13.08.2024 Editorial
13.08.2024 Editorial
The Manish Sisodia case raises the question whether the liberty of individuals can be held
hostage to the benevolence or sense of fairness of the prosecutor alone.
Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s enlargement on bail by the Supreme
Court of India, after an unconscionably long incarceration, is a welcome vindication of the
apex court’s remit as custodian of individual liberties. In an eloquent exposition of its
mandate, the Court reiterated that ‘a constitutional court has to lean in favour of
constitutionalism and the rule of law of which liberty is an intrinsic part...’
Citing its judgment in Arnab Manoranjan Goswami vs The State of Maharashtra and Ors.
(2020), it reaffirmed that ‘liberty across human eras is as tenacious as tenacious can be’.
Reiterating the salutary constitutional principle expounded as early as 1977 by Justice
V.R. Krishna Iyer, that bail is the rule and jail an exception, the Court reaffirmed that the
right to fair and speedy trial was implicit in the right to life under Article 21. It concluded
that this right was denied to Mr. Sisodia.
Earlier observations
In arriving at its conclusions, the Court relied on the observations of the Court in its first
order of October 30, 2023 (Manish Sisodia vs Central Bureau of Investigation), and also
the submissions advanced before it in the first round, adverting particularly to the 56,000
pages of documents and 456 witnesses (at that stage which, numbers were
subsequently increased) in the two cases — and which the Court felt could delay the trial
and conclusion of the case inordinately. It also referred to and relied upon several of its
judgments, from Kashmira Singh (1977) till the later decisions— (in P. Chidambaram (2020)
and Satender Kumar Antil (2022) — on the accused’s right to speedy trial. To these could
be added the Court’s decision in Sheikh Javed Iqbal (2024).
In its entirety, the judgment must gladden the hearts of libertarians, considering the
troubling and persistent apprehensions about the weaponising of the stringent penal laws
in the country, and concerns about the oppressive application and implementation of the
PMLA. Taking cognisance of the information furnished to Parliament recently, the Court
noticed that out of the over 5,000 cases brought under the PMLA in the last 10 years,
only 40 cases resulted in convictions. In his statement in the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of
State for Finance disclosed that ‘the ED filed 15 enforcement case information reports
(ECIRs) in 2019, followed by 28 in 2020, 26 in 2021, 34 in 2022, 26 in 2023 and three in
2024 as on July 31. Only one conviction in the cases was reported to have been made in
2020.
Clearly, the processes of our criminal justice system, leading to endless delays, are
oppressive, with procedure itself being the punishment. The reality of the technicalities of
procedural laws defeating justice has been judicially recognised and eloquently summed
up as ‘the mortality of justice at the hands of law’ — Sushil Kumar Sen (1975); Rani Kusum
(2005).
A caveat
In our constitutional scheme, the liberty of individuals cannot be held hostage to the
benevolence or sense of fairness of the prosecutor alone. It must stand on the
unbreacheable foundation of justice anchored in inalienable rights ‘born in flesh, carried in
our bodies from birth to death’. We know that sacrosanct rights ‘undergrid’ the law; that
there is no virtue in legal processes that are unjust and laws that fail to render justice
must be changed. Denial of freedom is denial of humanity itself.
Therefore, its preservation against excesses of the executive is the first charge on the
apex Court’s constitutional and moral authority. Although the ultimate guarantee of civil
liberties lies in the faith and assertion of the people, as Justice Robert Jackson of the
United States reminded us in Douglas vs City of Jeannette (1943), the courts’ auxiliary
protection against encroachment of human rights is the crucial test of a vibrant
democracy.
In eventually restoring Mr. Sisodia’s liberty, pending the final decision in his case, the
apex court has redeemed itself of the charge of ambivalence in the earlier rounds despite
the existence of legal and factual basis for bail. It need not now ‘trudge on the debris of
conscience’. The judgment would have served its purpose if undertrials are not made to
languish in custody endlessly, with their freedom, reputation, privacy and dignity
irretrievably lost without apology or recompense. And, the nation must repurpose its
politics away from personal animosities in an ennobling pursuit of justice and dignity for
all, thereby revitalising a democracy under stress.
