📰 A ‘silver’ moment to propel a Bay of Bengal dream
After 25 years, BIMSTEC can do much better as a grouping, addressing shortcomings in trade and connectivity
•June 6 marked the completion of 25 years since the 1997 Bangkok Declaration launched a modest grouping (of Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand), with the acronym, BIST-EC. Three countries (Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar) joined it later to make it the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). This unique set of five countries from South Asia and two from Southeast Asia are parents to an institution with an unwieldy name but lofty ambitions. It is the parents’ responsibility that the 25-year-old offspring, now a full adult, begins taking strides to achieve the goals set before it.
Past trajectory
•At the grouping’s birth, the world was different; it was stamped by America’s ‘unipolar moment’. India and Thailand joined hands to start an experiment of infusing a part of South Asia with the economic and institutional dynamism that defined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). But BIMSTEC found the burdens of South Asia too heavy to carry, and so it grew slowly.
•Now in the third decade of the 21st century, the strategic contestation between the United States and China defines the region’s geopolitics and geo-economics, creating new tensions and opportunities. The grouping has succeeded in rejuvenating itself. Since its Kathmandu summit in 2018, it is viewed as an instrument of regional cooperation and integration, not just of sub-regional cooperation. It is good going so far, but the challenging tasks begin now.
•Experts maintain that if BIMSTEC is truly committed to its stated goals, it must recreate the spirit of working in unison, displayed at the historic Leaders’ Retreat in October 2016 (and their interaction with the BRICS leadership on the same day). The far-reaching decisions taken, in Goa, paved the way for the institution’s reform that took shape at the Kathmandu summit. The Colombo summit in March 2022 put its stamp of approval on it. A determined push at the highest political level made it happen. That is the key lesson from the past.
Key achievements
•BIMSTEC has several achievements to its credit. It has crafted a new Charter for itself, spelling out the grouping’s vision, functions of its constituent parts, and has secured a legal personality. It has prioritised the sectors of cooperation, reducing them from the unwieldy 14 to the more manageable seven, with each member-state serving as the lead country for the assigned sector. It has, finally, taken measures to strengthen the Secretariat, although some members are yet to extend adequate personnel support to it. Above all, its success lies in its survival through the turns and twists of internal tensions. The BIMSTEC region witnessed the influx of over a million Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, the result of oppression by the Myanmar military; the coup in Myanmar that led to its virtual boycott by a large segment of the international community; and the grave political and economic crisis afflicting Sri Lanka.
•Unlike the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, post-2014, BIMSTEC has continued to hold its summits and meetings of Foreign Ministers. Unlike the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) which held only one summit since its establishment in 1997, BIMSTEC has succeeded in holding five summits so far; it has now resolved to hold regular summits once in two years.
•The grouping has also registered progress in combating terrorism, forging security cooperation, and creating mechanisms and practices for the better management of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. A whole basket of memoranda of understanding, agreements and legal instruments provide the foundation for developing functional cooperation in select areas such as agriculture, trade, sustainable development and connectivity. Institutions such as an Energy Centre and the Centre on Weather and Climate are in place to push sectoral cooperation forward.
The faultlines
•However, a fair balance sheet must factor in the shortfalls and the gaps between ambition and action. A major failure relates to the continuing inability to produce a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) 18 years after the signing of the Framework Agreement. Official sources concede that of the seven agreements needed to operationalise the FTA, only two are “ready” — a disappointing record. What is worse is that the highest political leaders, in their summit declarations, continue to “direct” ministers and officials to expedite action, but, alas, with little impact. Heads of state and government need to assert their authority or abandon the FTA as an unachievable goal.
•The other disappointment is connectivity — in infrastructure (roads, railways, air, river, and coastal shipping links), energy, the digital and financial domain, and institutions that bring people closer together for trade, tourism and cultural exchanges. Only limited progress has been achieved so far, despite the adoption of the Master Plan for Connectivity supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Much of the connectivity established recently is the outcome of bilateral initiatives taken by India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan to strengthen transport links. Mega-projects aimed to improve connectivity between India and Myanmar (and Thailand) have been delayed inordinately.
