4th March 2021
U.S. thinktank report classifies India as ‘partly free’
- Freedoms in India have reduced, according to a report from a U.S. thinktank, Freedom House, resulting in India being classified as ‘partly free’.
- India’s score was 67, a drop from 71/100 from last year (reflecting 2019 data) downgrading it from the free category last year (based on 2020 data).
FREEDOM IN THE WORLD 2021: DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE:
- The government in India and its State-level allies continued to crack down on critics during the year.
- Freedoms in India have reduced, according to a report from a U.S. thinktank, Freedom House, resulting in India being classified as ‘partly free’.
- The ruling Hindu nationalist movement also encouraged the scapegoating of Muslims, who were disproportionately blamed for the spread of the virus.
- Rather than serving as a champion of democratic practice and a counterweight to authoritarian influence from countries such as China, Indian government is tragically driving India itself toward authoritarianism.
- The private media are vigorous and diverse, and investigations and scrutiny of politicians do occur. However, attacks on press freedom have escalated dramatically under the current government.
- Reporting has become significantly less ambitious in recent years, citing the use of security, defamation, sedition and contempt of court laws to quiet critical media voices.
- Separately, revelations of close relationships between politicians, business executives and lobbyists on one hand and leading media personalities and owners of media outlets, on the other, have dented public confidence in the press.
ON AMERICA:
- On the U.S., the Freedom House said the risky state of American democracy was on display during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
- It listed what it called the Trump presidency’s “unprecedented attacks” on American democracy (examples included were dismissing inspectors general to sowing mistrust over the electoral system). The U.S. dropped three points over one year, down to 83/100.
- The United States will need to work vigorously to strengthen its institutional safeguards, restore its civic norms and uphold the promise of its core principles for all segments of society if it is to protect its venerable democracy and regain global credibility.
ON CHINA:
- China, classified as ‘not free’, dropped a point from last year going down to 9/100.
- The malign influence of the regime in China, the world’s most populous dictatorship, was especially profound in 2020,” citing Beijing’s disinformation and censorship campaign following the outbreak of COVID-19.
Field trials for Census-NPR to begin soon
The Registrar-General of India (RGI) is preparing to conduct field trials of the first phase of the Census and the National Population Register (NPR) using a mobile application in all the States and Union Territories.
FIRST PHASE:
- The first phase involving house listing and housing census, along with updating the NPR, was scheduled from April 1 last year, but was postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.
- It is unlikely that the exercise will be conducted this year as the vaccination drive is still at an early stage.
- The officials are planning to conduct pre-tests or field trials through the app in one block each of every district, which is expected to cover 50 to 60 households.
- The app will contain questionnaires on house listing and housing census and the NPR.
- The dates for conducting the Census exercise have not been finalised yet. But the enumerators will have to be trained in using the app.
- Many enumerators are young schoolteachers who are expected to use the app instead of the paper schedule [form]. There will be incentives for the electronic form.
SECOND PHASE:
- The second phase of the Census is population enumeration.
- The RGI, on January 9, 2020, notified the 31 columns for which the enumerators will seek response for the house listing and housing census.
- The questions include whether the respondent has access to LPG or piped natural gas connection; owns a radio, transistor, television, laptop, computer, telephone, mobile phone or smartphone; and has access to the Internet.
- The questions for the NPR have not been made public yet, but the pre-test conducted in 2019 included additional questions such as the date and place of birth of father and mother, last place of residence and mother tongue, Aadhaar (optional), voter ID card, mobile phone and driving licence numbers.
- The Opposition-ruled States have expressed apprehensions over the additional questions.
ELECTRONIC DATABASE:
- In 2010 and 2015, the NPR collected details on 14 parameters only. It already has an electronic database of more than 119 crore residents.
- The app will have the NPR schedule also. Before it is rolled out, the app has to be tested for glitches, and field trials are to be conducted.
- Recently, Union Minister of State for Home informed the Rajya Sabha that “an app for the collection of data and a Census portal for the management and monitoring of various Census-related activities has been developed”.
- Instruction manuals for enumerators and other Census functionaries have been prepared.
- A pre-test of the Census was undertaken from August 12, 2019 to September 30, 2019 in selected areas of all the States and Unions Territories to test the Census questionnaire and methodology.
14 Trojans found in servers, says Minister
- Recentrly, Maharashtra Home Minister submitted a report prepared by the State’s cyber cell on a possible cyberattack that caused the October 12 power outage in Mumbai and parts of Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR),
- Power Minister of Maharashtra recently said the report found 14 Trojan programs that had entered the Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company (MahaTransco) servers.
WHAT IS A TROJAN VIRUS?
- A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users' systems.
- Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems.
- Unlike computer viruses and worms, Trojans are not able to self-replicate.
- Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system. These actions can include:
- Deleting data
- Blocking data
- Modifying data
- Copying data
- Disrupting the performance of computers or computer networks
REPORT:
- According to observations in the report, the firewalls of the information technology [IT] and operational technology[OT] servers, which are essential for power transmission, were affected by these Trojan horses.
- Suspicious codes and software programs that can affect the cybersecurity ecosystem at the State Load Dispatch Center [SLDC] at Kalva had found its way into the system.
- Similar Trojan programs were part of bigger cyberattacks in the past.
- Three alarms were sounded in a span of less than a minute, but were not given attention to show the possibility of a cyberattack.
- Repeated attempts were made from blacklisted and suspicious IP addresses to log in to the SLDC server, and to hack and disrupt the system.
