📰 Four theatre commands likely to be raised by year-end
It’ll be the biggest reorganisation of armed forces since Independence
•While deliberations continue for a consensus on the creation of the military’s integrated theatre commands, the four proposed commands are likely be raised by year-end, according to a government official.
•On Tuesday, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Bipin Rawat chaired a meeting with the Vice Chiefs of the three Services, the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff and representatives from the Ministries of Defence, Home and Finance to iron out differences on the integrated theatre commands’ creation. While details of the deliberations were not known, an official source said more deliberations would be held.
•It was expected that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would make an announcement on the creation of the commands, which would be the biggest reorganisation of the Indian armed forces since Independence, and the commands were likely to be raised by year-end, two official sources said.
•The four commands planned are air defence command, maritime theatre command, integrated eastern theatre command and integrated western theatre command. “A maritime theatre commander will not be appointed right away. The command will be first raised and commander appointed later,” a source said.
•Several officials had stated that the Indian Air Force (IAF) has major reservations over the creation of the commands.
•There have also been questions on the naming of the commands. The IAF was for all commands to be rotational and so wanted the naming to be domain specific, one of the sources said. “It has been broadly agreed but initially they would be with respective service commander till the command stabilises,” the source stated.
Integrated joint planning
•The need was integrated joint planning and not coordinated or syncing of operations as was done now. Single Service operations were not efficient or made the best use of the resources, the official said .
•The proposed change was that at the highest level, instead of one Service making a single plan that was then routed through the headquarters and the Integrated Defence Command (IDS), in the new plan, they would be held by a three- star commander and integrated with other two domains, the source explained. “These plans will be presented to Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC) as opposed to a single plan being presented to a Chief,” the official stated.
•“The operational functions will shift to theatre commands, which will involve the creation of joint structures in headquarters IDS,” the source noted.
•Stating that there would be little to no financial outflow involved, the source said there was only creation of a headquarters and no movement of assets or personnel. “It is only reorganising ourselves in a better manner within existing resources,” the official added.
This is the second batch of captive-bred animals to be released in a year
•Eight of 12 captive-bred pygmy hogs, the world’s rarest and smallest wild pigs, were on June 22 released in the Manas National Park of western Assam. The remaining four would be released on June 25.
•This is the second batch to have been reintroduced into the wild under the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP) in a year. Fourteen of these animals were released in Manas in 2020.
•The PHCP is a collaboration among Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust of UK, Assam Forest Department, Wild Pig Specialist Group of International Union for Conservation of Nature and Union Environment Ministry and is currently being implemented by NGOs Aaranyak and EcoSystems India.
•Six hogs — two males and four females — were captured from the Bansbari range of the Manas National Park in 1996 for starting the breeding programme. The reintroduction programme began in 2008 with the Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary (35 hogs), Orang National Park (59) and Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary (22).
•With Tuesday’s release, the number of pygmy hogs reintroduced into the wild under the PHCP reached 142, which is more than their current original global wild population.
•“Manas has been doing well in conservation in recent years and with the release of these hogs in Bhuyanpara range, the hog population will be increased,” Amal Chandra Sarma, Manas’ Field Director said.
Brought back from near-extinction
•“Conservation of pygmy hog was initiated by noted naturalist Gerald Durrell and his trust in 1971. The pygmy hog was brought back from near-extinction by the partnership effort, and now we are moving towards the establishment of a population across the entire range,” PHCP’s Project Director Parag Jyoti Deka said.
•By 2025, the PHCP plans to release 60 pygmy hogs in Manas.
📰 First-ever genetically modified rubber planted in Assam
This is the second batch of captive-bred animals to be released in a year
•Eight of 12 captive-bred pygmy hogs, the world’s rarest and smallest wild pigs, were on June 22 released in the Manas National Park of western Assam. The remaining four would be released on June 25.
•This is the second batch to have been reintroduced into the wild under the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP) in a year. Fourteen of these animals were released in Manas in 2020.
•The PHCP is a collaboration among Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust of UK, Assam Forest Department, Wild Pig Specialist Group of International Union for Conservation of Nature and Union Environment Ministry and is currently being implemented by NGOs Aaranyak and EcoSystems India.