•For greater regional connectivity, more financial resources are needed. The movement towards establishing the BIMSTEC Development Fund is minimal. The grouping has talked about the Blue Economy but is yet to begin any work on it. Business chambers and corporate leaders are yet to be engaged fully with the activities of BIMSTEC. This leaves the grouping largely in the hands of officials and experts. The involvement of the ‘Third Space’ needs to be expanded significantly.
And, prospects
•An objective evaluation may award an A- to BIMSTEC@25, with the remark that it must do better. An exciting destiny awaits it as it works to realise the vision of the Bay of Bengal Community (BOBC). In this Indo-Pacific century, the BOBC has the potential to play a pivotal role, deepening linkages between South Asia and Southeast Asia. It should accelerate the region’s economic development by collaborating with the newly minted Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). New synergy should be created between BIMSTEC and the IPEF.
•Finally, while all member-states are equal, three have a special responsibility: Bangladesh as the host of the BIMSTEC Secretariat; Thailand as the representative of Southeast Asia; and India as the largest state in South Asia. This trio must be the engine to pull the BIMSTEC train with imagination and determination.
It denotes the state of social democratisation, but with growing economic inequalities
•While economic inequalities have grown exponentially over the last few decades, we have also witnessed social democratisation that has been silent and uneventful. Democratisation has happened due to the spread of education, the growing reach of the market and a ‘communication revolution’ that includes social media, and renewed legitimisation of democracy through the principle of ‘one vote, one value’. Such social equalisation has not, however, contributed in any substantial sense to distributive justice, much against the assumption that the shift from ‘equality to difference’ will also account for economic equality. Populism is an expression of this anomaly of growing social mobility sans economic equality.
Change on many fronts
•Democratisation can be seen on many fronts. New technology has replaced old social divides. Today, for instance, photography is not about ‘capturing’ a moment; it is about ‘creating’ one using filters and also the instant mobile phone cameras. It is not about who can be a great photographer, but who chooses to be one. Nothing is rare, everything is common. How do we celebrate the common? Populism has shown us a way — narrativising the common and creating a spectacle of the every day.
•Markets have created new modes of consumption. David Harvey refers to Netflix as a non-exclusive consumption that can be consumed simultaneously. It breaks the gap between high and low cultures. The poor can make do with look-alike fashion (consider markets being flushed with Gucci bags on the streets), as long as they follow and understand fashion trends. Relative educational opportunities have spread through the private sector and English education now looks within reach. For instance, the Government of Andhra Pradesh has made the English medium mandatory in government schools. Education in English for the next generation is now a universal aspiration, but without good public education, affordability and quality. Democracy has renewed the legitimacy of bringing about effective changes and voter turnout has been increasing, even as policy consensus around neoliberalism has been near complete. On the day of voting, the rich and the poor carry the same value to their power to decide.
Janus-faced process
•Populists are mobilising the aspirations born out of social mobility but are also containing it from spilling over into demands for economic equality. Populists encourage assertions around demands for dignity, sentiments and recognition within the cultural realm but disallow them from being connected to economic equality. It in fact, conjoins social equality with justifying economic inequalities as being either random or as individual failures. It links demands for social equality with voluntarism and individual effort. The social confidence gained through the processes of democratisation is being challenged and made to look shaky in the light of growing economic and material inequalities.
•Populists are gloating over the confidence gained and basking in pointing to new possibilities of being a precariat and creating insecurities (the entire discourse on illegal immigrants/refugees points to this). It is using past social confidence against future insecurities. The shaky feel of social mobility without durable economic equality (of opportunities) is creating resentment against the present.
•The Janus-faced process allows for aggressive mobilisation for the market and predatory subjectivity against other social identities, especially those who are weaker (such as Dalits) or those who are considered to be stronger in a way (such as Muslims). It works against both the weak and the strong. It assumes regressive proportions in stamping out the weak and ‘progressive’ imageries in standing against the perceived superiority of the ‘other’. It conflates and disturbs the binary of domination and emancipation, superior and inferior, and regressive and progressive.
