Weekly Current Affairs (1st to 7th November 2022) - 1 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

India’s Biggest Hyperscale Data Centre

Context: While inaugurating north India’s first hyperscale data centre ‘Yotta D1’, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh explained that the state achieved the target of installing 250 MW of storage capacity with an investment of Rs 20,000 crore within a year of launching its data centre policy.

What is Yotta D1?

About: Yotta D1, built at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore, is the country’s biggest and UP’s first data centre.

• It is spread over an area of 3 lakh square feet at the upcoming Data Centre Park in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh.

Significance:

• The data centre will increase data storage capacity of the country, which until now stood at 2% only despite the fact that 20% of the world’s data is consumed by Indians.
• It is also expected to increase Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) significantly while creating new avenues for investment and huge employment opportunities.
• Yotta D1 features Internet peering exchanges and direct fibre connectivity to and from global cloud operators, making it extremely useful for global connectivity.
  • Yotta D-1 will be the first pillar of North India's 5G revolution.
• India's data analytics industry is estimated to reach more than $16 billion by 2025. Therefore, paying special attention to promoting investment in data centre infrastructure is a step in the right diretion.
• The presence of a data park would allow big companies like Google and Twitter to have a data centre for hosting, processing and storing data.
  • With 5G and edge data centres rolled out from this centre, consumers will get easy access to videos and banking facilities at a fast pace.

What is the Growth Story of India’s Data Industry?

Impact of Covid-19:

• The current size of the India data centre industry is ~USD 5.6 billion and the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis propelled the data centre business providing an unexpected tailwind.
• Technology adoption and digitization across the sectors were fast-tracked globally and India also leap-frogged at least a decade in the past couple of years.
• The lockdown and subsequent restrictions became a massive catalyst for digitisation across the sectors like banking, education, and shopping etc.
  • This led to increased use of data consumption and internet bandwidth across the country.

NIC Data Centres:

• The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has set up state-of-the-art National Data Centres (NDCs) at NIC Headquarters in Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar and 37 small Data Centres at various State Capitals.
  • The first Data Centre was launched in Hyderabad in 2008.
• These NDCs form the core of e-Governance Infrastructure in India by providing services to various e-Governance initiatives undertaken by the Government of India.
• The foundation stone of the first NDC for North Eastern Region (NEDC) was laid by in Guwahati, Assam in February 2021.

Present and Upcoming Data Centres:

• Currently, there are about 138 data centres (DCs) across India with at least 57% of the current IT capacity being in Mumbai & Chennai.
  • The primary colocation data centre area in India is Mumbai with its location facing the west coast making it well connected to the Middle East and Europe due to multiple submarine cables landing there.
• The Indian DC industry’s capacity is expected to witness a five-fold increase involving investments of Rs 1.05 -1.20 lakh crore in the next five years.
  • Over 45 more data centres are planned to come up in India by the end of year 2025.
  • In terms of IT capacity (nearly 1,015 MW), over 69% of this planned new supply will come up in Mumbai and Chennai, with 51% in Mumbai alone.
  • There is additional potential of nearly 2,688 MW of future unplanned supply in India.

Legal Provisions for Data Centres:

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology plans to introduce a National Policy Framework for Data Centre soon under which it plans to offer incentives worth up to Rs 15,000 crore.
  • A Draft Data Centre Policy was also introduced in 2020.
• However, some states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha have their own State Data Centre Policies.

Way Forward

• India is poised to create up to $1 trillion of economic value from the digital economy by 2025, and North India is already a preferred destination for Fortune 500 companies.
  • Recognising the region's potential and underserved data centre demand, continued investments in data centres will lay a robust foundation for the Digital India growth story.
• Companies, worldwide, are relooking where they would like to relocate and where do they want to manufacture, distribute and set up their database and technology facilities.
  • Data centres are currently a fulcrum for a lot of the decision-making, especially in Asia Pacific and in India.
  • India has potential for establishing new projects, however, this capacity must be judiciously released into the market to ensure price stability.
• For India to become one of the major hubs of data centres, there is a need to bring down power costs as electricity is one of the major costs of running a data centre.
  • It is also of great importance to ensure that such DCs use as much renewable energy as possible.

Social Media and Elections

Context: Recently, the Chief Election Commissioner addressed an international conference for Election Management Bodies (EMBs) hosted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) under the aegis of the United States’ ‘Summit for Democracy’ platform.

• While inaugurating the conference, the commissioner urged social media sites to use their "algorithm power" to flag fake news proactively.

What are the Concerns Regarding the Spread of False Information?