- Credit rating agencies have certified these IP addresses as suspicious and disruptive. An attempt was made to either insert or remove around 8 GB of data from the server using the IP addresses.
- The report recommended a separation of the IT and OT infrastructure and an updation, password management, enhancement of the web application security and a strengthening of the cyber system of the SLDC.
- In addition to the probe conducted by the State cyber cell, a technical committee, which included experts from IIT-Bombay, VNIT- Nagpur, VJTI-Mumbai and senior officials from the Power Department, was formed.
Closure of schools due to Covid impacted 247 mn children in India: UNICEF
As many as 1.5 million schools remained shut during 2020 due to the pandemic and lockdowns, impacting 247 million children enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in India, according to data released by UNICEF.
REPORT:
- Online education is not an option for all as only one in four children has access to digital devices and Internet connectivity.
- Pre-Covid, only a quarter of households (24 per cent) in India had access to the Internet and there is a large rural-urban and gender divide.
- It raised concerns on a higher dropout rate in schools once classes recommence.
- The data released by UNICEF notes that more than 888 million children worldwide continue to face disruptions to their education due to full and partial school closures.
- The analysis of school closure reports notes that 14 countries worldwide have remained largely closed since March 2020 to February 2021.
- Two-thirds of those countries are in Latin America and the Caribbean, affecting nearly 98 million schoolchildren.
- UNICEF has said that even before the Covid-19 crisis began, over six million girls and boys were already out of schoolin the country.
UNICEF:
- UNICEF, also greatly known as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund,[a] is a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide.
- The agency is among the most widespread and recognizable social welfare organizations in the world, with a presence in 192 countries and territories.
- UNICEF's activities include providing immunizations and disease prevention, administering treatment for children and mothers with HIV, enhancing childhood and maternal nutrition, improving sanitation, promoting education, and providing emergency relief in response to disasters.
- UNICEF is the successor of the International Children's Emergency Fund (ICEF), created on December 10, 1946, in New York, by the U.N. Relief Rehabilitation Administration to provide immediate relief to children and mothers affected by World War II.
- UNICEF relies entirely on contributions from governments and private donors.
- The board is made up of government representatives elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council,usually for three-year terms.
- UNICEF's programs emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children.
- UNICEF has received recognition for its work, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, the Indira Gandhi Prize in 1989and the Princess of Asturias Award in 2006.
Proactive tracking will ‘make suspects out of people’: Petitioner of 66A SC judgment
- Privacy activist and lawyer Shreya Singhal told the government’s move to ask ‘significant social media intermediaries’ to have automated tools to proactively track certain words is akin to “active hunting”, and will “make suspects out of people”.
- It was on Singhal’s plea that the Supreme Court had in 2015 struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, saying that the provision “clearly affects” the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression, guaranteed by the constitution.
NEW GUIDELINES:
- IT Ministry’s draft Data Protection Bill includes new guidelines for social media intermediaries. Messaging apps needing to “enable the identification of the first originator of the information on its computer resource".
- The new guidelines would end up weakening overall security, harm privacy and contradict the principles of data minimisation, according to an expert in public policy.
- The new guidelines for social media intermediaries, announced by the Centre on February 25 put the onus of using “technology-based measures, including automated tools or other mechanisms to proactively identify information” related to rape, child sexual abuse or any conduct related to that, whether explicit or implicit.
- The same clause, however, also says that social media intermediaries will also have to use the same tools to proactively track information that has previously been removed or access to which has been disabled by a court order or an order of the government agency.
- These include information which may impact sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states or public order, according to the new guidelines.
- The new guidelines for social media intermediaries also mandate that platforms that have over 50 lakh registered users in India and are primarily in the business of messaging “shall enable the identification of the first originator of the information on its computer resource” if such an order is passed by a competent court or by the government under Section 69 of the IT Act.
CRITICISM:
- Privacy activist and lawyer Singhal said "Say one of the track words is interfaith marriage or love jihad, then you are criminalising your entire population… your entire citizenry you are making a suspect and from that suspects’ pool, you have a crime already. You want to attribute that crime to some people,”.
- A two-judge Bench of (now retired) Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Rohinton F Nariman had in their judgment in the Section 66A case also said that phrases like “annoying”, “inconvenient” and “grossly offensive” were extremely vague in nature and that what one person found offensive may not be as offensive to the other.
- “Say the rules are in place and they put into that automated tracking the phrase ‘toolkit’. Can you imagine how many arrests would have been made? There was so much outrage on one tweet,” said Singhal.
- The latest guidelines for social media intermediaries have also drawn objections from several privacy experts and lawyers, with some saying they could “undermine the principles of open and accessible internet, the fundamental right of privacy and freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution”.
- The traceability provision as provided in Rule 5(2) will undermine end-to-end encryption services offered by instant messaging applications.
- Although it requires a judicial order or an order issued under Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, this does not solve the problem when the encryption technology itself is compromised.
- An expert said- "When the first originator is from outside India, the significant intermediary must identify the first originator within the country, making an already impossible task more difficult. This would essentially be a mandate requiring encrypted services to either store additional sensitive information or/and break end-to-end encryption.”
- Singhal said- Though there has been no judicial challenge to the rules so far, most experts are of the opinion that some stakeholders, who are directly impacted by the rules, will approach the courts sooner than later. “I hope it does not withstand judicial scrutiny. They have completely obfuscated the whole of judiciary here. Earlier, you had to file a police complaint if you had anything objectionable. Here you have set up this one board where anyone can file a complaint, which is reviewed by administrators who may not have a judicially trained person".
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