mr. Trump would order the drawdown.
•The decision on Syria has bewildered U.S. allies and triggered harsh reaction from Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress.
•The Pentagon declined to comment on Afghanistan.
•Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the White House would not comment “on future strategic developments”.
•The United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, seeking to oust the Taliban militants harboring Saudi-raised militant Osama bin Laden, who led plans to carry out the attacks.
•U.S. officials are currently engaged in talks with the Taliban, who now control a significant amount of territory. The Taliban insurgency has strengthened its grip over the past three years, with the government in Kabul controlling just 56% of Afghanistan, down from 72% in 2015, a U.S. government report showed.
•Mr. Trump privately has been grousing about U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, telling an ally as recently as Wednesday words to the effect of, “What are we doing there? We’ve been there all these years.”
•The source, who asked to remain unidentified, said it appeared the president “has lost all patience” with the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
•More than 2,400 U.S. forces have died in the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan, and Pentagon officials have repeatedly warned that a precipitous exit would allow militants to develop new plots on America.
•Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, often a vocal Trump ally, warned of possible danger to the United States if the drawdown goes through. “The conditions in Afghanistan — at the present moment — make American troop withdrawals a high risk strategy. If we continue on our present course we are setting in motion the loss of all our gains and paving the way toward a second 9/11,” Mr. Graham said in a statement.
•Mr. Trump last year approved an increase in U.S. troops but acknowledged that he did so reluctantly.
•Late last month, at least 22 Afghan police were killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah, adding to the growing casualty toll on Afghan security forces.
•Earlier this week, U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban representatives held talks in Abu Dhabi on a deal that would end the war. Officials from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also took part.
•The Saudi ambassador to Washington, Khalid bin Salman, tweeted on Thursday that the discussions had been productive and would bring “very positive results by the beginning of next year.”
•But a former senior State Department official familiar with the issue said that the Taliban representatives rejected a proposal by Khalilzad for a ceasefire and demanded that the talks focus on a U.S. withdrawal.
📰 Rare albino orangutan released back into the wild
It was found emaciated and wounded in a remote corner of Borneo a year ago
•The world’s only known albino orangutan has been released back into the jungle more than a year after she was found emaciated and bloody in a remote corner of Borneo, an Indonesian NGO said on Friday.
•Environmentalists rescued “Alba” from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers in Central Kalimantan in April last year.
•She was found with dry blood smeared around her nose — the result of her violent capture — and weighed just 8 kg, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) said.
•The blue-eyed primate, covered in fuzzy white hair, was on Wednesday returned to the wild with her best friend, Kika, after leaving their rehabilitation centre.
•“So far she’s showing good signs of adapting,” Nico Hermanu, a BOSF spokesman, said.
•“She’s been climbing trees as high as 35 metres and has been eating fruit from the forest.”
•Kika and Alba — who is six years old and now weighs 28 kg — will be monitored by conservation teams at Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park.
Shrinking habitat
•The rescue is a rare spot of bright news for the critically endangered species, which has seen its habitat shrink drastically over the past few decades largely due to the destruction of forests for logging, paper, palm oil and mining.
•The population of orangutans in Borneo has plummeted from about 2,88,500 in 1973 to about 1,00,000 today, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
•A string of fatal attacks on the great apes this year have been blamed on farmers and hunters. Four Indonesian men were arrested over the killing of an orangutan shot some 130 times with an air rifle in February.
•Borneo police have also arrested two rubber plantation workers and accused them of shooting an orangutan multiple times before decapitating it.
