📰 India hails UAE-Israel pact, reiterates Palestine cause
New Delhi will continue to push for a two-state solution
•India on Friday welcomed the normalisation of ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), calling them both “key strategic partners”.
•External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar received a call from UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan to explain the decision to establish full ties with Israel, becoming the first Gulf country, and the third Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan, to do so.
•The trilateral agreement called the “Abraham Accords”, signed along with the U.S. on Thursday, also commits Israel to suspend its plans for annexation of Palestine majority areas.
•“India has consistently supported peace, stability and development in West Asia, which is its extended neighbourhood. In that context, we welcome the full normalisation of ties between UAE and Israel,” said MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava, briefing journalists on Friday.
•Mr. Jaishankar tweeted that he “deeply appreciated” the call from the UAE Minister, and said they “discussed the full normalisation of relations between UAE and Israel.”
•While the announcement of the agreement has been welcomed by India, it will also mean continuing to walk a balance on West Asian politics. According to experts, the normalisation of ties between Israel and the UAE could be followed by similar actions by other Gulf countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and strong reactions from other countries in a region India has deep stakes in terms of energy supplies and expatriate populations. New Delhi will also need to watch ties with Iran, which has slammed the agreement and will see Arab-Israeli tie-ups as a direct threat to its security.
Call for talks
•Officials said New Delhi would also continue to push for a two-state solution as part of a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine. Reaffirming its “traditional support” for the Palestinian cause, the MEA on Friday called for the early resumption of talks for a “two state” solution.
•Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the agreement, calling it “betrayal”.
•Former Ambassador to Israel and the U.S., Navtej Sarna, said the agreement was a “good development” for India, given its strong ties with both countries.
If the UAE does not push Israel to withdraw from occupied areas, their deal is of little value
•The peace agreement reached between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has formalised the thaw in Arab-Israeli relations that has been under way for a few years. As part of the deal announced by U.S. President Trump on Thursday, the UAE would recognise the state of Israel and establish formal diplomatic relations, while Israel would halt its controversial plan to annex swathes of the Palestinian West Bank. It is a landmark agreement given that the UAE is only the third Arab country and the first in the Gulf recognising Israel. It could pave the way for the region’s Sunni Arab kingdoms and the Jewish-majority Israel enhancing regional cooperation against their common foe, Shia Iran. Israel has said it would focus on “expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world”, while the U.S. has expressed hope that more Arab countries would follow the UAE’s lead — Arab-Israeli relations have largely been conflict-ridden ever since the state of Israel was declared in 1948. For Mr. Trump who played a critical role, it is a rare diplomatic victory just months before he seeks re-election. His other foreign policy bets — Iran, North Korea or Afghanistan — were either disastrous or inconclusive. But in the case of Israel and the UAE, both allies of the U.S., quiet diplomacy worked. The U.S. had arranged several meetings between Israeli and Emirati officials last year, which probably laid the foundations for the agreement.
•While the deal has the potential to change Arab-Israeli relations for good, it also shows how the Arab countries are gradually decoupling themselves from the Palestine question. The UAE offered full diplomatic recognition in return for Israel’s suspension of a planned annexation, not for any relaxation of the actual occupation. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, Israel made peace with an Arab country without “our returning to the 1967 borders”. The Arab Peace Initiative, a Saudi Arabia initiative endorsed by the Arab League, offered recognition to Israel in exchange for its full withdrawal from the occupied territories. Ironically, the UAE’s peace agreement comes close on the heels of the Trump administration’s back-to-back decisions to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and its sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights. Clearly, the UAE has moved away from the Arab initiative. The question now is whether the Emiratis would be able to press the Jewish state to relax its inhuman and illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and start talks between the occupier and the occupied. If it cannot, the UAE-Israel deal would be of little significance for the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership, on its part, should understand the emerging reality in West Asia — the Arab-Israel conflict is coming to a close, but the Palestine-Israel conflict is to continue without any respite.
📰 Democracy needs an Internet ombudsman
There must be a gatekeeper to balance appetites for technology, security and privacy
•In any triangle of relationship, trust is the first casualty. In the interplay between government, companies and citizens for big data, information asymmetry has become so skewed that it has eroded the very spirit of democracy by limiting the unbiased communication of ideas. Governments and private companies are using the Internet as ‘a means of control and surveillance, extending from cases of fraud detection, storage and exchange of criminal and financial records to those of political surveillance and control’. Citizens who receive a flood of unfiltered information, information with colour but no patterns, information with images that can never add up to the real picture, recirculate the same back into the infantile world for greater chaos. Resultantly, “Information Superhighways” (coined by the U.S.’s “almost” President Al Gore) in democracy are leading to “re-tribalisation” of politics in cabals and cocoons while deliberations are fast transforming into ‘consultations among computer systems’ where trust and security are illusions.
