Big brother is watching you

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

Sixteen months after the Supreme Court declared privacy a fundamental right and the Constitutional core of human rights, the Indian government has virtually nullified it through an executive order authorising 10 agencies under its control to intercept, monitor and decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer.

The agencies authorised to tap electronic communications are those concerned with domestic and external intelligence gathering and investigation of crimes, tax evasion, smuggling, narcotics trade, foreign currency transactions etc.

The order exposes more than 500 million Indians who use computers and smart phones to snooping by officials.

The Opposition parties came down on the government, accusing it of imposing an undeclared Emergency. Congress President Rahul Gandhi, in a tweet told Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “Converting India into a police state isn’t going to solve your problems, Modi Ji. It is only going to prove to over 1 billion Indians what an insecure dictator you really are.”

Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah responded with a reminder about the 1975-77 Emergency regime of his grandmother Indira Gandhi.

In an attempt to deflect criticism, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pointed out that the government had issued the order under rules framed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. 

In fact the order has been issued under the power conferred on the Centre by the Information Technology Act of 2000, read with the IT Rules of 2009. The Act was brought in by the first BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The rules under the Act were framed by the second UPA government, headed by Manmohan Singh, to lay down “procedure and safeguards for interception, monitoring and decryption”. A law which confers on the government the power to intercept telegraphic and telephonic communications has been in force in the country since the colonial days.

Central and State governments have been using this law to eavesdrop on telephone conversations of political opponents. From time to time, others including media persons have been under the radar.

Two websites specialising in investigative journalism reported in 2013 that three Gujarat police agencies had tapped the telephone of a Bangalore woman four years earlier reportedly under instructions from Amit Shah, who was then Home Minister of the State.

The woman’s father, who was living in Gujarat, in a statement explained that he had requested Modi, who was then Chief Minister, to“look after” her.

When the electronic age dawned, the Central government devoted attention to devising ways of regulating communication using the new technology. The result was the IT Act which conferred wide powers on the police. 

In 2015 the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Act which placed restrictions on online speech on the ground that it violated the Constitutional provision guaranteeing freedom of speech. However, there have been reports that the police continues to slap cases against social media users under that section.

In a reply to queries under the Right to Information Act, the UPA 2 regime revealed in August 2013 that “on an average between 7,500 t0 9,000 orders for interception of telephones and 300 to 500 orders for interception of emails are issued by the Central government per month”.

Nine of the 10 agencies the Modi administration has authorised to snoop enjoyed the power under the UPA government too. The new entrant is the Commissioner of Police, Delhi. Although Delhi has a State government, the Delhi police is not under it. The Centre controls it through the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi.

The 2008 Mumbai terror attack impressed upon the Indian government the need to secure Internet space and keep track of information flowing through it. Accordingly, it asked the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) to develop a suitable mechanism for the purpose.

C-DoT proposed the setting up of a centralised monitoring system, based on the US National Investigation Agency’s surveillance programme code-named PRISM. A provision incorporated in the licensing agreements of telecom operators made it obligatory for them to provide to law enforcement agencies any data they sought. 

A pilot project was launched in Delhi. It was subsequently enlarged and extended countrywide

Today, there are two Central monitoring stations, one in Delhi and the other in Bangalore and a score of regional monitoring centres scattered across the country which can seek data from the service providers. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 25, 2018.

Cycle Yatra for Peace in Central India. Will You Join? 

A rural scene in Chhattsgarh

A  group of organisations based in Chharrisgarh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, planning a Cycle Yatra in Central India to promote Peace in the trouble-torn areas, is inviting like-minded persons to join the programme.

Here is an appeal issued by the group.

Cycle Yatra for Peace in Central India, Will you join?

More than 12,000 people have died in ongoing violence in Central India in last 20 years. According to Govt figures 2,700 of them were security forces and rest mostly ordinary citizens. And these killings continue everyday...

With a call to stop violence, a Peace process has started. As part of the process more than 150 Adivasis and their friends symbolically walked 196 kms from Gandhi  Ashramam in Chatti village in Andhra Pradesh to Jagdalpur in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, from 2nd October 2018, the start of Gandhi’s 150th birth year celebration. 