•Six hogs — two males and four females — were captured from the Bansbari range of the Manas National Park in 1996 for starting the breeding programme. The reintroduction programme began in 2008 with the Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary (35 hogs), Orang National Park (59) and Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary (22).
•With Tuesday’s release, the number of pygmy hogs reintroduced into the wild under the PHCP reached 142, which is more than their current original global wild population.
•“Manas has been doing well in conservation in recent years and with the release of these hogs in Bhuyanpara range, the hog population will be increased,” Amal Chandra Sarma, Manas’ Field Director said.
Brought back from near-extinction
•“Conservation of pygmy hog was initiated by noted naturalist Gerald Durrell and his trust in 1971. The pygmy hog was brought back from near-extinction by the partnership effort, and now we are moving towards the establishment of a population across the entire range,” PHCP’s Project Director Parag Jyoti Deka said.
•By 2025, the PHCP plans to release 60 pygmy hogs in Manas.
📰 Why is China targeting cryptocurrencies?
Beijing seeks to strengthen its monetary hold and project its new official digital currency
•The price of the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency Bitcoin has more than halved in the last two months after hitting a peak in mid-April. The second-most valuable cryptocurrency, Ether, has seen a similar fall from its peak last month. China’s crackdown against cryptocurrencies, which are those that aren’t sanctioned by a centralised authority and are secured by cryptography, is said to have a lot to do with the crashing of the value of cryptocurrencies.
What has China done?
•In recent weeks, China has reportedly cracked down on crypto mining operations. The country has over the years accounted for a large percentage of the total crypto mining activity that takes place. In purpose, Bitcoin miners play a similar role to gold miners — they bring new Bitcoins into circulation. They get these as a reward for validating transactions, which require the successful computation of a mathematical puzzle. And these computations have become ever-increasingly complex, and therefore energy-intensive in recent years. Huge mining operations are now inevitable if one is to mine Bitcoins.
•Access to cheap electricity has made mining lucrative in China. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, China accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total computational power last year. Xinjiang and Sichuan provinces accounted for nearly half of this. Now, provincial governments one by one have acted against these mining operations. The latest to do so is Sichuan, which was a hydroelectric-based crypto mining hub.
•But that’s not all.
•A few days back, the People's Bank of China directed banks and payment firms to pull the plug on cryptocurrency trading.
•Actually, there is little change in the policy as far as China is concerned. It first imposed restrictions on cryptocurrencies way back in 2013. It then barred financial institutions from handling Bitcoin. Four years later, it barred what are called initial coin offerings, under which firms raise money by selling their own new cryptocurrencies. This is largely an unregulated market.
What China wants?
•An inter-ministerial committee report in India two years ago noted that in 2017, the government of China also banned trading between RMB (China’s currency renminbi) and cryptocurrencies. It said, “Before the ban, RMB made up 90% of Bitcoin trades worldwide. In under a year, the trades between RMB and Bitcoin had fallen to under 1% of the world total.” The report also noted that China had decided to prohibit mining within its jurisdiction. While the miners had stopped their activities for some time, the steep increase in the price of Bitcoin had brought many back into action.
•The fact that cryptocurrencies bypass official institutions has been a reason for unease in many governments. Not just that. The anonymity that it offers aids in the flourishing of dark trades online. While many countries have opted to regulate the world of cryptocurrencies, China has taken the strictest of measures over the years. According to observers, the latest set of measures are to strengthen its monetary hold and also project its new official digital currency. An AFP report said, “China launched tests for a digital yuan in March. Its aim is to allow Beijing to conduct transactions in its own currency around the world, reducing dependency on the dollar which remains dominant internationally.”
Offshore platforms
•This time, its focus is on what has been a loophole all along — of offshore platforms enabling those in China to trade in cryptocurrencies. A Reuters report said the People’s Bank of China asked banks and payment firms to “identify those involved in cryptocurrency transactions and promptly cut their payment channels.” It said, “China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) , Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) and Postal Savings Bank of China attended the meeting, along with Alipay, the ubiquitous payment platform owned byfintechgiantAnt Group.”