Using pretence
•The sense of reality has slipped into the in-between, also the reason why ‘perceptions’ (or what we call now in popular parlance as post-truth) have taken credence over certainty of evidence. No amount of evidence can off-set perceptions (such as the birth rate/fertility of some of the minorities) because perceptions are a way of relating and also coping with the in-between. It cannot be captured within a set moral compass when past social mobility is played against demands for economic justice. Demanding more can lead to the loss of past gains more than future benefits. One has to either come to terms with shaky social mobility or pretend to be confident even while slipping on the economic front.
•Pretence has become a way of feeling safe and secure. Majorities today ‘fear’ the disempowered minorities. Pretence legitimises what could be considered unethical otherwise. After the ‘Me Too’ movement, it is men who ‘fear’ being abused and who ‘struggle’ to find the right kind of language to articulate it (for example, the Johnny Depp case and the way it was televised is a clear pointer to this). Some of the upper castes are feeling persecuted (recall the tweet by the Congress’s Manish Tewari). Pretence, however, has become a generic ‘way of life’ for all social groups.
•Manufacturing, controlling and regulating ‘truth regimes’ are no longer the techniques of the ruling regimes but it is about appropriating, signifying and occupying perceptions and playing the aspirations born out of social mobility against the perceptible economic and material inequalities. It is about weaponising the ‘hurt pride’ born out of economic disempowerment downgrading social mobility of the past. The dissonance between the two can only be made good out of creating a hyper-reality, finding satiation in a strongman, narrativising perceptions and gut-feelings, pretension and spectacles, and where performance becomes a plausible means of generating and attributing meaning.
The strongman
•The regime creates newer avenues to live pretence and perceptions. The ‘strongman’ becomes the concrete embodiment of both and the one to legitimise and give credibility to pretence and hyper-reality. The strongman does this by taking perceptions into policy making and converting pretence into a ‘way of life’. Pretence allows bringing semblance between aspirational social mobility and declining economic opportunities. The ‘success’ story of the strongman (from rags to riches; chaiwala to Hindu Hriday Samrat), and being a rank outsider to political pedigree, becomes a demonstration of what the semblance looks like and why it can be achieved or replicated by everyone (it is not a happenstance that India’s top leader, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and America’s Donald Trump were all considered ‘outsiders’ to power dynamics).
•The strongman becomes a means of living the hyper-reality and in fact a means of reaching out to the reality, and, therefore, cannot be easily discredited. People have deep emotional investment because it is about them. The strongman represents who they are or want to be; therefore, criticism against the strongman discredits what people want to be. It interrupts and disturbs their sense of reality. It feels like being rudely awakened from a dream-like gratification. Hatred, abuse and incivility become a way of protecting social mobility against the hard realities of economic hardships. These are actively encouraged as a part of political mobilisation; withdrawing from them is to sink into the reality that dissonance presents. Fantasy is a necessary way of living.
•The said dissonance between the social mobility of the past and economic inequalities of the present has transformed the character of governance too. Digital media and soap opera-kind of governance make the perceived reality more lived and the every day as against the bland posturing of statesman-like policy making and the niceties of procedural neutrality. Neutrality is replaced by demands for more direct interventions. The rhetoric of outcomes and finality have replaced ideals of the rule of law and the separation of powers. Populists are surviving by plugging into and indulging in a hyper-exaggeration of the reality as it exists; they are not here to change it for the better.
📰 The need for digital collaboration
While online education is encouraged in India, UGC regulations don’t allow tie-ups with foreign institutes for online learning
•The fact that the University Grants Commission (UGC) has simplified its approval process for local universities to collaborate with their counterparts abroad, to offer joint degrees, dual degrees, and twinning programmes, is heartening. As per the rules, any Indian Higher Education Institution (HEI) accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council with a minimum score of 3.01 on a 4-point scale or featuring in the top 1,000 of the Times Higher Education or QS World University Rankings will be eligible to participate in the collaboration. For Indian institutes, being in the top 100 list of the National Institute Ranking Framework is also an acceptable criterion. Foreign institutes willing to enter a partnership must rank in the top 1,000 in either of the two world university rankings.
