THE HINDU EDITORIAL – APRIL 1, 2022
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Cohesion,
co-operation India must assuage apprehensions of
power imbalances among members of BIMSTEC The adoption of the Charter at the
Fifth Bay of Bengal initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation
(BIMSTEC) summit promises to re-energies the 25-year-old grouping at a time
of growing global uncertainties. The Charter is expected to help impart a
more connected vision to the seven member organization. The Charter, and
India’s decision to lead the ‘security pillar’ out of the seven designated
pillars of the revived BIMSTEC, has given India’s regional aspirations a new
orientation, away from the stalemated SAARC that has been unable to meet
since November 2014. The new opportunity is also accompanied by its own set
of problems. These inherent challenges were reflected in the time taken to
finalize the Charter – one of the key factors was the Rohingya crisis that
has weakened bilateral Bangladesh-Myanmar ties, with Dhaka seeking full
repatriation of the refugees and Naypyidaw disinclined to respond positively
to inter-nation pleas. Unlike SAARC, which is burdened by India-Pakistan
hostilities, BIMSTEC is relatively free of sharp bilateral disagreements and
promises to provide India with a co-operative sphere of its own. Given the
complexity of domestic and geopolitical factors, this sphere will require
sustained bilateral and group-level discussions to prevent problems such as
the Rohingya crisis from becoming impediments to the smooth delivery of
economic and security outcomes. India too will have to ensure equally
sustained political engagement with partners such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and
Bangladesh to prevent any domestic political spillover from affecting
bilateral and group-level working relationship.
With his call for a BIMSTEC Free Trade Agreement, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has outlined India’s vision to bolster trade connectivity in
the grouping. An FTA spanning the maritime resource-rich members such as Myanmar
and Sri Lanka could bring dramatic gains for all members. A ‘coastal shipping
ecosystem’ and an interconnected electricity grid, in addition to the adopted
Master Plan for Transport Connectivity, have the potential to boost
intraregional trade and economic ties. Having walked away from mega trade
blocs such as the China-led RCEP, New Delhi’s willingness to explore an FTA
within the framework of a near-home regional grouping may provide greater
accommodation for multi-party interests. The security- and trade-related
lessons from the troubled SAARC and SAFTA experiences also ought to serve
BIMSTEC well in the long run. Ultimately though, for the revived grouping to
realise its trade and economic potential, India will have to take a
leadership role in assuaging any apprehensions among the smaller members of
intergroup power imbalances and strive to investments by lowering barriers to
the movement of people and goods. Step by step The agreement to resolve six disputed points along
Assam-Meghalaya border is a model one Tuesday’s agreement between Assam and
Meghalaya to end their boundary dispute in six of the 12 areas, where discord
persisted, is a welcome first step. The agreement signed by Assam Chief
Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad Sangma, in
the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, also sets the stage to resolve
differences in the remaining six areas. Based on a draft resolution of
January 29 between the two States, the agreement covers Tarabari, Gizang,
Hahim, Boklapara, Khanapara-Pillangkata and Ratacherra under the Kamrup,
Kamrup (Metre) and Cachar Districts of Assam and the West Khasi Hills,
Ri-Bhoi and East Jaintia Hills districts of Meghalaya. By adopting a
give-and-take approach, the two States have demonstrated that knotty boundary
issues can be resolved – in this case, partially to begin with – if there is
a will to arrive at an agreement. Of the disputed territory – a little over
36 square kilometers – the two States will get a near equal share, enshrining
the sharing principle that might serve as a template to resolve other
boundary disputes in the northeast. Assam, the mother State from which other
States were carved out in the northeast, currently has boundary disputes with
Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. As the Home Minister underscored in
Delhi, the spirit shown by Mr. Sarma and Mr. Sangma should be used in other
disputes as well. People living in the six disputed areas should be allowed
to choose where they want to live. While Mr. Sarma has blamed the Congress
for allowing the dispute between Assam and Meghalaya to fester, Nandita Das,
Congress MLA from the Boko seat, alleged that in three of the six “resolved
sectors”, there was no give and take. The agreement requires delineation and
demarcation by the survey of India as well as parliamentary approval.