Ashwani Kumar is Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India and a former Union Minister
for Law and Justice.
© The Hindu, First published on: August 13, 2024 12:50 am IST
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-top-court-as-custodian-of-liberties/article6
8517371.ece
முந்தைய குறிப்புகள்
The tech that keeps our vehicles from bumping into each other
-Vasudevan Mukunth
Most collision avoidance systems require two pieces of information: the locations of all
the other vehicles and the location of this vehicle relative to those vehicles.
Vehicular traffic is a mainstay of modern life. Either people want to get from one place to
the next or they want to send things. As the demand for such transport has increased,
so have the number of transport options people have invented and the number of places
to deploy them in. Today, thus, we have traffic on the road, in the air, across various
water bodies, and – in a dubitable sign of progress – in space. For better or for worse,
we can’t roll this traffic back very much, so we have collision avoidance systems instead.
Such a vehicle can be driven by a human, in which case CAS’s purpose would be to assist
the driver, or be autonomous.
Say two cars, called the Front Car and the Back Car, are moving in sequence and both
are fit with CAS devices. Typically, the Back Car will be tracking the speed of the Front
Car, the distance between the two cars, and the speed of the Back Car. If the separation
between the two cars is expected to drop within a certain value within a stipulated time
frame, the CAS may be empowered to deploy an automatic emergency brake – as
required of cars in the European Union, for example – without the driver’s intervention.
In order to achieve this, the CAS will have to be connected to the Back Car’s braking
system and be able to override the driver’s instructions. It will also be connected to the
Back Car’s speed metre as well as equipped with a sensing technology to track the Front
Car, like radar, lidar, and/or cameras with object recognition.
What is ‘Kavach’?
Another important land-based mode of transport is the railway. A spate of train accidents
in India recently brought the spotlight on its sluggish implementation of ‘Kavach’, the
homegrown CAS for the Indian Railways. In their fundamentals Kavach’s components
perform the same functions that CAS does in cars, but the railway system is also more
complicated.
Computers: There is a computer onboard the train plus two other computers for station
masters. Of the latter, one is the master computer: it collates and processes information
from signals and interlocking points and sends its output to the locomotive computer. The
other is the remote interface unit, which also collates and processes information from
various points on the railway network, and eventually transmits its data to the master
computer; it doesn’t communicate directly with the locomotive computer.
A locomotive pilot is seen operating a ‘Kavach’ installation. The system applied brakes
automatically in a locomotive at Pulimamida in Vikarabad district on March 4, 2022, during
a test conducted by the South Central Railway. | Photo Credit: Nagara Gopal/The Hindu
(i) The locomotive will have two radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers mounted on
its underside. The tracks will be fit with RFID cards at fixed intervals. When the
locomotive passes over the cards, the readers will scan the cards and retrieve the train’s
location and a track ID number, and send them to the onboard computer.
(ii) Onboard computers can communicate with each other if their respective locomotives
are nearby.
Taken together, the system facilitates communications between stations and locomotive
pilots, facilitates pilots’ decision-making (with or without having to visually spot another
train), maintains speed, issues sounds and alarms when passing through areas with low
visibility, and applies emergency brakes when a collision is expected.
Communication: The remote interface unit transmits data to the master computer via
fibre-optic cables. The master computer communicates with the locomotive computer via
ultra-high frequency radio. The onboard computer uses GSM-Railway to communicate
with the overall network management system (the software system that animates the
Control: As with cars, the onboard computer is connected to various other parts of the
locomotive, including its braking system and an alarm to alert pilots. While operating the
locomotive, pilots will use a bespoke interface – like a digital screen – that relays
information from the computer and receives inputs from the pilots. The station master will
have a similar interface, with the ability to send SOS messages as well.