•At a time when the Internet is the new jazz and a tool as also a venue for all political hues, it is important to understand how government, political parties and citizens are responding to this new triangular interplay between data protection, privacy and a flow of information. When the Government of India banned 59 Chinese apps on the ground of transgressing Indian security, the question as to why in the first instance were they allowed into India did not get sufficient importance. Was there no security or privacy audit? While Facebook and Amazon are facing scrutiny on their own soil for their data mining policies, how did we allow so many apps without any check? Government policy on national security should be based on advance strategic assessment rather than on a reactive basis.
‘Control’ and also data theft
•On the privacy front, even after the Supreme Court of India had declared privacy as a fundamental right, the government insisted on affidavit in the top court that informational privacy or data privacy cannot be a fundamental right. The Aadhar Act diluted the notion of ‘privacy’ and the standard of proportionality test set up by the Supreme Court. In an ongoing dilemma, even the ‘Aarogya Setu’ app is battling to satisfy the conscience of privacy overseers. The clear impression is that the government is more interested in ‘control’ than ‘protection’ of data. A national policy on data privacy of individuals is still a non-starter. People continue to suffer because of the regular incidents of data theft. India’s cybersecurity watchdog, CERT-In, last year reported huge data theft of Facebook and Twitter users by malicious third party apps. Reportedly, more than 1.3 million credit and debit card details from Indian banks and the data of 6.8 million users from an Indian health-care website were stolen in the same year.
Private firms and elections
•Private data analytics companies have emerged to exploit the electoral process with the sole objective of customising political messaging. While the customisation of political messaging is not per se illegal, it certainly is unlawful to indulge in unauthorised data mining and collection by the industry. According to a report by Omidyar Network India and Monitor Deloitte, many private enterprises routinely share the personal data of individuals with third parties including political organisations. The fact that there are dedicated IT cells which carry out a digital form of warfare with propaganda and fake news being two powerful weapons is making things more complicated. The present legal framework leaves these menaces outside the ambit of election laws as they were framed in a time and space that was primitive when compared to contemporary technological advancements.
•For citizens, digital media are carriers of images and sounds, rather than words and thoughts, and the system where images run faster than thoughts is suitable for the spread of fake news. Times of fear and uncertainty also provide a fertile ground for disinformation to grow. The fake WhatsApp forwards that triggered the primitive “Us v/s Them” group mentality and is manifested in Delhi riots reports, and the forwards on the novel coronavirus which declare COVID-19 a bacteria and the World Health Organization stating that vegetarians cannot be infected with COVID-19, are all reminders of the potency of data, true or false, in a democracy.
Regulation and independence
•Should there be a gatekeeper to balance appetites for technology, security and privacy? The answer is yes, so long as the gate keeper is for regulation, not surveillance, and so long as it is completely and genuinely independent. Otherwise it will perform an unacceptable legitimation function. The Personal Data Protection Bill, struggling to be born in Parliament despite conception in 2018, is more about control and surveillance than about promoting privacy and protection of data. Far-reaching exemptions, in large measure swallowing the rule, have been carved out where personal data can be processed. Section 35, which provides the government with unfettered access to personal data, negates the three tests of legality, necessity and proportionality given by the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs Union Of India . The Bill also allows State and private parties to process personal data without obtaining consent and such broad exemptions would not only open the floodgates for misuse but also reduce India’s prospects of entering into bilateral arrangements for law enforcement access. Selection committees, terms of appointment and of removal establish beyond doubt that the Authority is likely to be like a rehabilitation centre for retired bureaucrats, yet a sinecure wholly controlled by the government. It is a classic case of rolling up judge, jury and executioner. Only an Internet ombudsman with experts on cyber and Internet laws, IT, data management, data science, data security, public administration and national security, and consciously involving eminent sections of civil society, can be an effective antidote to unregulated technological disruptions.
📰 Gaps in the casting of India’s foreign policy
Key questions are being asked about the strategic depth of the country’s international relations, and with good reason
•At a time ‘when sorrows come’, not as ‘single spies, but in battalions’ with an unprecedented pandemic, Chinese soldiers squatting on India’s side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), cartographic aggression by little Nepal, Iran joining a virtual alliance with China, Russia getting close to China, Pakistan shooting across the Line of Control (LoC), a looming financial crisis and other challenges, fundamental questions are being asked about the strategic depth of our foreign policy.
•Fervent calls are being made to go back to the drawing board and shape new policies in these and other cases. It goes without saying that the government will examine all these and other international developments and apply correctives wherever possible. Since the global situation itself is in a flux, there will be many surprises on the way and our own positions will also influence the shape of the post-COVID-19 world.
