01-08-2017 (Important News Clippings)
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Date:01-08-17
Virtual shield up
Digital India will stand or fall by whether it understands and implements cybersecurity
TOI Editorials
Enhancing cybersecurity should necessarily start with the financial sector as a survey showed that’s where 72% of cybercrime takes place. As banks dominate this area, RBI is at the forefront of devising standards for protection. However, the IIT Kanpur study showed that the central bank is not equipped to deal with this challenge. This should worry the government as digitisation is at the heart of all financial inclusion initiatives. Therefore, government should quickly actualise finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget proposal to establish a computer emergency response team for financial sector, or Cert-Fin, to provide domain expertise and coordination in this sector.
Preliminary work to establish Cert-Fin has started. But now details need to be worked out and adequate funding provided. Once this is done it will strengthen Cert-In, the national agency to enhance cybersecurity. In all of this the government has a role to play. Not only is it the largest repository of sensitive data following the Aadhaar project, it also seems lax in the matter of security. Cert-In, for instance, says as many as 164 government websites were hacked during 2015. In addition there have been other instances where government agencies have placed Aadhaar numbers in public domain.
If individuals are always vulnerable to cybercrime, nations are at risk from acts of cyberwarfare. For example, relations between Russia and US have been adversely impacted by allegations of hacking. In a modern economy powered by computer networks, there is always a threat that hackers can trigger chaos in any sector. Therefore, the briefing to parliamentarians should serve as a timely reminder that there needs to be a collective effort to enhance cybersecurity. Individual organisations can and do take precautions. But government must step up its game. Sectoral regulators and agencies such as Cert-In need to be at the vanguard of strengthening cybersecurity.
तरक्की बनाम धर्मनिरपेक्षता का धर्मसंकट
Date:01-08-17
खेहर की टिप्पणी देश के नागरिकों के लिए चेतावनी
Date:01-08-17
कृत्रिम बुद्घिमता से होगा कारोबार में फायदा
आकाश प्रकाश
इस क्षेत्र में भारतीय कंपनियां पिछड़ती नजर आ रही हैं। उन्हें अपने कर्मचारियों को उचित कौशल प्रदान ही नहीं करना होगा बल्कि निवेश में बढ़ोतरी भी करनी होगी। विस्तार से बता रहे हैं आकाश प्रकाश
Date:01-08-17
व्यवहार में बदलाव लाने से सुलझ सकती है खुले में शौच की समस्या
सुनीता नारायण
लोगों के व्यवहार में तब्दीली क्यों आती है? क्या ऐसा शिक्षा की वजह से होता है? या फिर विकल्पों की मौजूदगी से ऐसा होता है? क्या यह किसी तरह का सामाजिक दबाव है? या जुर्माने का डर? या फिर ये सभी तथा कुछ और वजह इसके लिए उत्तरदायी हैं? जलवायु परिवर्तन या खुले में शौच पर नियंत्रण हासिल करने की कोशिश कर रहे देश के नीति निर्माताओं के लिए यह लाख टके का सवाल है।शौचालयों की बात करें तो लोगों के घरों में शौचालय बनवाना और उन्हें इनके इस्तेमाल के लिए प्रेरित करना बहुत बड़ी पहेली बना हुआ है। महात्मा गांधी ने कहा था कि स्वच्छता आजादी से ज्यादा महत्त्वपूर्ण है। सफाई की कमी के चलते शिशुओं की मृत्यु होती है जिसे रोका जा सकता है और कमजोर तथा अल्पविकसित बच्चे पैदा होते हैं। यह स्वीकार्य नहीं है। अच्छी खबर यह है कि देश की सरकार ने 2 अक्टूबर, 2019 तक खुले में शौच को खत्म करने का महत्त्वाकांक्षी लक्ष्य तय कर रखा है। उस वर्ष महात्मा गांधी की 150वीं वर्षगांठ भी है। सरकार ने वर्षों तक शौचालय निर्माण के असफल प्रयास किए। आखिरकार उसने यह तय किया कि उसका लक्ष्य शौचालय बनाना नहीं बल्कि उनका इस्तेमाल बढ़ाना है। दूसरे शब्दों में कहें तो लोगों को अपना व्यवहार बदलना होगा और शौचालयों का इस्तेमाल शुरू करना होगा। सरकार अब सर्वेक्षणों में शौचालय नहीं उनका इस्तेमाल देख रही है। यह कोई छोटा बदलाव नहीं है।
Date:31-07-17
From plate to plough: Everybody loves a good crop
The states need to pull up their socks, make farmers stakeholders, to ensure success of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
Written by Ashok Gulati , Siraj Hussain Gulati is Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture and Hussain is former Secretary of Agriculture (GoI) and currently Visiting Senior Fellow at ICRIER
Recent floods in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Assam show that even in an otherwise normal monsoon year, farmers in certain pockets could still suffer due to natural calamities. The droughts of 2014-15 and 2015-16 exposed that the existing crop insurance schemes were not enough to alleviate farmers’ woes. The sums insured under National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS), modified NAIS, and Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) were too low, as premiums were kept low. Further, the compensation was too meagre, and the long wait which the farmers had to go through meant that the relief wasn’t meaningful. So, governments often used the National Disaster Relief Funds to address the situation. Unfortunately, it was not based on any robust scientific system and had its own loopholes.