Another salient component of aircraft CAS is the alerts. If another aircraft is within 48
seconds away on a potential collision course, the computer sounds a traffic advisory that
requires the pilots to visually identify the other aircraft. If the aircraft is less than 30
seconds away, the computer requires the pilots to make a resolution: report the alert as
soon as possible to air traffic control and manoeuvre the aircraft to a safer course, if
required contrary to air traffic control’s instructions; and revert to the original course
once the resolution is complete.
Finally, aircraft may also have radar altimeters to sense the distance to the ground and
another system to alert pilots to ‘tall’ features like towers and ground antennae.
Ships – akin to cars and aircraft – use a combination of visual sighting and radar to steer
clear of each other, while these operations are similarly assisted with the use of
additional systems. Two important ones are AIS and LRIT. In the AIS, or Automatic
Identification System, base stations on land track and coordinate data received from
LRIT is short for ‘Long Range Identification and Tracking’. According to the International
Maritime Organisation, a ship on an international voyage is required to report its location,
local time, and onboard equipment once every six hours to the authorities in the country
under whose flag the ship is sailing. This data is distributed to contracting governments
and to operators of search-and-rescue missions via the International LRIT Data Exchange.
© The Hindu, First published on: August 13, 2024 05:00 am IST
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/collision-avoidance-systems-explained/articl
e68513033.ece
This year may well be the one when the world confronts a cornucopia of security
threats.
The year 2024 had dawned with forebodings of a new wave of security threats, and
security specialists the world over, had braced for a wave of attacks along a wide
spectrum. Their concerns essentially stemmed from fears arising out of new threats
posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its different manifestations, including Generative AI
and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Together with the expanding horizons of
disinformation and cyber threats, the outlook seemed distinctly gloomy.
Such fears were not unfounded, given the rising profile of both AI and cyber, and the
consequential increase in disinformation attacks. Several months down the road, the
absence of any spectacular attack has been a relief. This is no reason to relax the vigil
as newer variations of digital threats are beginning to emerge. The Paris Games ended
peacefully, but eternal vigilance is still the price that security agencies need to pay to
ensure proper safety. Undoubtedly, an Olympic Games of this size passing off without a
major incident is indeed a triumph for security managers engaged in providing security
for the Games, yet vigil can hardly be relaxed.
It might be worthwhile to look back and see what did, or did not, happen in 2024. The
year started seeming to confirm the prognosis that 2024 may well be the year when the
world confronts a cornucopia of security threats. Disinformation was already having a
field day in the run up to the elections in Taiwan in January 2024, and the atmosphere
was loaded with fake posts and videos, causing widespread confusion. This was
attributed to China, but we live in a world today where nothing is what it seems. What
was, however, evident was that the advent of AI seemed to have made it far easier to
spread disinformation cloaked in the garb of reality. AI was the principal, though not,
perhaps, the sole culprit.
It is indeed true that spreading disinformation has become far easier with the advent of
AI. Deep fakes, comprising digitally manipulated video, audio, or images, repeatedly hit the
headlines today, causing a miasma of disinformation. The truth is revealed much later —
and after the damage has been done.
The world had a preview last month of what could happen, or is in store, in the event of a
massive cyberattack, whether AI-enabled or otherwise. A ‘glitch’ in a software update
concerning Microsoft Windows caused a massive outage, which initially affected parts of
the United States, but rapidly spread to different parts of the globe, including India. It
disrupted flight operations, air traffic, stock exchanges and more. The Indian Computer
Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) issued a severity rating of ‘critical’ for the incident.
This was, however, not a cyberattack, but it provided a preview of the kind of disruption
that could take place in the event of a cyberattack. According to Microsoft, over eight
million Windows devices failed, leading to global disruption on a massive scale.