•While multiple steps taken by the present dispensation to meet the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic include leveraging the potential of information and communication technology in the teaching and learning process, the fact that the UGC’s regulations do not allow academic collaboration with foreign institutions for online learning and open and distance learning (ODL) is puzzling.
Distance learning
•In order to increase the gross enrolment ratio in HEIs in India, the National Education Policy of 2020 suggested that more ODL and online programmes be started, especially to improve access for those living in remote areas. ODL programmes impart education to people for whom the regular mode of learning is a distant dream owing to financial, personal and professional constraints. Often, part-time employees in both the organised and unorganised sectors are the ones who opt for ODL in order to upgrade their qualifications for better career prospects.
•At the postgraduate, undergraduate, PG Diploma, Diploma, and Certificate levels, the share of distance enrolment in university is 13.8%, 35.9%, 1.1%, 1.5% and 0.4%, respectively (All India Survey on Higher Education, or AISHE, 2019-2000). Distance enrolment constitutes 11.1% of the total enrolment in higher education. These programmes are more affordable compared to the in-person programmes and are therefore popular among disadvantaged sections.
•In order to promote online education in India, initiatives such as MOOCs, SWAYAM and NPTEL are sponsored by the UGC, the Department of Education, and other national institutes of repute. Of late, universities and colleges are centrally funded under the RUSA and TEQIP-III programmes to create and strengthen infrastructure for online and digital education. The Union Budget too announced the establishment of a digital university. It is inexplicable, therefore, that while online education is being encouraged on the one hand through several government initiatives, online programmes are being kept out of the ambit of international collaboration efforts by the UGC on the other.
•According to AISHE’s findings, 49,348 international students from 168 countries are enrolled in courses offered by Indian universities. The highest share of foreign students (45.6%) come from four neighbouring nations: Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Reaching out to the HEIs of such countries for international collaboration, notwithstanding their present standing and rank, will pave the way for an increase in the footfall of international students in India. This may especially prove to be a game changer for the financially constrained HEIs. Also, it will help to compensate the outflow of foreign exchange from India.
A disadvantage
•The allocation of grants to central universities has risen to ₹9,420 crore from ₹7,643.26 crore last year in higher education. Monetary support to the IITs has increased by ₹658.9 crore and to the IIMs by ₹177.9 crore in 2022-23 compared to last year. These institutions, generously funded by the Centre, outplay their State-sponsored counterparts in other academic indicators too, such as faculty strength and modernised laboratories and libraries. Hence, that State-funded HEIs do not perform well in the ranking system is no surprise. Now, their chances for smooth international collaboration is also impeded by the UGC regulations. This will only exacerbate the divide between central and State institutes.
•The UGC needs to revisit its policies for foreign collaborations. It must look at the present and overall needs of the education system so that students studying in State-sponsored HEIs and opting for ODL and online education are not deprived of benefits in India.
📰 Taking steps to ensure sex workers’ rights
The various ambiguities and inconsistencies in the laws applicable to sex work need to be removed
•Recently, in Budhadev Karmaskar v. State of West Bengal & Ors, while issuing interim directions to States and Union Territories, the Supreme Court re-asserted that sex workers and their children cannot be deprived of their right to live with dignity and human decency. The court said that notwithstanding the profession, every individual in this country has the right to a dignified life. The court’s directions are nothing but the recommendations made by the panel constituted by the Supreme Court in July 2011 and headed by a senior advocate, Pradip Ghosh, with regard to “conditions conducive for sex workers who wish to continue as sex workers to live with dignity in accordance with the provisions of Article 21 of the Constitution of India”.