One can only hope that the right lessons will be drawn by Assam,
Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland from Tuesday’s accord to understand
the other’s point of view and come to agreements. In July 2021, five policemen
and a civilian from Assam were shot dead in violent clashes with their Mizo
counterparts at a disputed point between Assam and Mizoram. The clash cam
right after a meeting that Mr. Shah had had with the Chief Ministers of
northeast States to resolve boundary disputes. It is imperative that Assam
and the other States locked in dispute use goodwill and the good offices of
the Centre. Rather than entrusting security to paramilitary forces, one
confidence-building measure could be to deploy State police without arms wherever
possible. It would be a signal that all States are committed to resolving
their disputes peacefully. For the moment, Tuesday’s agreement is a moment to
savour. |
This is a criminal attack on privacy The Criminal Procedure
(Identification) Bill 2022 erodes the privacy of those convicted of crime and
the ordinary citizen APAR GUPTA & ABHINAV
SEKHRI Springing a
surprise, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Mishra Tent, on
Monday introduced the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022. The Bill
was neither put up for pre-legislative consultation nor indicated in the
session’s legislative agenda in Parliament. Seemingly technical, it is a
legislative proposal that undermines the privacy of not only persons
convicted of crime but also every ordinary Indian citizen as it proposes
replacing a law that is over 100 years old. What needs scrutiny Let us first
understand why it is being introduced, and what it intends to achieve. The
Bill aims to replace the Identification of Prisoners Act 1920 that has been
in need of amendment for several decades. Back in the 1980s, the Law
Commission of India (in its 87th Report) and the Supreme Court of
India in a judgment titled State of U.P. vs Ram Babu Misra had nearly
simultaneously suggested the need to amend the statute. The criticism and the
need for amendment was predominantly in respect of the limited definition of
‘measurements’ as under that Act. It seems that this is one of the primary
issues that the proposed legislation is designed to resolve. In
this regard, it might be unexceptional, being an expression of long-held
views within the legal establishment. However, the devil is in the details,
with three expansions in the power of state surveillance (in the name of
criminal reforms) that merit further scrutiny. First, the definition of measurements is
not restricted to taking measurements, but also their “analysis”, when the
definition now states “iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples and
their analysis, behavioural attributes including signatures….” This
definition is nebulous and vague. It goes beyond the scope of a law which is
only designed for taking measurements and could result in backing for
techniques which may involve the collection of data from other sources. For
instance, using facial recognition technology where measurements of persons
as under this law are compared with samples taken from the general public. At present there are extensive facial
recognition technology programmes for “smart policing” that are deployed all
across the country. For instance, the Delhi police use facial recognition
technology originally acquired for identification of missing children in 2018
to also screen for “habitual offenders”. Similarly, the Tamil Nadu police
deploy facial recognition systems which are integrated with State- and
national-level databases including CCTV footage. Such experimental
technologies cause mass surveillance and are prone to bias, impacting the
fundamental rights of the most vulnerable in India. Data capture and ‘choice’ The second area
of the expansion of surveillance concerns from whom such “measurements” can
be gathered. The existing law permits data capture by police and prison
officers either from persons convicted or persons arrested for commission of offences
punishable with a minimum of one year’s imprisonment. Parallel powers are
granted to judges, who can order any person to give measurements where it is
in aid of investigation. While the judicial power is left undisturbed, it is
the powers of the police and prison officials that are being widened. The law
removes the existing – albeit minimal – limitation on persons whose
measurements could be taken. It is poised to be expanded to all persons who
are placed under arrest in a case. This is a truly breathtaking spectrum,
including petty crime such as violating a prohibitory order for not wearing a
mask, jaywalking or a traffic violation. Here, the proposed Bill also contains
muddied language stating that a person “may not be obliged to allow taking of
his biological samples”. This, on its surface, offers a choice to a person to
refuse. However the words “may not be obliged” may also be read to offer
discretion onto a police officer to confer such a choice. In any instance the
exercise of such “choice” is presumed in law, it may not be truly voluntary,
given the absence of wider accountability reforms in which existing policing