Human memory tends to be short, and it may be necessary to remind the world about
some of the better known cyberattacks in the past, which caused mayhem across the
globe. The world may, or may not, remember the widespread disruption that occurred in
2017 in the wake of the WannaCry ransomware attack employing the WannaCry
ransomware cryptoworm, which infected well over 2,30,000 computers in 150 countries,
resulting in damage amounting to billions of dollars. The same year witnessed another
cyberattack using the Shamoon Computer Virus which was directed mainly against oil
companies such as SA ARAMCO (Saudi Arabia) and RasGas (Qatar), and was labelled, at
the time, as the ‘biggest hack in history’. Again, around the same period, a cyberattack
Few cyberattacks have, however, had a more devastating impact than that caused by
the Stuxnet ‘attack’ in 2010. Over 2,00,000 computers were impacted and physically
degraded as a result. Stuxnet was a malicious computer worm, believed to have been in
development for nearly five years, and specifically targeting supervisory control and data
acquisition systems. The target in this case was the Iran nuclear programme, leading to
the inference that it was state sponsored. What is now known is that Stuxnet’s design
and architecture is not domain specific, but could be tailored for attacking most modern
systems in use.
While the potential threat posed by AI disinformation looms large across the global
landscape, for ordinary individuals, cyber is already a persisting threat. The number of
victims of cyber fraud and cyber hacking has grown exponentially in recent years. Our
day-to-day existence is threatened by fraudsters posing as delivery company agents
and making delivery attempts, and, in the process, obtaining personal information for
malicious use.
There is today a rising curve of false credit card transactions, obtaining personal
information in the process to defraud unwitting individuals. Compromising business
e-mails is on the increase. One of the most widespread cyber frauds is ‘phishing’, that
involves stealing personal information such as customer ID, credit\debit card numbers,
and even PIN. The list is extensive and extends to ‘spamming’ as well (where someone
receives unsolicited commercial messages sent through one of the many electronic
messaging systems). ‘Identity theft’ is among the most serious dangers that has now
become widespread.
Across the democratic world, governments are seeking to put in place proper systems to
deal with digital threats. Industry and private institutions, however, appear to be lagging
behind. It is the latter segment that is, perhaps, the most vulnerable to digital attacks.
Awareness of the growing danger of digital threats is but the first step in the battle
against cyber and AI-directed threats. Unauthorised use of Generative AI content has
already become the stock-in-trade of digital bullying. Preventing this demands a great
deal of effort and adequate budgetary allocations — whether in the private or public
domain.
More than anything else, potentially dangerous digital technologies require more, and the
specific, attention of those in-charge, specially in the case of democracies. Awareness
about digital bullying and other forms of manipulation is fundamental if we are to prevent
situations getting out of hand. More than anything else, there is a need to create a
realisation that the struggle against digital threats calls for coordinated action. Also, a
realisation that nations, especially democracies, are today under attack from a new and
different source. There is, hence, every need to counter digital surveillance,
disinformation, bullying and manipulation, for our survival.
© The Hindu, First published on: August 13, 2024 12:59 am IST
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/disinformation-ai-and-cyber-chakravyuh/article6
8517429.ece
இதுவரையிலான வருடம்
The recent two-day visit by a team of the Election Commission of India (ECI), led by the
Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) — its second
since March to meet representatives of political parties and the local administration —
comes amid the growing chorus from regional parties to hold elections to the 90-seat
Assembly of the five-year-old Union Territory (UT). In its December 2023 judgment on
Article 370, the Supreme Court was specific in its direction on holding elections in J&K.
The Court had noted that “direct elections to legislative assemblies cannot be put on hold
until Statehood is restored” and directed the ECI to conduct elections in J&K by
September 30, 2024. The erstwhile State of J&K was bifurcated into two UTs, and its
special status scrapped in 2019. J&K saw its last Assembly election in 2014. After the
collapse of the coalition government of the Peoples’ Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) in 2018, J&K has not had a representative government. The Centre should be
buoyed by the faith shown by voters in the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May this
year. Voters chose to depart from the previous trend, especially in the Kashmir Valley, of
election boycotts, and instead posted a historic turnout of 58% in five Lok Sabha seats.