Enforcing directives
•Since the Government of India had certain reservations about four of the 10 recommendations of the panel, the court directed the government to implement the other six recommendations as well as the provisions of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA) of 1956. These are: to provide immediate medical assistance to sex workers who are victims of sexual assault; to release adult sex workers detained in ITPA protective homes against their will; to sensitise the police and other law-enforcement agencies about the rights of sex workers to live with dignity; to ask the Press Council of India to issue guidelines to the media so that they don’t reveal the identities of sex workers while reporting on arrest, raid and rescue operations; to not consider health measures that sex workers employ for their safety (such as condoms) as evidence of commission of an offence; and to ensure that the legal service authorities of the Central and State governments educate sex workers about their rights vis-à-vis the legality of sex work.
•A provision is already available in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on providing medical assistance to sex workers who are victims of sexual assault. However, the law is silent about not revealing the identity of sex workers. Similarly, though an order to send the sex worker to a protective home is passed by a magistrate after due inquiry about her need of care and protection, the ITPA and CrPC may be amended suitably to enforce the directions of the Supreme Court. Other directions may be implemented through executive orders by the governments.
Wider implications
•One of the recommendations which the Central government expressed reservation about is of preventing the police from taking any criminal action against a sex worker who is an adult and is participating with consent, on the basis of ‘age’ and ‘consent’. The expression ‘sex worker’ is not defined in the ITPA or any other law. According to the ITPA (as amended in January 1987), ‘prostitution’ means the sexual exploitation or abuse of persons for commercial purposes. Therefore, the expression ‘prostitution’ is not just confined to offering the body to a person for promiscuous sexual intercourse for hire (as per the definition before 1987); taking unjust and unlawful advantage of trapped women for one’s benefit or sexual intercourse has been brought within its frame.
•The word ‘abuse’ also has a wide meaning. It implies that being an adult sex worker who is a sex worker voluntarily is not an offence per se, until exploitation or abuse is reported by her or revealed during investigation. It will therefore be appropriate to define ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘abuse of persons’ as well, through an amendment, to rule out multiple interpretations and possible misuse by the enforcement agencies, particularly if offering one’s body with consent for consideration is kept out of the criminal framework.
•Another recommendation that the government has reservations about notes that since voluntary sex work is not illegal and only running a brothel is unlawful, sex workers should not be arrested or victimised during any raid in the brothel. According to the ITPA, ‘brothel’ includes any place which is used for purposes of sexual exploitation or abuse for the gain of another person or for the mutual gain of two or more sex workers. What if willing sex workers have no complaint against the brothel owner or manager? Therefore, the government would need to decide as a policy whether the act of two or more sex workers living together for mutual gain and being managed by themselves or by anyone else is to be criminalised or not. This may require wider deliberations to take a considered viewpoint.
•The third recommendation says that no child of a sex worker should be separated from the mother merely on the ground that the mother is in the sex trade. If a minor is living in a brothel or with sex workers, it should not be presumed that he/she has been trafficked. Though the law does not mandate separation of the child from the mother (sex worker), it presumes trafficking if a child is found with any person in a brothel. Also, if a child or a minor is rescued from a brothel, the magistrate may place him or her with any child care institute recognised under the Juvenile Justice Act. In Gaurav Jain v. Union of India (1997), the Supreme Court had held that children of sex workers ought not to be allowed to live in brothels, and reformatory homes should be made accessible to them. Therefore, keeping in view the child’s welfare, a suitable amendment may be made to accommodate the Supreme Court’s direction.
•The fourth recommendation requires the government to involve sex workers or their representatives in the process of decision-making or in the process of drafting reforms in laws relating to sex work. As the purpose of this exercise is to rehabilitate sex workers and improve their living conditions, their involvement in decision-making will surely make the reforms more enforceable.
Why allow sexual exploitation?
•It is noteworthy that carrying on sex work outside the notified areas or outside a distance of 200 metres of any place of public religious worship, educational institution, hospital, etc. is not punishable under the ITPA. The irony is that when the essential ingredient of sex work is ‘sexual exploitation’ or ‘abuse of persons’ for commercial purpose, how can this be allowed anywhere? Therefore, now with the court’s directives on the anvil, it will be apposite for the government to differentiate between prostitution and the work of sex workers and consider banning prostitution per se and allowing voluntary sex work with certain conditions keeping in mind the public interest.