The prime minister realised that and in kharif 2016, he announced a revamped Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY), hoping it to be a game changer. The PMFBY raised the sums insured to realistic levels, basically to cover the cost of cultivation of farmers. The premiums were heavily subsidised by the Centre and the states in equal proportions, with farmers paying only 2 per cent of the premium for kharif and 1.5 percent for rabi (for horticulture crops it was 5 per cent). Farmers found the PMFBY attractive. Consequently, in the very first kharif season (2016), area (in ha) and number of farmers covered under PMFBY, both increased to 37.5 million.
It was 47 per cent higher in terms of number of farmers, and 38 per cent higher in terms of area, over NAIS and MNAIS schemes of kharif of 2015, a drought year. However, if compared to a normal kharif year, say 2013, the number of farmers opting for the scheme increased by 210 per cent in kharif 2016, and the area covered increased by 126 per cent. The sum insured on per hectare basis under the PMFBY increased by 51 per cent over kharif 2015. The number of non-loanee farmers opting PMFBY, as per the ministry’s communication, also increased by about 23 per cent, driven primarily by Maharashtra. All these indicators show that the PMFBY is moving at a good pace and in the right direction.
But despite the increasing coverage, the premiums, as percentage of sums insured, increased. With greater competition, there is surely scope for negotiating lower premiums. But the litmus test of any crop insurance scheme is how fast it can settle the claims of farmers. It is here that the governance of the state is tested. There are three critical steps in this process: First, the state has to notify the crops, make clusters of districts, determine the sums to be insured based on district level committees, and invite tenders from insurance companies; second, the state and the Centre have to pay premium to the companies providing insurance; and third, in case of crop damages, quickly assess the damages and ask companies to pay the claims of farmers. Unfortunately, in this entire process, farmers have almost no role. That’s the reason why its implementation and effectiveness has fallen between the cracks. If states delay notifications, or payment of premiums, or crop cutting data, there is no way companies can pay compensation to the farmers in time. It is exactly this slow pace and casual attitude of several state agencies that delayed compensations to farmers for losses in kharif 2016, and it may happen again in kharif 2017.
There is talk in certain quarters that the government is throwing away money to private insurance companies as claims are much lower than premiums paid. It may be noted that in any crop insurance business, companies make profits during normal times and incur losses during droughts and floods. So any meaningful comment on premiums and claims should look at at least a three to five year cycle. In any case, just for FY2017, the total premium paid by the government and farmers is Rs 22,345 crore both for kharif and rabi, while the estimated claims of kharif 2016 alone will exceed Rs 10,000 crore, of which Rs 4,203 crore has been paid. In Tamil Nadu, which was affected by the worst drought of the century, Rs 976 crore was paid as premium in rabi and claims of Rs 1,213 crore have been paid.
It may be noted that most states did not claim any amount under on-account claim for mid-season adversity, which allows 25 per cent payment for quick relief to farmers. Similarly, most states failed to provide smartphones to revenue staff to capture and upload data of crop cutting, which continues to come with enormous delay. There is hardly any use of modern technology in assessing crop damages. With the picking up of the PMFBY, area under the WBCIS reduced from 12 lakh ha in 2015-16 to 1.8 lakh ha in 2016-17. Both Rajasthan and Maharashtra, leaders of WBCIS, delayed finalisation of their tenders and received high actuarial rates. The pilot scheme of unified package insurance (UPIS) in 50 districts has not taken off.