Since 1990, J&K’s voting percentage had never crossed the 50% mark.
© The Hindu, First published on: August 13, 2024 12:30 am IST
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/%E2%80%8Bkashmir-file-the-hindu-editorial-o
n-holding-elections-in-jammu-and-kashmir/article68516719.ece
The Bill to inflict penalties including life imprisonment for food adulteration offences was
introduced in the Rajya Sabha to-day by the Health Minister, Dr. Karan Singh.
“The Prevention of Food Adulteration (amendment) Bill, 1974” seeks to make food
adulteration offences as “cognizable and non-bailable”. The Bill seeks to plug loopholes
and provide for more stringent and effective measures to curb the adulteration menace,
which had “made a heavy dent in the already low nutritional standards.”
The Bill also seeks to provide for representation for consumers’ interests in the Central
Committee for Food Standards and in the Central Food Laboratory.
In the parent Act “food” meant an article used as food or drink for human consumption
other than drugs and water and included those used in the composition or preparation of
human food and flavouring matter or condiments. The Bill also seeks to appoint the “local
(health) authority” in relation to local areas to be in charge of health administration. Under
the parent Act, there was a provision for appointment of “food (health) authority”
meaning the Director of Health Services or the Chief Officer in charge of health
administration.
© The Hindu, First published on: August 13, 2024 04:37 am IST
https://www.thehindu.com/archives/from-the-pages-of-the-hindu-august-13-1974-life-ter
m-for-food-adulteration-bill-introduced/article68517681.ece
More and better testing: On viral disease outbreaks and State responses
Since the Zika outbreak began on June 20, when the first case was reported from Pune,
confirmed cases have been slowly but steadily rising. As of August first week,
Maharashtra has reported 88 confirmed cases. Pune city, the epicentre, alone accounts
for 73 cases, while six are from Pune rural. Of the total number reported so far, at 37,
pregnant women alone account for half the number of confirmed infections. Though rare,
people with Zika virus infection run a risk of suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome, a
neurological disorder in which the immune system mistakenly attacks part of the
peripheral nervous system.
But a more harmful effect is seen in pregnant women who run a risk of giving birth to
babies with a smaller than average head size, called microcephaly, and other neurological
impairments. As in a January 2023 paper in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, a
meta-analysis of babies born to 1,548 pregnant women infected with the Zika virus, from
13 studies in Brazil between 2015 and 2017, found the absolute risk of microcephaly to be
6.6% either at birth or during follow-up.
Babies also had 18.7% absolute risk of suffering from functional neurological abnormalities,
and a relatively smaller risk of neuroimaging, ophthalmic and auditory abnormalities.
There was also a significant risk of premature birth (10.5%), low birth weight and small for
gestational age (16.2%). Less known is the risk of sexual transmission of the virus by
Given the harmful effects of the virus, it is shocking that the Pune-based ICMR lab
ramped up testing only after the publication of news about the Pune Municipal
Corporation planning to send samples to a government medical college instead to cut the
delay in testing. As Kerala just demonstrated in the latest outbreak of the Nipah virus,
and as Gujarat learnt it the hard way in the ongoing Chandipura virus outbreak and acute
encephalitis syndrome cases, it is becoming increasingly important and necessary that
States develop the capacity to conduct high-quality testing and sequencing of viruses
that cause frequent and deadly outbreaks. From the time that the first suspected case is
observed, the reduction in the lead time to test results is the key to instituting timely
public health responses that can limit the virus spread and stop an outbreak. The
COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the advantages of decentralised testing and
sequencing, and this should be replicated for every pathogen that causes deadly
outbreaks.
© The Hindu, First published on: August 13, 2024 12:15 am IST
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/more-and-better-testing-the-hindu-editorial-o
n-viral-disease-outbreaks-and-state-responses/article68516674.ece
Bumper kharif harvest and benign global prices with no fresh supply shocks could ease
food inflationary pressures
The southwest monsoon season had a poor start, with all-India rainfall in June 10.9 per
cent below the long period average (“normal”) for the month. The rains were subpar
everywhere, save the South, Maharashtra, west Madhya Pradesh and east Rajasthan.