practices are coercive. Even if these objections are
disregarded, the “choice|, if any, is limited only to, “biological samples”
from the wider data points captured within what constitutes, “iris and retina
scan” is mentioned separately to, “biological samples”, and hence a person
arrested under any crime or preventive detention law if desired by the police
will be required to scan their eyes. Storage of data The third area of
concern is the database of the “measurements” which are gathered. The
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shall for a period of 75 years from the
date of collection maintain a digital record, “in the interest of prevention,
detection, investigation and prosecution of any offense”. As pointed out by
Prof. Aparna Chandra (an associate professor of law) on Twitter, “How will
these records be used for preventing crime except through surveillance?” This
becomes clear when the provision permits the NCRB to, “share and disseminate
such records with any law enforcement agency, in such manner as may be
prescribed”. It is important
to consider that the NCRB already operates a centralized database, namely the
Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), without any clear legislative
framework. The interaction between the proposed law and CCTNS is not clearly
defined though likely, given the powers conferred under for digital records
go to the same government department. This existence of
such legislative power with a technical framework may permit multiple mirror
copies and parallel databases of the “measurements” being stored with law
enforcement, beyond a State Police department which will be prosecuting the
crime and the NCRB which will store all records centrally. For instance, in
response to a Standing Committee of Parliament on police modernization,
Rajasthan has stated that it maintains a ‘RajCop Application’ that integrates
with “analytics capabilities in real-time with multiple data sources
(inter-department and intra-department)”. Similarly, Punjab has said that the
“PAIS (Punjab Artificial Intelligence System) App uses machine learning, deep
learning, visual search, and face recognition for the identification of
criminals to assist police personnel. This app helps in storing and carrying
information about criminals”. Hence, multiple copies of “measurements” will
be used by State government policing departments for various purposes and
with experimental technologies. This also takes away the illusionary benefit
of deletion which occurs on acquittal and will suffer from weak enforcement
due to the absence of a data protection law. In sum, a once a person enters their “measurements”
within the system, they stay there for life given the average life expectancy
in India which hovers around 70 years is less than the retention period. The
end result is a sprawling database in which innocent persons are treated as
persons of interest for most of their natural with privilege may be minimal;
the masses – many of whom lack social and economic power in India society –
may face harsher law enforcement. This becomes clear from the primary
research-based article, “Settled Habits, New Tricks”, by Ameya Bokil, Nikita
Sonavane and Srujana Bej from the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability
Project (the other writers include Avaneendra Khare and Vaishali Janarthana).
They pointed to the caste bias against the Pardhi Adivasi community which was
at one time designated as a criminal tribe. In this context they state, “In
reality since these databases are fed by the police’s centuries-long
caste-based system of preventive surveillance and predictive policing (which
has already determined who is a criminal and what crimes habitual criminals
commit repeatedly), there is no possibility of objectivity or lack of caste
bias. The CCTNS only adds a technological veneer to a caste-based policing
model….” It is foreseeable that if the proposed ambit of “measurements” is
expanded and then put in a database, it will likely also target the Pardhis. Onus is on government Injuries to
privacy are not mere academic debates and cause real, physical and mental
consequences for people. To protect individual autonomy and fulfil our
constitutional promises, the Supreme Court of India pronounced the Justice
K.S. Puttaswamy judgment, reaffirming its status as a fundamental right. The
responsibility to protect it falls to each organ of the government, including
the legislature and the union executive. For India to fulfil its claims of
being a constitutional democracy, rather than a mere electoral democracy, it
will have to be better rather than regressing even from the Identification of
Prisoners Act passed by colonial regime. An opportunity to repolish India-Nepal ties Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s
India visit should be used as a chance to recast power and trade links SUJEEV SHAKYA The visit of
Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to India, beginning April 1 – four years
after a Nepali leader visited New Delhi – is significant. It is the first
bilateral visit abroad for Mr. Deuba who leads an election government; local