•Many in India have been taken by surprise at these developments because of the numerous fairy tales which surround international issues, a number of them having been created for the feel-good factor. The understanding of every issue is at three different levels. One is the real situation, which is known only to those at the higher levels and the interlocuters in the government. The second is the official version, properly calibrated for the guidance of spokespersons of the government, while the third is a more rosy picture for the general public who should feel comfortable that the government that they have elected is doing well. The fairy tales are created by the official and friendly press and commentators and are lapped up by public opinion, with a sense that all is well with the world.
•The dream world gets disturbed occasionally when the reality pierces through the carefully created layers of positive impressions and the surprise turns into concern and even panic. Fire-fighting follows to reset relations and to bring back a sense of comfort and normalcy. The fundamental issues remain dormant, but a few high-level conversations, some business deals and carefully crafted joint statements take care of concerns, which disappear as public memory is proverbially short. This is a game that all governments play, not only in India but around the world.
Dealing with China
•The most recent example of a relationship clouded by fairy tales is the one with China. With all the investments made by the Prime Minister and our large galaxy of China experts, we had no inkling of the Chinese perfidy as we had romanticised the ‘Wuhan Spirit’ and the ‘Chennai Connect’ in Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu. The Prime Minister who alone knew what transpired at these informal summits, said nothing, but his body language and enthusiasm lulled us into thinking that these leaders would never fight a war. It came as a complete surprise that the Chinese amassed troops on the LAC and the Prime Minister characterised the Chinese action as expansionist. But strangely, apart from calling for a reset of relations, we have begun to create a legend that China has committed a “Himalayan blunder” by its military adventure on the border. Even before the promised disengagement has taken place, we have concluded that China lost the battle, which it had begun after careful planning and preparations. We have declared victory in a battle that has not ended.
Russian ties
•We were surprised in 1962 that the erstwhile Soviet Union refused to intervene in the India-China conflict on the plea that “one was a brother and the other was a friend”. Even with that experience, we had taken the support of Russia for granted this time, obviously because of the new relationship which has been established after the Prime Minister’s visits to Sochi and Vladivostock. We now know that the rose-tinted glasses of reliability through which the general public sees Russia are unreal. A President of India had remarked that Russia is an exception to the rule that there are no permanent friends. Russia’s quasi-alliance with China is a reality, while our perception of Russia has the veil of a fairy tale. Our close defence relationship, with 60% of our arms supply coming from Russia is explicable, but not sustainable. A ministerial meeting of India, China and Russia a week after the loss of 20 Indian soldiers at the LAC was intriguing to say the least.
UNSC high table and NSG
•The most celebrated fairy tale is the impression created that the UN Security Council will be expanded soon, and that India will be a permanent member. The impression is widespread even in informed circles because of the occasional optimistic reports emanating from New York. We have been campaigning for a reform of the Security Council since 1979 and there has been really no progress on the issue of new permanent members. Many reports have been written, but as of today there is no formula which can enjoy two-thirds majority of the General Assembly and the unanimous support of the permanent members. The vast majority of the members of the UN would want to abolish the veto rather than give it to more countries. To maintain the myth that India is likely to get a place on the high table with veto power is to keep an illusion alive. A former Foreign Secretary has recently clarified that there was no offer of a permanent seat to India during the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, hopefully ending the speculation on that score.
•Membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is another mirage that the public believes is a reality. India joining the NSG is like Russia joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization because the NSG was set up originally to deny India any nuclear material following India’s nuclear tests in 1974.
•Every member of the NSG is a signatory to the NPT and the best it could do was to give us an unconditional waiver, which we already have.
The civil liability law
•We hear about six American nuclear reactors being set up in Andhra Pradesh every time there is a discussion on bilateral relations. Here again, the presumption is that the hurdle of our Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, placing the responsibility of any damages being on the supplier, will wither away. Many formulae are being suggested, but a senior nuclear scientist admitted a couple of years ago that the United States was using the Liability Law as a smokescreen not to transfer nuclear technology to India. The Clinton White House was of the view that India could use the India-U.S. Agreement on Civil Nuclear Cooperation for acquiring technology and material from other countries, and the U.S. should refrain from strengthening India’s nuclear capability. This position does not seem to have changed.
•There could be instances of other unsubstantiated expectations among the public because of repeated expressions of optimism which are considered harmless. The exaggerated faith in the value of soft power as an instrument of foreign policy and the theory that there is no point in nursing constituencies such as the Non-Aligned Movement may be some of them. But the danger of disillusionment when hopes are belied is greater than removing the cobwebs of fairy tales that shroud key foreign policy questions.