So what is the future of crop insurance in addressing farmers’ woes from natural calamities? The PMFBY has moved in the right direction and made substantial progress in terms of coverage, but failed in quick dispensation of claims to farmers. The primary reason behind this failure is the lethargy and casual attitude of state agencies. If the PMFBY has to succeed, farmers must have a bigger stake in its functioning. There is an urgent need to link the insurance database with Core Banking Solution (CBS) so that when premium is deducted from a farmer’s bank account, the bank sends him a message informing about the premium, sum insured and name of insurance company.
IRCTC has a similar system is place for railway tickets and there is no reason why our technology-savvy banks and insurance companies cannot do it quickly. Currently, several loanee farmers may not even be aware that they are insured. If the system remains locked between state agencies and insurance companies, chances are that farmers will get short changed. It is time that the PM makes this flagship program farmer-centric with effective implementation. It can pay rich dividends.
Date:31-07-17
The right to be left alone
Privacy is not just about Aadhaar or data protection; it’s about letting people make free choices
The first thing to know when talking about privacy in India is that a majority of the population does not always understand what it means. It is at times confused with shame. It’s also confused with the emotion we feel when we do something that does not meet our standards or our sense of what is right. Modern Indian languages do not seem to have an exact word which captures the meaning of privacy; they’re usually some variation of the words for isolation, intimacy or secrecy, once again hinting at a conceptual confusion. This explains the reactions of many who wonder what’s the big deal about privacy because they have nothing to hide from the government anyway.
Privacy, however, is not only about hiding something or keeping it secret. It is, at its core, the right to be left alone. It doesn’t mean that one is withdrawing from society. It is an expectation that society will not interfere in the choices made by the person so long as they do not cause harm to others. It means that one’s right to eat whatever one chooses, the right to drink what one chooses, the right to love and marry whom one chooses, to wear what one chooses, among others, are rights which the state cannot interfere with.
In a society where adults do not necessarily exercise most of these choices of their own free will (either because of family, caste or societal pressures), it is natural that the very concept of privacy seems incomprehensible. If you have grown up in a society where everything you do is dictated by someone else, and the cost of disobedience is high, to have the freedom to choose what you will in such important matters sounds like fantasy. But it is also a common misconception that the non-well-off in India do not know or care about privacy. Millions of men and women push back daily against the oppressive hold of their families and communities, and fight for the freedom to make their own choices. They may not have the right word for it, but they are creating space for themselves to exercise the right to privacy.
It is in this context that one must understand the hearings in the Supreme Court on the right to privacy. Although the nine-judge bench has been constituted to decide whether there is a fundamental right to privacy protected under the Constitution in the specific context of the Aadhaar case, privacy has many more dimensions than just data protection or surveillance by the state. A fundamental right to privacy, enshrined and protected in the Constitution, would mean that all persons have the right to be left alone by the state unless such intrusion is necessitated by a just, reasonable, and fair law.
The nine-judge bench was necessitated in the first place because while multiple judgements have held that there is common law right to privacy (claimed against other individuals and entities), there was doubt as to whether such a right could be claimed against government. Obviously, the Constitution does not use the word “privacy” or we wouldn’t be having these hearings. Where, then, does the right to privacy find a place in the Constitution?
To answer that it is necessary to go deep into what is meant by a fundamental right. At their core, such rights can be said to be the lines drawn by the Constitution delineating boundaries for the government’s actions. Such boundaries necessarily imply, the petitioners’ counsels have argued, that the Constitution guarantees that individuals have a right to be left alone by the state on matters of individual choice. They have argued that the earlier decisions in MP Sharma v Satish Chandra (1954) and Kharak Singh v State of UP (1962) were rendered relying on a narrow and pedantic interpretation of fundamental rights — an approach that has been discarded by the Supreme Court since the 1970s.
The Union government has argued that it does not think that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected under the Constitution. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal has argued that while the right to privacy may be protected as a common law right or some element of it part of another fundamental right, by itself, it could not per se be guaranteed as a fundamental right. The arguments of the Union government and state governments supporting it have been premised on an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution — that the framers never intended privacy to be a fundamental right available to citizens. Given the Supreme Court’s recent approach where it has not been hesitant to depart from the narrow interpretation of the Constitution when the situation demands it (such as appointment of judges), perhaps this approach may not find much judicial favour.
