Editorial 1 : DELHI TO DOHA
Introduction: The verdict of Qatar’s Court of First Instance, sentencing eight former Indian Navy officers to death, is a challenge for Indian diplomacy.
India’s response
- The Ministry of External Affairs has expressed “concern” and said that it is “awaiting the detailed judgment”.
India-Qatar Relations: Recent visits
- Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Qatar in 2008 was reciprocated by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s visit to India in 2015.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Gulf state in 2016 and Doha has hosted EAM Jaishankar multiple times.
- These visits have laid the ground for a strong economic relationship.
Significance of Qatar in Middle East
- Qatar is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
- Qatar in recent years showed its ambitions of playing larger role in Middle-East geopolitics.
- It has good relations with every great power, be it Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Iran.
- Qatar rejected towing Saudi’s line and charted its independent foreign policy.
- Doha has become a place for mediation for approximately every conflict in middle east.
Significance of Qatar for India
- More than 8,00,000 Indians live and work in Qatar.
- Qatar is India’s most important natural gas supplier. (India imported a total 19.85 million tonnes of LNG in FY23, of which 10.74 million tonnes, or 54%, came from Qatar, the trade data show.)
- Several Indian companies, including Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Larsen & Toubro, operate in the Gulf country.
- India’s defence cooperation with Qatar has so far been limited to training, participation in each other's conferences/events and visits by ships of Indian Navy and Coast Guard.
- Za’ir-Al-Bahr (Roar of the Sea) is the naval exercise between Indian and Qatar Navy.
- There is a regular flow of Indian artists performing in Qatar at events organised by community organizations affiliated to the Indian Cultural Centre (ICC).
- ICC is an apex body of associations of the Indian community functioning under the aegis of Embassy of India, Doha, and private sponsors.
- India appreciated Qatar’s support, as a co-sponsor, to its Resolution at the United Nations General Assembly, adopted unanimously with a record 177 co-sponsors, declaring 21 June as the International Day of Yoga (IDY).
- There are 14 Indian schools in Qatar, offering CBSE curricula to over 30,000 students, most of whom are the children of Indian nationals working in Qatar.
- Qatari investment in India.
Concerns in India-Qatar relations
- The Qatar-financed Al Jazeera channel ran an aggressive campaign against India after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
- Ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s remarks about Prophet Mohammed evoked outrage in Qatar.
- Pakistan has influence on Qatar’s reaction towards India.
Conclusion: The conflict in West Asia, in fact, complicates New Delhi’s task. It should remain engaged in trying to help its citizens, use every diplomatic channel, but tread carefully.
Editorial 2 : REMEDY WORSE THAN MALAISE
Introduction: The central government plans to rely on the controversial Rule 4(2) of the 2021 Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines to counter political deep fakes. The rule demands that all significant social media messaging entities must have the capability to identify the “first originator of the information” on their platform.
Why did such demand originate?
- Politics and misinformation go hand in hand and as elections are around corner information can be used for political gains.
- Sophisticated and readily available artificial intelligence tools can be used to generate all kinds of synthetic media — authentic-looking deep fake images, videos and voices of events that never occurred.
How government is trying to tackle the problem of misinformation?
- Government is thinking to use Rule 4(2) of the 2021 Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines to counter political deep fakes.
- The rule demands that all significant social media messaging entities must have the capability to identify the “first originator of the information” on their platform.
- Originator requests can then be invoked either under a court order or by the government using its powers to intercept, monitor or decrypt information.
- The provision is primarily meant to target end-to-end encrypted platforms like WhatsApp.
IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
- The rules were notified by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in February, 2021.
- Due Diligence to be followed by Intermediary:
- Prominently publish on its website (or mobile based application or both), the rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement for access or usage of its computer resource by any person;
- The rules have modified the categories of content that users are not allowed to upload or share.
- Periodically (at least once in a year) inform its users of its rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement or any change in the rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement.
- Grievance Redressal Mechanism of Intermediary:
- The intermediary must ensure to prominently publish on its website/mobile based application, the name of the Grievance Officer and his contact details.
- It must provide a mechanism by which a user or a victim may make complaint against violation of the provisions of this rule or any other matters pertaining to the computer resources made available by it.
- Grievance Officer shall acknowledge the complaint within twenty-four hours and resolve it within fifteen days from its receipt.
- Additional Due Diligence for Significant Social Media Intermediary:
- The 2021 Rules define social media intermediaries as intermediaries which primarily or solely enable online interaction between two or more users.
- Intermediaries with registered users above a notified threshold will be classified as significant social media intermediaries (SSMIs).
- SSMI shall appoint a Chief Compliance Officer who shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with the Act.
- SSMI shall appoint a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies and officers to ensure compliance to their orders or requisitions made in accordance with the provisions of law or rules made thereunder.
- Identifying the first Originator of Information:
- An SSMI which primarily provides messaging services (for example WhatsApp), must enable the identification of the first originator of information within India on its platform.
- Ensuring Online Safety and Dignity of Users:
- Intermediaries shall remove or disable access within 24 hours of receipt of complaints of contents that exposes the private areas of individuals, show such individuals in full or partial nudity or in sexual act or is in the nature of impersonation including morphed images etc.
- Such a complaint can be filed either by the individual or by any other person on his/her behalf.
- Oversight Mechanism:
- Ministry of Information and Broadcasting shall formulate an oversight mechanism.
- It shall publish a charter for self-regulating bodies, including Codes of Practices. It shall establish an Inter-Departmental Committee for hearing grievances.
Purpose of the rule 4(2) of IT Intermediary Guidelines
- The stated purposes under Rule 4(2) are to aid in the prevention and investigation of certain types of serious offences.
- This includes threats to India’s sovereignty, security of the state, public order and sexual offences with imprisonment of over five years.
Why use of rule 4(2) of IT Intermediary Guidelines is controversial?
- The listed grounds leave ample scope for interpretation by courts and the government. This is particularly true for maintenance of “public order” that is routinely invoked in a variety of situations.
- The “first originator” of a message is not defined. For instance, a person who copies and pastes an existing message instead of using the forwarding function may become a new originator.
- The traceability of an identified message is possible only when the logs of the origin of every message are maintained. The footprint of the rule will compromise the privacy of all messaging users in the hope of being able to deter and penalise a few of them.
Conclusion: We are only one step away from opening the floodgates of message traceability in the name of preserving election integrity. Besides being disproportionate, traceability is also unlikely to serve its purpose. Government must follow the proportionality doctrine given by SC in ‘Aadhar case’.