Requesting all sides for peace, they also assembled for Bastar Dialogue-1 in Jagdalpur, capital of Bastar at the end of the 12 days Padyatra to discuss also with their supporters on what more needs to be done for a sustainable and just peace...

According to decisions taken in Bastar Dialogue-1 as next step of Peace process a Cycle Yatra for Peace has been planned from 22nd February 2019 from Jagdalpur to Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh. 

Cycle Yatra for Peace will reach Raipur on 28th February and on 1st and 2nd March Bastar Dialogue-2 will be organised also to put pressure on new Government to respect the commitments made during release of Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon in 2012.

According to a deal signed on 30th April a high powered standing committee was supposed to advise Govt on release of Adivasis and non-Adivasis jailed on Naxal charges for a long time. Chief Secretary and Director General of Police were also part of the Nirmala Buch committee. The committee stopped functioning after a few meetings.

Cycle Yatra for peace will also demand immediate rehabilitation of Adivasis who were forced to leave their homes due to violence. It will demand proper implementation of laws like PESA, Fifth schedule and FRA.

    

To help or join please call 8602008333/444                                   

All India Gondwana Gond Mahasabha, Chhattisgarh Sarva Adivasi Samaj, Adivasi Mahasabha, Koya Kutma, Durwa Sama, Bastaria Samaj, Bhatra Samaj, Gondwana Raj Gond Sewa Samiti, Telangana, Jagrut Adivasi Yuva Sangathan, Sabari Gandhi Ashramam, Andhra Pradesh.

Rahul has a long way to go

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Congress party, which was down in the dumps after the thrashing in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in which Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to power, is on the recovery path.

In the Assembly elections in the Hindi states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, it ousted the BJP from power. While the Congress and the BJP have been alternating in power in Rajasthan for a long time, MP and Chhattisgarh were under BJP rule continuously for 15 years.

The electoral verdict bodes ill for the BJP. It was a spectacular showing in nine Hindi states, where it won 185 seats, that enabled the BJP to secure a majority in the 573-member Lok Sabha with a tally of 282.

MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had given the BJP 62 of their 65 seats. If the verdict in these states reflects the current mood in the entire Hindi region the BJP will have a hard time approximating its 2014 performance in the Lok Sabha elections due in four months.

The Congress was a few seats short of a majority in the new assemblies of MP and Rajasthan. The quick offer of support by two parties, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party, which have a small presence in these States, helped it to make up the shortfall

Success in ousting the BJP from power in three States has boosted the morale of Congressmen and is widely interpreted as popular endorsement of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. He had taken over the post of party president from his mother, Sonia Gandhi, a year ago after serving as General Secretary and Vice-President for a decade.

He had started with some handicaps. He appeared to be a reluctant prince. The BJP’s social media brigade ran a vicious campaign portraying him as a dimwit who owes his position as heir apparent of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. He fought back vigorously and established himself as a leader sensitive to the problems of the poor.

Credit is due to Rahul Gandhi for the Congress party’s recovery in the Hindi belt, reflected in the Assembly election results. However, he and the party still have a long way to go to recapture Congress’s lost glory.

There is room to doubt if he is on the right track. After working for a while with a team of his own, he now relies mostly on the old Congress hands on whom his mother had relied when she stepped into politics a few years after the assassination of her husband, Rajiv Gandhi.

This restricts his ability to chart out a new strategy taking into account the vast change in the political scenario since the days of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, when the Congress was the only party with a national reach.

The most that can be read from the latest electoral verdict is that the Congress retains the capacity to bounce back in the States where the BJP is its main opponent. 

In the largest Hindi states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which together have 130 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Congress is today a small player. In UP, the BSP and the SP are the main opposition parties. Their traditional rivalry had helped the BJP to grab a lion’s share of its Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and seize power in the state in 2017. They are now in negotiations to take on the BJP jointly in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Beyond the Hindi belt there are States where regional parties are the main players. In the southern state of Telangana and northeastern state of Mizoram, where Assembly elections were held recently, regional parties trounced both the Congress and the BJP.