📰 Policy creep: On e-commerce and overregulation risks
Overregulation risks retarding growth and job creation in the e-commerce sector
•Barely 11 months after the Government notified the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, the Department of Consumer Affairs has mooted a set of sweeping amendments, ostensibly “to protect the interests of consumers... and encourage free and fair competition in the market”. Among them is a norm stipulating the appointment of a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person for 24x7 coordination with law enforcement agencies, and another requiring e-commerce entities offering imported goods or services to ‘incorporate a filter mechanism to identify goods based on country of origin and suggest alternatives to ensure a fair opportunity to domestic goods’. A third mandates a fall-back liability on online marketplaces in the event of non-delivery of goods or services to the consumer. Registration has also been made mandatory for all e-commerce players; specific ‘flash sales’, including ‘back-to-back’ ones, are set to be banned; and all entities must provide information within 72 hours on any request made by an authorised government agency probing any breach of law including cybersecurity issues. While on the face of it none of these new rules appears exceptionable, especially when e-commerce tops the National Consumer Helpline’s complaints chart, there is still a distinctly discernible pattern to the changes. Following on the heels of the recent IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, the draft e-commerce amendments show the Government’s increasing keenness to exercise greater oversight over all online platforms.
•The Centre also appears to be signalling its intent to dig in its heels in an intensifying stand-off with Walmart’s unit Flipkart, and Amazon, which are both now in court battling an attempt by the Competition Commission of India to reopen a probe into their business practices. The two large e-commerce players have had to contend with accusations that their pricing practices are skewed to favour select sellers on their platforms and that their discounting policies have hurt offline retailers. The fact that the latest changes expressly seek to ensure that none of an e-commerce entity’s ‘related parties and associated enterprises is enlisted as a seller for sale to consumers directly’ could also impact several platforms that retail products supplied by vendors with arm’s length ties. The enforcement of many of these norms is bound to spur protracted legal fights. Asserting that the amendments were not aimed at conventional flash sales, the Government said it was only targeting certain entities engaged in limiting consumer choice by indulging in ‘back-to-back’ sales wherein a seller does not have the capability to meet an order. In trying to address shortcomings in its rules from last year, the Government appears to be harking back to an era of tight controls. Overregulation with scope for interpretative ambiguity risks retarding growth and job creation in the hitherto expanding e-commerce sector.
📰 Countering a political act that has a legal garb
With sedition cases rising, often solely based on word usage, people need to have a political and legal defence
•Aisha Sultana, a film-maker from Lakshadweep, was recently booked for the alleged offences of sedition and statements prejudicial to national integrity. A crime was registered based on a complaint by a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Ms. Sultana then moved the Kerala High Court for pre-arrest bail. The court allowed interim bail to her on June 17. Ms. Sultana thus got temporary relief from incarceration. The court will pass its final orders in the application shortly.
•Ms. Sultana’s case is only one among the numerous sedition cases recently registered in the country. In Lakshadweep, people have had sedition slapped against them for putting up placards or posters against the Prime Minister. Ms. Sultana’s case also reveals the regime’s political strategy to threaten dissidents.
Background and implications
•Ms. Sultana is alleged to have used the word ‘bioweapon’ in a television discussion about the recent developments in Lakshadweep and its draft reforms. She said it while deliberating over the Lakshadweep Administrator’s actions and omissions that allegedly contributed to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic on the island, which was free from the virus in 2020. Ms. Sultana indicated in her petition before the court and to the media that she is apologetic about the word used. In an interview she said that her “bioweapon remark” was a “mistake” and that she was “entrapped”.
•Hindutva forces have relied heavily on this subsequent posture which she publicly made, to strengthen their stand. They tried to create a false sense of moral victory and legitimacy to back their position, which they thoroughly lack.
•Ms. Sultana is not a political activist. And it is probable that she may not be very articulate or even be able to present strong arguments on the affairs of the nation. It seemed like she was partly accusing herself or acknowledging the ‘mistake’ in some way. This self-accusation was, however, unwarranted. When the purpose of the sedition law is to curtail opposing ideas, her rescission had the effect of legitimising the state’s wrongful action.