But as El Niño ebbed and transitioned into a “neutral” phase, July recorded 9 per cent
above-normal rains, with all regions, barring the North and East, receiving robust
precipitation. The current month has been even better — 26 per cent above normal
rainfall, taking the cumulative surplus for the season (June-September) to 6.3 per cent till
August 12. The deficiency is now largely in Bihar, Jharkhand and parts of Northwest India
where farmers have access to irrigation. In short, the monsoon has been good so far,
while also helping recharge groundwater tables and fill up the country’s major reservoir
The well-distributed rains, both spatially and temporally, have led to increased area sown
under all big-ticket kharif crops — paddy, pulses, maize and oilseeds. There are
exceptions like cotton, whose acreage has fallen more due to farmers switching to
groundnut, maize or paddy: Pink bollworm insect attacks, and no significant
yield-protecting technologies after Bt cotton, have made them hesitant in growing the
fibre crop. With global weather agencies predicting a La Niña — El Niño’s “cool cousin”
generally known to boost rainfall activity in India — to develop by September and persist
through winter and spring, the prospects appear encouraging for the upcoming rabi
cropping season as well. The last El Niño from April 2023 to almost May this year not
only suppressed the monsoon and post-monsoon rains, but also probably contributed to
the winter’s late arrival and higher-than-normal temperatures, especially in Central and
South Peninsular India. A La Niña, hopefully, will deliver the opposite.
A munificent monsoon and no heat waves will provide welcome relief on food inflation.
The latter ruled above 8 per cent year on year for eight straight months from November
2023, falling to 5.4 per cent in July only thanks to a high base inflation of 11.5 per cent
last year for the same month. The Reserve Bank of India has refrained from cutting its
interest rates — rightly so, knowing how food prices matter in influencing inflation
expectations among Indian households and firms. A bumper kharif harvest and benign
global prices with no fresh supply shocks could ease food inflationary pressures going
forward. That should provide room for the government to lift export and stocking limit
curbs on cereals, sugar and pulses, even while keeping the zero/low duty import window
open on all major food commodities.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd, First published on:August 13, 2024 07:18 IST
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/express-view-monsoon-and-the-good
-news-for-inflation-9510395/
Removing clinical trial requirements for cutting-edge therapies could be a first step
towards increasing accessibility for those who need it most.
Last week, the Centre waived the requirement of clinical trials for five categories of
drugs if they have been approved by regulators in the US, UK, Australia, Japan, Canada
and the EU. The regulatory relaxation covers drugs that provide “significant therapeutic
advances over the current standard care, gene and cellular therapy products, medicines
used to treat rare diseases, therapies that become necessary during a pandemic, and
India has traditionally relied on its generic industry and price-controlling mechanisms to
increase the accessibility of drugs. These measures have worked to an extent. However,
restrictions on market mechanisms remain the major reason for state-of-the-art medical
research — in gene therapy, for instance — remaining inaccessible to large sections of
patients in the country. After relaxing the clinical trial requirement, the government
should initiate conversations on how best to enhance ease of business and innovation —
the goal should be to ensure availability without hurting patient interest. This could mean
more creativity in framing healthcare safety nets — making Ayushman Bharat more
expansive, for instance — or even state procurement of novel drugs for a fixed period.
The government believes that the latest regulatory relaxation will promote indigenous
research by providing early access to patient data. The country’s growing burden of
communicable diseases requires synergies between laboratories in the country and
outside its shores. But here, too, the government will need to handhold industry. Drug
discovery is a long-term commitment that involves high costs. A leader in developing
out-of-patent drugs, the country has been lagging in developing new medicine molecules.