•It is not disputed that women in the flesh trade should be viewed more as victims of adverse socioeconomic circumstances rather than as offenders. However, with all our laws and policies, we as a society have failed to contain prostitution. Therefore, the government may now use the Supreme Court’s directions as an opportunity to improve the conditions of sex workers and their surrounding environment, facilitate rehabilitation, and remove the various ambiguities and inconsistencies in the applicable laws and bring about clarity.
📰 The debates around the Surrogacy Act
What are the various provisions under the Act which dictate who can commission a surrogacy? Are the laws too restrictive?
•As per the Surrogacy Act, a married couple can opt for surrogacy only on medical grounds. It also prescribes an age-criteria for both the man and woman. Though the law allows single women to resort to surrogacy, she has to either be a widow or a divorcee. Single men are not eligible.
•Only a close relative of the couple can be a surrogate mother. She should have been married, with a child of her own. She can only be a surrogate mother once.
•Even at the Bill stage, there was some apprehension about the too restrictive regulations. For instance, it does not allow single (never been married) women, or men, or gay couples to go in for surrogacy.
The story so far: Petitioners in the Delhi High Court questioned why marital status, age, or gender were the criteria for being allowed to commission or not commission surrogacy in India. The female petitioner said that she already had a child but the trauma of the first childbirth experience and her need to juggle work with child care persuaded her that surrogacy would be a better option for the second child. But under the provisions of the Surrogacy Act, she was denied a chance at commissioning surrogacy.
•As per the Surrogacy Act that kicked in from January this year, a married couple can opt for surrogacy only on medical grounds. The law defines a couple as a married Indian “man and woman” and also prescribes an age-criteria with the woman being in the age group of 23 to 50 years and the man between 26 to 55 years. Additionally, the couple should not have a child of their own. Though the law allows single women to resort to surrogacy, she should either be a widow or a divorcee, between the age of 35 to 45 years. Single men are however, not eligible.
What is the Surrogacy Act?
•The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill was introduced in Parliament in November 2016, and passed in the Winter session of Parliament in 2021.
•The Act sought to regulate the surrogacy part of a rather flourishing infertility industry in the country. Defining ‘surrogacy’ as a practice where a woman undertakes to give birth to a child for another couple and agrees to hand over the child to them after birth, it allows ‘altruistic surrogacy’ — wherein only the medical expenses and insurance coverage is provided by the couple to the surrogate mother during pregnancy. No other monetary consideration will be permitted.
Why is there a need for a Surrogacy Act in India?
•India has emerged as a hub for infertility treatment, attracting people from the world over with its state of the art technology and competitive prices to treat infertility. Soon enough, due to prevailing socio-economic inequities, underprivileged women found an option to ‘rent their wombs’ and thereby make money to take care of their expenses — often to facilitate a marriage, enable children to get an education, or to provide for hospitalisation or surgery for someone in the family.
•Once information of the availability of such wombs got out, the demand also picked up. Unscrupulous middle men inveigled themselves into the scene and exploitation of these women began. Several instances began to emerge where women, in often desperate straits, started lodging police complaints after they did not receive the promised sum.
•Other issues also began to crop up. For instance, in 2008 a Japanese couple began the process with a surrogate mother in Gujarat, but before the child was born they split with both of them refusing to take the child. In 2012, an Australian couple commissioned a surrogate mother, and arbitrarily chose one of the twins that were born.
•The time therefore, was ripe for proper regulation.
Who all are allowed to make use of the services of a surrogate mother?
•Any couple that has ‘proven infertility’ are candidates. The ‘intending couple’ as the Act calls them, will be eligible if they have a ‘certificate of essentiality’ and a ‘certificate of eligibility’ issued by the appropriate authority. The former will be issued if the couple fulfils three conditions: One, a certificate of infertility of one or both from a district medical board; Two, an order of parentage and custody of the surrogate child passed by a Magistrate’s court; Thirdly, insurance cover for the surrogate mother.
