26 Jan 2021: Hindu Editorial Analysis

The Hindu Editorial Analysis
26 January 2021

1) Overzealous threat: on Bihar police circular on social media posts.

Bihar police circular on social media posts reveals low tolerance for criticism.

GS-2: Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security

CONTEXT:

  1. The warning by the Bihar police of legal action being taken against users of social media for “offensive” posts targeting the present government,
  2. The Ministers and officials, betrays both hypersensitivity and ignorance of the law. It represents an unacceptable combination of low tolerance for criticism and zeal to cow down the public.
  3. To carve this “The government would do well not to act on the police circular blindly”, lest it be seen as an attempt to suppress its critics and those who make allegations of corruption.

 

Constitutional provision over social media posts.

  1. Article 19(1)(a): Freedom of speech and expression, provides every citizen with the right to express one’s views, opinions, beliefs, and convictions freely by word of mouth, writing, printing, picturing or in any other manner.
  2. Article 19(2) confers the right on the State to impose reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the freedom of speech and expression on the grounds of,

 

  • Sovereignty and integrity of India,
  • Security of the state,
  • Friendly relations with foreign states,
  • Public order, decency or morality,
  • Contempt of court, defamation, and incitement to an offence.

 

  1. Article 21 declares that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. This right is available to both citizens and non-citizens.
  2. Article 21-A states that the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State by law may determine.

Other Law’s:

 

  1. The Information Technology Act, 2000 was amended by the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 and was enforced on October 27, 2009. It provides legal framework to address various types of cyber crimes and prescribes punishment.
  2. Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, which dealt with “Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc
  3. In Shreya Singhal Case Supreme court said that when a provision of law suffers from Vagueness and unclear about the terms and penal provisions used then that provision of law can be struck down by the judiciary (Supreme Court struck down Section 66Aof IT Act
  4. the Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, say that social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Google would have to comply with its direction in providing information and assistance within 72 hours of a request made with regard to origin of any content deemed unlawful and to remove it.

 

Need for regulating digital/social media platforms:

  1. Ability of digital/social Media to Reach worldwide , Scale and size is huge compare to print and other media.
  2. While electronic media in India is regulated by the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995, there was no law or body to oversee digital content. Some people are taking an undue advantage which leads to too much voice and noise in social media.
  3.  India has seen a surge in the number of fake news items in circulation, especially on social media including WhatsApp and Face book.
  4. Absence of control in digital/ social media leads to large scale user-generated content which is unregulated.
  5. In this time, when India is in conflict with its neighbouring countries like China and Pakistan, there is a possibility of Foreign-funded digital platforms running to defame our country.
  6. There is also evidence of fake information influencing the process of election in which undermines the root of democracy.

 

Other suggestions include:

  1. labeling the accounts of state-controlled news organizations.
  2. Limiting how many times messages can be forwarded to large groups, as Facebook does on WhatsApp.
  3. Implementing "circuit breakers" so that newly viral content is temporarily stopped from spreading while it is fact-checked.
  4. Forcing social networks to disclose in the news feed why content has been recommended to a user.
  5. Limiting the use of micro-targeting advertising messages.
  6. Making it illegal to exclude people from content on the basis of race or religion, such as hiding a spare room advert from people of color.
  7. Banning the use of so-called dark patterns - user interfaces designed to confuse or frustrate the user, such as making it hard to delete your account.

 

Solutions:
  1. The cyber-crime wing must be open to every district police Station may initiate proceedings against those who post offensive messages.
  2. The police can only be dealt with by way of criminal complaints before magistrates, and can be the subject of a police investigation, and other component decides by magistrate.
  3. The government empowers to institute on  criminal defamation cases through public prosecutors,
  4.  The alleged defamation is in respect of the official duties of public servants, but such measures do not exactly shore up a regime’s popularity.
  5. The State government has clarified that the proposed action would only be against rumors-mongering and insulting language.

 

WAY FORWARD:

  1. According to GNI's report, online platforms that support user-generated content can become an important part of India's Internet economy and contribute around Rs 2.49 lakh crore (USD 41 Billion) by 2015, in addition to the contribution of other elements of the Internet economy.
  2. Social media requires Intermediaries, which include national and international social networking sites, to observe due diligence while discharging their duties.
  3. India's robust tradition of freedom of expression and its dynamic ICT (information communication and technology) sector are threatened by anxieties around issues such as hate speech, political criticism, and obscene content.
  4. The number of internet connections recently crossed the 750 million milestones in India; Digital Literacy Programmed has to be encouraged along with Digital India Mission.