It is in the Congress party’s interest to forge good relations with small national parties as well as regional parties as they may have a role in the formation of the next Central government. 

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam leader N Chandrababu Naidu’s recent overtures to Gandhi and Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader MK Stalin’s endorsement of him as prime ministerial timbre are indicative of goodwill towards him. 

If he had adopted a liberal attitude towards the BSP and the SP and carried them with his party in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the Assembly elections, it would have fared better than it did. It would also have put him in a favourable position to strike a good bargain with them in UP.

Rahul Gandhi’s choice of old hands to lead the new governments in MP and Rajasthan, when promising young leaders were available, suggests that his enthusiasm for toning up the party and infusing new vigour has waned. That is not a good sign. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 19, 2018.

An exercise in futility?

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

India can be proud of its current status as the world’s fastest growing large economy. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not quite happy because he has not been able to match the record of his immediate predecessor, Manmohan Singh, who headed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for 10 years.

The economy was facing serious problems when Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao picked Manmohan Singh, a noted economist, for the post of Finance Minister in 1991. He initiated reforms and set the economy on an upward trajectory.

As Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh adopted a cautious approach, and the Indian economy weathered the recurrent setbacks countries across the world experienced during 2007-11. It was racing ahead when Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 2014.

Heeding calls from abroad for more reforms, Modi went ahead with steps like introduction of goods and services tax on which Manmohan Singh was moving slowly. He also undertook some measures like demonetisation of high-value currencies, without adequate preparations, causing damage to some sectors of the economy.

Within a few months Modi has to face the electorate. His campaign strategy is to run down his predecessors, starting with the illustrious Jawaharlal Nehru, accusing them of wasting the seven decades since Independence without doing anything and making questionable claims about his own achievements of the last four years.

Such a campaign may go down well with his ardent followers but there are others who are inclined to look at facts and figures.

Figures which have been in the public domain for a long time show that the GDP growth rate, which was 9.3 per cent in fiscal 2006 and 9.8 per cent in 2007, slumped to 3.9 per cent in 2008 as the US financial crisis dragged the global economy down.

Recovering quickly, India registered a growth of 8.5 per cent in 2009 and 10. 3 per cent in 2010 but the rate dropped to 6.6 per cent in 2011 and 5.5 per cent in 2012. Thereafter it started climbing again and was 6.4 per cent in 2013 and 7.4 per cent in 2014.

Under Modi, the upward movement continued, with the growth rate rising to 8.2 per cent in 2015. Thereafter it fell to 7.1 per cent in 2016 and 6.7 per cent in 2017 due, not to external developments, but to internal factors. 

The Central Statistical Organisation periodically revises the basis on which the GDP is calculated. In 2015 it changed the base year for GDP calculation from 2004-05 to 2011-12.

Under the revised scheme the share of industry in the economy went up from 19 per cent to 23 per cent, that of manufacturing from 14.7 per cent to 17.4 per cent, and agriculture from 17.8 per cent to 18.5 per cent. The service’s share shrank from 24.7 per cent to 17.4 per cent.

This resulted in a general increase in the growth rate figures, starting with the UPA government’s last two years. But the figures of the Modi years still lagged behind those of the Manmohan Singh period.

Recently the CSO revised the figures of the earlier UPA years, applying the new formula with retrospective effect. The exercise brought down the growth rates of the UPA period. 

The growth rate of fiscal 2010 now fell from 10.3 per cent to 8.5 per cent and that of fiscal 2007 from 9.8 per cent to 7.7 per cent.

Several experts questioned the rationale behind the exercise. Economic journalist MK Venu pointed out that the new data went against the basic laws of macroeconomics. It showed a lower GDP growth rate during the UPA years when the gross investment to GDP ratio was 38 per cent and a higher growth rate during Modi’s four years when the gross investment to GDP ratio was only 30.3 per cent.

This time the National Institution for Transforming India, also known as NITI Aayog, the think tank which Modi set up after disbanding the Planning Commission which had been in existence since the time of Nehru, was involved in the release of the data.

National Statistical Commission Chairman Pronab Sen, who is a former CSO chief, criticising NITI Aayog’s involvement, said it amounted to politicising institutions which dealt with statistics. The newly released data “does not pass the basic smell test linked to ground realities,” he added.