Low investor interest in biotech seems to have made the ecosystem challenging for
start-ups. Given the premium it attaches to healthcare and R&D, the government should
find ways to make the domestic pharma industry competitive.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd, First published on: August 13, 2024 07:42 IST
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/centres-waiver-for-clinical-trials-for-t
he-patients-sake-9510396/
Governments worldwide seek to control digital media, particularly social media, which
poses greater challenges than the relatively manageable streaming services.
The Indian government's draft Broadcast Services (Regulation) Bill, aimed at regulating all
forms of digital media, has sparked widespread discussion. Civil society groups have
The bill, drafted by the information and broadcasting ministry (MIB), has three additional
flaws: (a) it categorises over-the-top (OTT) streaming services alongside TV broadcasting,
an exceptional measure globally that may allow the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(TRAI) to intervene in digital commerce; (b) it brings users posting news and
contemporary affairs on social media within its purview, meaning a committee could
judge posts from users with large followings, (c) it criminalises certain offences,
contradicting the government's commitment to reverse this trend in commercial laws.
The internet currently offers diverse content for all users. A bill that places online
content under MIB control and potentially gives TRAI the power to set prices for
audio-visual services could dramatically alter this landscape. This mirrors the situation in
India's TV markets, where the combined influence of MIB and TRAI has significantly
impacted a once-thriving industry. Advertisers are now shifting to digital platforms,
broadcasting businesses are consolidating to survive, and viewers are increasingly
considering cutting their cable subscriptions.
Policymakers can hardly deny that television's golden era has passed when viewers of all
ages found appealing content. Successive governments have maintained content
regulations that exceed permissible speech restrictions and intervened in TV pricing. For
instance, the MIB requires TV programmes to be of 'decent taste', while TRAI caps prices
for TV channels offered in bouquets.
TV market-style regulation is a misfit in the digital age. If the bill aims to modernise
legislation and enhance digital media supervision, more fundamental legal and institutional
reforms are necessary.
The British appear to have reached a compromise with Ofcsom, an independent media
regulator recently given oversight of all online content services, including social media.
OfCom is admired in Indian public policy circles.
However, the OfCom template faces challenges in the Indian context. There seems to be
little political will to grant the level of institutional independence enjoyed by the British
regulator. While India has created several market regulators since liberalisation, the
Reserve Bank of India remains perhaps the only one with true autonomy, largely due to
international financial market pressures. No such compulsion exists for content
regulators.
Ofcom is primarily funded by licence fees from the entities it regulates. The Advertising
Standards Council of India comes closest to this model in India, but it can only influence
its own members and lacks accountability to citizens as it doesn't report to parliament as
Ofcom does.
In the UK, while the secretary of state for culture, media, and sport appoints the Ofcom
Board, their actions are subject to a strict code of practice overseen by the independent
commissioner for public appointments. This regulator can conduct spot checks, consider
public complaints about appointments, and even require ministers to justify exceptional
hires. Such transparency is difficult to envision in a developing country context. Would
Another challenge with the Ofcom model is that horizontal oversight over diverse online
services risks treating very different forms of media uniformly. Moreover, the British are
not exemplars of free speech. Keir Starmer is increasing citizen surveillance and content
censorship in response to recent riots. Ofcom, with its power to request services like
Telegram and Signal to break end-to-end encryption, is an integral part of this toolkit.
Despite the absence of a systematic commitment to reform and the lack of a perfect
global model, including Ofcom, we shouldn't lose hope. India often surprises even the most
sceptical observers, while other South Asian countries have over-regulated their
information ecosystems, leading to civic unrest and political upheavals. There's a reason
why no major media companies have emerged in Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka, and
why these countries are not beacons of free society.
The path to balanced content regulation lies in fostering a societal conversation on the
legal and institutional redesign needed for the digital age. Global experience suggests this
process should not be rushed, regardless of perceived urgencies. The broadcasting bill,
perhaps unintentionally, has catalysed this necessary dialogue.
© Hindustan Times, First Published on: Aug 13, 2024 08:00 AM IST
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