Far more worrisome is the argument that privacy is only the preserve of the well-off and the elite, and protecting it through law and legal institutions may stand in the way of “development” and poverty alleviation. This not only misunderstands what the right to privacy means but underplays its role in allowing individuals to make free choices. It is an argument of a paternalistic and patriarchal state that knows what’s good for you and won’t let you make your own choices. It also clashes with the ethos of a limited government enshrined in the Constitution.
A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court holding that the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy will, however, only settle one issue — that there is a right to privacy guaranteed against state intervention. To what extent this right can be claimed and in what circumstances the state may be allowed to intrude will have to be decided on a case by case basis. At most, the court’s judgment may outline the principles on the basis of which judicial review will be carried out, but it cannot be expected to prescribe an answer for every foreseeable situation.
Whatever the final judgment, the implications will go far beyond just the Aadhar scheme and law. The law laid down by the Supreme Court on privacy could affect the course of development of the law governing reproductive rights, gay rights, beef bans, prohibition, among a host of other issues that the Indian state and society are grappling with
Date:31-07-17
At The Half-way Mark
The Swachh Bharat Mission has laid the foundations for a faster pace of change
India is midway into the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Since its inception on October 2, 2014, the ministries of Urban Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation have been spearheading the programme, with implementation happening at the state level. The key differentiator with the SBM is the prime minister’s ongoing focus which has percolated to district and block officials. It has also captured the imagination of the people of the country.
The SBM has witnessed several notable achievements in reducing open defecation thanks to the focus on behaviour change, need-based capacity building and constant measuring of outcomes. The last three years have seen an increase from 42 per cent to 65.02 per cent in national sanitation coverage. Five states, 149 districts and 2.08 lakh villages have already been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). Nearly 22 per cent of the cities and towns have been declared ODF; 50 per cent of the urban wards have achieved 100 per cent door-to-door solid waste collection; and over 20,000 Swachhagrahi volunteers are working across urban local bodies, and over a lakh are working in rural India. The number of schools with separate toilet facilities for girls has increased from 0.4 million (37 per cent) to almost one million (91 per cent).
There have seen numerous analyses, discussions and conclusions about the SBM. One recent media report mentions that the government is not measuring ODF, and rather tracks funds spent on latrine construction while putting out numbers about sanitation. This is not entirely correct, as there have been efforts to measure ODF. Of course, the modalities for the same can be debated and there may well be scope for improvement in the measurement protocols. Several sectoral experts are members of the Empowered Working Group (EWG), which is responsible for examining the survey methodology and setting protocols for the government’s upcoming national survey through the Independent Verification Agent (IVA) under the World Bank project.
One of the key differentiators of the SBM programme (and rightly so) is the decision by the government in November 2014 to make ODF the success parameter. It was made clear by the ministries concerned that progress will be tracked and evaluated only on this basis. This caused a paradigm shift in the thinking of the implementers as ODF measurement has a direct relationship with behaviour change. This policy shift led to ODF Monitoring Committees (or Nigrani Samitis) being formed at the village level, reflecting the community ownership of SBM. The monitoring committees’ key tasks were not to count the number of toilets but to ensure that no individual from the village resorts to open defecation. Anecdotal information and feedback from NGOs and others in the field suggests good progress on this front.
Sanitation, in a diverse country like India, encompasses a number of factors which are important determinants for the success of the mission. It has a direct relationship to caste, creed, religion and gender. A successful sanitation programme needs to address such factors, which makes achievement of safe sanitation a very complex exercise. Additionally, India has a large number of disabled people whose needs require customised solutions. Despite these challenges, we have seen a marked improvement in sanitation coverage since the launch of SBM.
Achieving ODF status alone is not sufficient for the success of SBM. Attention to the complete sanitation cycle is required, where toilets not only need to be built and used but the waste generated also needs to be collected and treated properly. The India Sanitation Coalition advocates safe and sustainable sanitation including design, implementation and practice. This is evident in the tag line BUMT (Build, Use, Maintain and Treat) to complete the entire sanitation chain. .
Achieving ODF is the collective responsibility of the entire nation, not just the government. We have now reached a stage where the need for BCC (Behaviour change communication) has been recognised.
Turning a large and populous country like India around is not an easy task. However, in less than three years we see that India is already course correcting and with the
momentum building, the pace of change going forward will be much faster.