What the CSO and NITI Aayog together did was to shift the goalpost long after the match was over and re-fix the results. The exercise has ruined the high reputation the CSO had enjoyed as a professional organisation working without a political motive. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 11 2018.

An Indo-Pak faith corridor

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

After four barren years, a bright patch appeared in India-Pakistan relations last week with breaking of ground for a corridor across the international border to link two sacred spots of the Sikh community and allow pilgrims visa-free travel.

The six-kilometre corridor will connect Kartarpur Sahib gurudwara (shrine) in Narowal district in Pakistan’s Punjab province with Dera Baba Nanak gurdwara in Gurdaspur district in India’s Punjab state.

Kartarpur is where Guru Nanak (1469-1539), founder of Sikhism, spent his last years. His birthplace, marked by Nankana Sahib gurdwara, is also in Pakistan. Dera Baba Nanak, with three famous gurdwaras, is a town built in the Guru’s honour by his descendants.

Worldwide there is an estimated 27 million Sikhs, of whom 83 per cent live in India, 76 per cent in Punjab state, where they are in a majority.

After Partition, the bulk of Pakistan’s Sikhs moved to India as refugees or migrated to various Western countries. Currently its Sikh population is estimated at about 20,000 only. But it has a large number of Sikhism’s holy shrines. They are looked after by the government-appointed Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Committee.

Sikh pilgrims from India visit Pakistani gurdwaras in groups on four occasions in a year: Baisakhi (spring festival), the martyrdom anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth of Sikhism’s 10 gurus, the death anniversary of Sikh emperor Ranjit Singh and the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.

The idea of a faith corridor was mooted by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when he undertook a celebrated bus ride from Amritsar to Pakistan in 1999.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had invited a Congress Minister of Punjab, Navjot Singh Sidhu, who, like him, is a cricketer turned politician, to his swearing-in ceremony. There Army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa told him that foundation stone for the corridor would be laid soon. Overwhelmed, Sidhu, who is a Sikh, hugged the general.

When news of the hug reached India, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders branded Sidhu anti-national.

Early in his term Prime Minister Narendra Modi had attempted to cultivate good personal relations with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawas Sharif. However bilateral relations suffered with last-minute cancellation of scheduled talks on several occasions.

In 2014, official level talks to resume the peace process were called off after Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit conferred with Kashmir’s Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi.

In 2016, scheduled talks were abandoned following an attack on the Pathankot air base by suspected Pakistan-based militants.

This year, a planned meeting of Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session was cancelled following an incident in the Kashmir valley.

The BJP’s reaction to Sidhu’s hug and the government’s unpreparedness to make any gesture when elections are near, prevented India from turning over a new leaf, taking advantage of Pakistan’s Kartarpur Sahib corridor initiative.

Although no Central minister has been to Pakistan since Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meeting in 2016, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj declined the invitation to attend the Kartarpur ceremony, citing prior commitments.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who belongs to the Congress, also declined the invitation. He gave two reasons: increasing truce violations in Kashmir and recent discovery of ISI-linked modules in his state.

Two Sikh ministers, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri, represented the Indian government at the Kartarpur function. Sidhu attended on Imran Khan’s personal invitation.

Even as Imran Khan launched work on the corridor at the Pakistani end, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated work at the Indian end, with no Pakistani guest at the function. 

Talking to Indian journalists who were in Pakistan to cover the Kartarpur function, Imran Khan said the militancy problem was something he had inherited. He added the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan agreed on the need to improve ties with India.

In an apparent response to his statement, Rajnath Singh offered Pakistan help to tackle the militancy problem. Overlooking the reasons cited by the government for cancellation of bilateral meetings, he said there had been no major terrorist act in India in the last four years.

With only a few months left for the parliamentary elections, it is too late for Modi to make any new move. The government to be formed after the elections, even if it is led by Modi, will find it necessary to resume talks. For, how long can the two countries, which journalist Kuldip Nayar referred to as “distant neighbours”, refuse to talk to each other? --Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 4, 2018.