elections are to take place on May 13 and federal elections are slated later
in the year. In April 2018, Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli had a
lacklustre-feel good visit to India, with little achievement worth talking
about. Mr. Deuba assumed office in July 2021, his
fifth time as Prime Minister, leading a fragile coalition that has not been
able to make Parliament function. The Nepal Parliament has been dysfunctional
since July 2020 after cracks within the former Communist alliance developed
in December 2019. The novel corona-virus pandemic has been a face-saving
event for political forces. Nepal’s relations with India that
plummeted to a historic low after the Indian blockade in September 2015 have
yet to recover as Nepalis do not see relations with India improving any time
soon. India’s refusal to accept demonetized bills with the Nepal Rashtra Bank
worth just INR 7 crore rupees and the unknown fate of the report submitted by
the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) have not helped in securing it a better image
in Nepal. The fact that passengers boarding flights from Nepal to India are
still subjected to a pre-boarding security check even over 20 years after the
hijack of an Indian Airlines aircraft, determines the perception of trust of
India in Nepal. This is despite thousands of Nepalis serving in the Indian army
and Nepali villages expressing grief whenever violence escalates in India as
many lose their lives defending a country that is not their own. Complicated geopolitics Geopolitics is a
complicated challenge for Nepal, whose geography requires it to make best use
of its position between China and India. The last couple of months are an
example of how complicated it can get. When the Nepalese Parliament ratified
a U.S. $500 million grant assistance-Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
pact, there were street protests and big-time social media campaigns
supported by China. However, India’s silence and the offer of other routes
for power transmission as an alternative to the MCC confused everyone: was
India for or against the MCC grant to Nepal? With relations between India and
the United States further complicated by the China factor and India
abstaining on the Russia vote in the United Nations even as Nepal voted in
favour of it, the problems have continued to mount. The recent visit by the Chinese Foreign
Minister, Wang Yi, to Nepal has resulted in a situation that everyone in
Nepal is trying to decipher. Analysts also suggest that Mr. Wang did assure
his Indian counterpart that Nepal should work out its internal equations with
India and that China would stay out. But in reality, the Chinese engagement
has been very deep as seen in the anti-MCC campaign. U.S. grant and
investment activities are seeing a revival post the MCC ratification and
India does not want to see other powers active in Nepal. With Mr. Deuba leading a fragile
coalition, there are not many issues he may want to accomplish, but he should
be able to push some of the key pending ones. The main priorities First, the power
trade agreement needs to be such that India can build trust in Nepal. Despite
more renewable energy projects (solar) coming up in India, hydropower is the
only source that can manage peak demand in India. For India, buying power
from Nepal would mean managing peak demand and also saving the billions of
dollars of investments which would have to be invested in building new power
plants, many of which would cause pollution. Second, while trade and transit arrangements
go through the usual extensions, it is time to undertake a complete rethink
as the sales of goods and payments moves through electronic platforms – this can
provide many new opportunities for businesses on both sides of the border. Third, the Bilateral Investment Promotion
and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) signed between India and Nepal needs more
attention from the Nepali side. A commitment from Mr. Deuba on implementing
this would attract more foreign investments from Indian investors. The
private sectors in Nepal, especially the cartels in the garb of trade
associations, are fighting tooth and nail against foreign investments. So, it
will be important for Mr. Deuba to deliver a message that Nepal welcomes
Indian investments and that he is willing to fight the domestic cartels
knowing well that it may dent a bit of funding for his party for elections. A new Nepal now Finally, it is
for Mr. Deuba to provide the confidence that Nepal is keen to work with India
while at the same time making it clear that it cannot take on India’s
pressure to ignore China or the U.S. in the context of Nepalis currently
living in 180 countries, India must note that it is a new Nepal it has to
deal with from now. Perhaps there is hope that the situation
can improve – in the appointment of Dr. Shankar Sharma, a seasoned economist,
who was also Nepal’s Ambassador to the U.S., as Nepal’s Ambassador to India.
He was responsible for recalibrating Nepal’s relations with the U.S. Perhaps
we can hope that India will engage with him more deeply without the usual
condescending attitude. Perhaps, an open moment has arrived. |