Lessons from history
•Ms. Sultana’s case is a case study for those who are concerned about the country’s liberal values. The offence of sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was inserted in the Code in 1870. In the great trial of 1922, Mahatma Gandhi, charged with sedition, described the provision as “perhaps the prince among the political sections of the IPC designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen”. Gandhiji, who himself was a lawyer, made two points in his statement given on March 18, 1922. One, he admitted the charge of preaching disaffection towards the then existing regime. Two, he justified his act and said that it was his duty to do so as it is “a sin to have affection for the system (under the British Raj)”. He explained that “Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence.”
•This statement is not only political but also legal. Curiously, this assertion that Gandhiji made in the court was indirectly laid down as the law by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India in Kedar Nath Singh (1962) which said that incitement to violence is the gist of the offence of sedition. This proposition was followed by the top court consistently, till Vinod Dua (2021), where the Court said that a journalist cannot be booked for sedition for expressing dissent.
•The law was clear even when Gandhiji was convicted and sentenced. Evidently, the charge and the conviction were political, not legal. Even today, the very registration of crimes against political opponents under the draconian laws is essentially a political act, though it takes a legal form. According to the report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), between 2016 and 2019 there was a 160% increase in the registration of sedition cases whereas the conviction rate during this period fell from 33.3% to 3.3%. Thus, the process itself becomes the punishment.
•Therefore, one needs to build up a political defence as well as legal defence against such charges. Litigation is not merely a means for the redress of grievance. When the charges are under ‘political sections’, as Gandhiji eloquently described, they need to be countered by a political praxis as well. Only such a course would expose the egregious motive of the state in accusing its citizens of the offence of sedition without any legal or factual foundation whatsoever. Only such a resistance would be able to re-educate our judicial institutions constitutionally and historically, and to ensure dialogic democracy.
•Unfortunately, Ms. Sultana’s subsequent expression of regret does not pass this political test. She could have asserted that the word she used was correct and proper. It was possible for her to justify it as an imagery capable of exposing the regime’s unprincipled approach in Lakshadweep.
•It needs to be told that the British Raj used the draconian provision only when they alleged that a speech or a writing resulted in violence,or there was at least a remote connection between the overt act and social disturbance. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was tried in 1897 on an accusation that the articles in Kesari, a Marathi paper owned by him, incited violence that led to the killing of two British officers. Tilak was convicted and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 18 months. In 1908, he was again tried and later sentenced for writing “seditious” articles and by connecting them with certain instances of ‘social disorder’. Post-Independence, in Kedar Nath Singh, the accusation among others, was that Kedar Nath, a Forward Communist Party leader, had asserted his belief in a revolution “in the flames of which the capitalists, zamindars, and the Congress leaders of India….will be reduced to ashes....” The Court said that “comments, however strongly worded, expressing disapprobation of actions of the Government, without exciting those feelings which generate the inclination to cause public disorder by acts of violence, would not be penal”. In Balwant Singh (1995), slogans for an independent Sikh nation were found to be not seditious for want of the ingredient of incitement to violence. None of these prominent cases relied on the mere use of words to make out the offence.
A new judicial activism
•But after 2014, cases of sedition are frequently and intentionally registered solely based on words spoken, written, or tweeted. This can have a chilling effect on people’s movements. The clear political object behind the invocation of the law is to create an atmosphere of fear. This, in a way, is the price which the country had to pay for the retention of the law of sedition, among other draconian laws. Therefore, the Supreme Court of India and the High Courts should take suo motu cognisance of the incidents where the state ostensibly uses draconian laws to suppress criticism and protest. This is difficult, but not impossible. Such suo motu proceedings would reflect the kind of judicial activism that our time demands. The organised Bar, especially at the State level, must perform its libertarian role by constantly demanding for a judiciary that values freedom and acts for it.
📰 The picture is clear, it is top-down misinformation
A new report shows that many Indians know misinformation about the pandemic often comes from the top
•When asked what source of false or misleading information about the novel coronavirus they are most concerned about, many more Indians highlight domestic political actors than worry about activist groups, foreign governments, or journalists.