•An eligibility certificate mandates that the couple fulfil the following conditions: They should be Indian citizens who have been married for at least five years; the female must be between 23 to 50 years and the male, 26 to 55 years; they cannot have any surviving children (biological, adopted or surrogate); However, this would not include a ‘child who is mentally or physically challenged or suffers from life threatening disorder or fatal illness.’
Who can become a surrogate mother?
•Only a close relative of the couple can be a surrogate mother, one who is able to provide a medical fitness certificate. She should have been married, with a child of her own, and must be between 25 and 35 years, but can be a surrogate mother only once.
What are the controversies behind the Act?
•Even at the Bill stage, while there was a general murmur of appreciation, and some strident approval from infertility experts, there was some apprehension about the too restrictive regulations. For instance, it does not allow single women, or men, or gay couples to go in for surrogacy. Representations from these groups emerged even as Health Minister J.P. Nadda introduced the Bill in the House.
•Others, primarily those involved in organ transplantation, pointed out how despite a similar, stringent law — the Transplantation of Human Organs Act — organ commerce continues to thrive in the country. Brokers continue to operate, though with less temerity and more covertly, sometimes with hospital authorities, to pull wool over the eyes of the appropriate authority and law enforcement officials. Clearly the issue will have to be handled with a stern visage, even as sensitivities of people are factored in.
What lies ahead?
•These apprehensions and perceived hitches due to the exclusionary criteria, have already come to the forefront in the short period that the Act has been operational. A path of litigation is possibly the course ahead, and if a critical mass builds up, amendments might have to be resorted to in order to resolve the grievances and ensure access for all categories of parents.
📰 Union govt. seeks fresh comments on draft IT rules
Ministry of Electronics and IT reposts the draft amendments, with detailed reasoning, on its website
•Following an uproar over the proposed amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Rules, the government on Monday said that the recommendations placed the interests of “Digital Indians” first, and sought to ensure that the constitutional rights of citizens were not contravened by “big-tech platforms”.
•The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) on Monday reposted the draft amendments on its website, inviting comments from stakeholders in the next 30 days. The move comes within a week of the draft being pulled off the website following an uproar over the proposal that seeks to set up a new panel, whose members will be chosen by the government, with powers to overturn content moderation decisions taken by social media platforms.
•While no significant changes have been made, the Ministry has now added its detailed reasoning for the amendments.
•Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted: “Putting Interests of Digital Nagriks [citizens] First. New amended IT (Intermediary) Rules are out for public consultation — more effective grievance addressal and ensuring constitutional rights of the citizens are respected.”
•The note uploaded along with the draft amendments says the amended IT rules seek to provide additional avenues for grievance redressal, apart from the courts, and “also ensure that the Constitutional rights of Indian citizens are not contravened by any Big-tech Platform by ensuring new accountability standards for SSMIs [significant social media intermediaries]”.
•These will not impact early stage or growth stage Indian companies or start-ups, it added.
•“The goals of these rules are to ensure an Open, Safe & Trusted and Accountable Internet for all Indian Internet Users and Digital Nagriks,” the government said, adding that the existing rules have succeeded in creating a new sense of accountability among intermediaries to their users.
•However, as the digital ecosystem and connected Internet users in India expand, so do the challenges and problems faced by them, as well as some of the infirmities and gaps that exist in the current rule vis-a-vis Big Tech platforms, it said. “Therefore, new amendments have been proposed to the IT Rules 2021, to address these challenges and gaps…A formal public consultation meeting will be arranged by mid-June, and the details will be notified soon,” it added.
•The broad principles that underpin these amended rules, it said, include that all online intermediaries providing services in India shall never contravene the Indian Constitution, Laws and Rules; follow them in letter and spirit; and “unlawful and harmful information violative of their own terms and conditions shall be quickly removed when reported by users, while also providing the users a reasonable opportunity to respond in case of significant social media platforms”.
•It further added that while the IT Rules, 2021, provide for a robust grievance redressal mechanism, there have been many instances in which the grievance officers of intermediaries either did not address the grievances satisfactorily and/or fairly. “In such a scenario, the need for an appellate forum has been proposed to protect the rights and interests of users,” the MeitY said.