 

2) Can the Biden-Harris team save the planet?

The U.S. administration needs to do much more than just rejoining the Paris Agreement

GS-2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

1. Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian Diaspora.

CONTEXT

  1. After four years of egregious anti-environmental policies during the Trump years, climate change activists and the general public can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Biden-Harris team has taken office in the White House
  2.  The new administration has been quick to rejoin the Paris Agreement on its very first day in office. Because the U.S. was once at the forefront of generating widespread awareness on climate change.
  3. To impose harsh restrictions on their carbon emissions without financial and technical support, protecting corporate interests at the expense of the global commons, and failing to acknowledge its own massive contribution to the climate crisis.

 

A brief history:

  1. In 1957, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, launched its First General Report on Climatology addressed to the Chief of the Weather Bureau, stating: “In consuming our fossil fuels at a prodigious rate, our civilization is conducting a grandiose scientific experiment”
  2. Producing reliable evidence of the relentless rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gases over subsequent decades.
  3. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee produced a report entitled “Restoring the Quality of our Environment”.
  4.  Report pointed out rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, attributed them principally to the burning of fossil fuels, and warned that these levels could increase further by 25% by 2000, leading to a 0.6oC to 4oC rise in average global temperature
  5. In 1979, a report of the National Research Council, noted that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 over pre-industrial levels could lead to global warming of about 3oC.

 

Corporate lobbies:

  1. The 1970s was characterised by the energy crisis, associated with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries oil embargo, but the roles played by American banks, oil companies and dollar hegemony in precipitating the crisis are only now being unravelled.
  2.  On 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations to provide the public scientific information on climate change
  3.  The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to address climate change was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.
  4. The Second Assessment Report of the IPCC (1995) reaffirmed a “discernible human influence on global climate.  Other conservative organisations were simultaneously working to muddy the facts, pointing at red herrings in the science. All had direct or indirect links to the fossil fuel industry.
  5. This effectively prohibited the U.S. from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement which placed limits on the growth of emissions from rich countries.

 

India’s national climate action plans:

  1. The nationally determined contributions (NDCs), under the Paris Agreement set three major goals
  2.  The Paris Agreement goal of keeping temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius.

(a) Increase the share of non-fossil fuels to 40% of the total electricity generation capacity,

(b) To reduce the emission intensity of the economy by 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 level,

(c) To create additional carbon sink of 2.5 -3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover.

 

  1. An analysis by Australia-based think tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) finds that India is likely to achieve its energy capacity and emissions intensity goals by 2020, that is a decade before the deadline of 2030 it set in its NDC.
  2. India’s thermal power capacity will be 226GW or 63% of India’s total of 360GW. At that pace, by the end of calendar 2019 the share of non-fossil fuel capacity is likely to exceed 40%.

 

Change in policies after USA Join Paris Agreement:

  1.  Keeling curve emissions are more than 410 ppm in 2020, compared to 313 ppm when measurements began in 1958.
  2. The U.S.’s re-entry into the Paris Agreement may be by the stroke of a pen, regaining political legitimacy on climate requires the government to take responsibility in causing and aggravating the global climate crisis;
  3. The commit to technology and funds for poorer countries; take on bigger emission targets; not bend over for the fossil fuel lobby which funds Democrats and Republicans;
  4.  The Clean up the role of lobbyists in climate regulatory and policy organizations within the U.S.; and recognize and break up elite networks that have benefited by sustaining climate myths.

Way Forward:

  1. While solar thermal power is beginning to gain recognition, the capacity of biomass gasification to replace oil and gas for producing not only transport fuels, petrochemicals and coking coals, is still largely unrecognized.
  2. India has made it clear that it is aware of that the world needs to do more and neither did it shy away from the idea of stepping up its own efforts.
  3. Investment in biomass-to-transport fuels technologies will not truly take off until the world’s decision-makers agree to link domestic fuel prices to the long term average price of coal, gas and oil in the international market.
  4. The new strategy has been formulated, and put in place by which between now and 2030 this pace is going to almost be doubled. This should help meet the goal.”
  5. The world has to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. To achieve that, it must halve human CO2 emissions by 2030 and bring them down to zero by 2055.
  6. It is therefore imperative that the world heeds the IPCC’s warning. But is replacing all fossil fuels by 2055 even remotely possible.