Source of prime concern
•Nearly one in four (23%) in our recent survey say that the Government, politicians or political parties are the source they are most concerned about. That is more people than worry about misinformation from platforms such as Facebook (16%) or YouTube (14%). Among platforms, only messaging applications (e.g. WhatsApp) generate more widespread public concern among our respondents. They are named by 28%.
•Meanwhile, Indian authorities often seem mostly interested in going after alleged misinformation from activists (only 9% of our Indian survey respondents identify activist groups as the most concerning source of false or misleading information about the coronavirus), select journalists and news organisations (named by 13%), or on Twitter (which just 4% identify as the platform they are most concerned about).
•Our survey only covers English-speaking Internet users in India, so while it captures an important minority, the data are not representative of India’s overall population. Still, it provides insight into how many Indians see the “infodemic” that has accompanied the pandemic, an immense wave of information that, unfortunately, also includes some false and misleading material, rumours, and attempts to exploit the crisis for propaganda or for profit.
•The picture is clear — many Indians think that misinformation about the pandemic often comes from the top.
•Are they right? Both academic research and independent journalism suggest that they might well be.
‘Network propaganda’
•Study after study around the world has found such “network propaganda”, where misinformation is spread by some top politicians, nakedly partisan news media who cheer them on, and well-organised communities of political supporters active on social media and messaging applications.
•Top-down misinformation from politicians, celebrities, and other prominent public figures are a small part of the false and misleading claims one can come across online in terms of raw volume, but our research during the pandemic shows it accounts for a large share of social media engagement.
•Even when political actors are not busy drumming up outright propaganda in the media and on digital platforms, authorities also sometimes risk misleading the public in other ways.
•In country after country, reporters have found that official COVID-19 death tolls are far lower than the actual excess deaths recorded during the pandemic – as The Hindu found in Tamil Nadu by comparing Civil Registration System data with the officially reported figure.
Unproven claims
•And politicians have sometimes promoted supposed coronavirus remedies with no scientific basis. Former President of the United States Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are prominent international examples. In India, some politicians have, for example, claimed that cow urine can protect people against COVID-19, even as the Indian Medical Association (IMA) pointed out there was absolutely no evidence for this, just as the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare last year came under severe criticism from for recommending a range of unproved, alternative remedies to prevent or treat the disease.
•Some misinformation circulates peer-to-peer on social media and on encrypted messaging services as people share supposed miracle cures and ineffective alternative health tips in good faith or carelessly. This can create problems. But arguably, far more problematic is when people in positions of authority and prominent public figures promote measures that have no scientific basis in the middle of a deadly pandemic.
Examples from India
•One prominent example is the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana State government announcing last month that it would hand out one lakh Coronil kits to COVID-19 patients for free.
•The ayurvedic remedy was launched in June last year by Baba Ramdev’s company, Patanjali Ayurved, and at a press conference the yoga guru claimed (https://bit.ly/3gKUPCI) the remedy guaranteed “100 per cent recovery from COVID-19 within seven days of consuming the medicine”. Hours later, the central government asked Patanjali Ayurved to stop advertising the drug and the Uttarakhand Ayurveda Department responsible for licensing the remedy pointed out the licence was for an immunity booster, not a cure.
•In February this year, Ramdev’s company falsely claimed Coronil was certified by the World Health Organization (WHO) — a claim WHO immediately pointed out was untrue. And the yoga guru appeared at an event with Union Minister of Health Harsh Vardhan promoting alternative medicines for COVID-19 patients, leading the IMA to ask the Minister how ethical it is “to promote the product in unethical, wrong and false ways to the whole country?”
•The promotion and provision of what the IMA describes as an “unscientific medicine” marketed with “false and baseless” claims is an example of how misleading information from prominent public figures and people in positions of authority can lead to bigger problems than random falsehoods spread by ordinary people online and offline.
•If authorities in India are serious about addressing misinformation, they might take a cue from the fact that much of the Indian public clearly recognise that misinformation often comes from the top, and spend less time worrying about activists, journalists, and Twitter, and more time thinking about how to ensure that citizens can trust that the health remedies promoted by their own governments and by prominent political figures are actually safe and effective.