• Red-Herring: The content moderation-driven approach to disinformation by all major social media platforms is a red herring designed to distract from the far larger problem of amplified distribution of disinformation as part of business models.
• Opacity of Social Media Platforms: Social media platforms are increasingly becoming the primary ground for public discourse over which a handful of individuals have inordinate control.
  • One of the biggest hurdles in being able to curb misinformation is the lack of transparency by social media platforms.
• Inadequate Measures: Various social media platforms have been unable to evolve a coherent framework to stop misinformation and have instead responded erratically to events and public pressure.
• The absence of a uniform baseline approach, enforcement, and accountability vitiated the information ecosystem.
• Weaponization of False Information: Social media platforms have adopted design choices that have led to a mainstreaming of misinformation while allowing themselves to be weaponized by powerful vested interests for political and commercial benefit.
  • The consequent free flow of disinformation, hate and targeted intimidation has led to real-world harm and degradation of democracy in India.
  • Misinformation spread through social media applications has been linked to minority hate, entrenched social polarisation, vaccine hesitancy, and real-life violence.
• Digital Media Illiteracy among Children: The National Education Policy 2020 is a missed opportunity to insert media literacy in the curriculum.
  • Although ‘digital literacy’ is mentioned once in the document, social media literacy is entirely neglected.
  • This is a serious gap as social media is the primary source of students’ literacy.
• Threats due to Anonymity: The most famous reason for anonymity is to be able to speak the truth against vindictive governments or to not let the views be tagged to the real person being spoken about, in the offline world.
  • While on one hand, this is helpful for someone in sharing their views without any insecurity, it does more harm in the aspect that the user may spread false information up to any extent without being held accountable.

What are the Pros and Cons of Social Media in Elections?

Pros:

• Planning Manifestos: Digital strategies have become increasingly important in the planning of political rallies and party manifestos in recent years. And so far, anyone wanting to read the sentiment of the people, the pre-election survey has been replaced by a tweet survey.
• Influence Public Opinion: Social media helps the political parties in influencing the opinion of undecided voters, in giving the apathetic middle class a reason to go and vote. It also helps in garnering the support base to vote in large numbers and influencing others to vote.
• Disseminating Information: Politicians are increasingly adopting the new social media for campaigning, disseminating or retrieving information, or contributing to rational and critical debate.
• Addressing People Problems: Social media makes it easy for people to stay up to date on upcoming events, party schedules, and election agendas. Assign a tech-savvy candidate to manage social media and use it to reach out to people and hear their concerns.

Cons:

• Polarisation: Social media has become an instrument for politicians that is utilized to create more noise and even is made a way to promote polarization.
• Growing Misrepresentation: Social media is greatly utilized to blame and criticize the opposition parties and the information is misrepresented by misleading and incorrect facts. The number of political minorities is growing, and they are using social media to create a political logjam.
• Influence Voters Opinion: Social media presence and advertising requires a lot of spending. Only affluent parties can spend that much and they can influence the majority of the voter base. During elections, the spread of fake news on Social Media Platforms influences the people's preferences.

How is Media regulated during Elections?

• The Election Commission does not regulate media. It has however, the responsibility to enforce the provisions of law or Court directions, which might have linkages with media or certain aspects of media functioning. These laws are mentioned below:
  • Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951: It prohibits displaying any election matter by mean of cinematograph, television or other similar apparatus, during the period of 48 hours ending with the hour fixed for conclusion of poll.
  • Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951: It prohibits conduct of exit poll and dissemination of their results during the period mentioned therein, i.e., the hour fixed for commencement of polls in the first phase and half hour after the time fixed for close of poll for the last phase in all the States and Union Territories.
  • Section 127A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951: The printing and publication of election pamphlets, posters, etc. is governed by its provisions, which make it mandatory to bear on its face the names and addresses of the printer and the publisher.
• Section 171H of the Indian Penal Code: It prohibits incurring of expenditure on, inter alia, advertisement without the authority of the contesting candidate.

Way Forward

• Social media platforms, political parties, civil society and election authorities should put more effort into how social media platforms are used by politicians during elections and frame a comprehensive guideline that benefits the voter.
• Social media, if used properly will certainly add to the vote bank but the other side of the picture will always stay. Hence, there is a need to take some measures for the effective use of social media in elections without any violation of individual rights.
• It is high time that to ensure that the voting is not influenced but is done with People’s Own Choices and Preferences and ensure Free and Fair Election in the country.

Nutrient Based Subsidy Rates Approved

Context: Recently, the Union Cabinet approved Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) rates for Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) fertilisers for Rabi season 2022-23 from 1st October, 2022 to 31st March, 2023.

• All Non-Urea based fertilisers are regulated under NBS Scheme.

What is NBS Regime?

• Under the NBS regime – fertilizers are provided to the farmers at the subsidized rates based on the nutrients (N, P, K & S) contained in these fertilizers.
• Also, the fertilizers which are fortified with secondary and micronutrients such as molybdenum (Mo) and zinc are given additional subsidy.
• The subsidy on P&K fertilizers is announced by the Government on an annual basis for each nutrient on a per kg basis – which are determined taking into account the international and domestic prices of P&K fertilizers, exchange rate, inventory level in the country etc.
• NBS policy intends to increase the consumption of P&K fertilizers so that optimum balance (N:P:K= 4:2:1) of NPK fertilization is achieved.
  • This would improve soil health and as a result the yield from the crops would increase, resulting in enhanced income to the farmers.
  • Also, as the government expects rational use of fertilizers, this would also ease off the burden of fertilizer subsidy.
• It is being implemented from April 2010 by the Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers.

What are the Issues Related with NBS?

• Imbalance in Price of Fertilisers: Urea is left-out in the scheme and hence it remains under price control as NBS has been implemented only in other fertilizers. The MRP of urea is today officially fixed at Rs 5,628 per tonne. There is technically no price control in other fertilisers. The prices of the other fertilizers which were decontrolled have gone up that has led the farmers to use more urea than before. This has further worsened fertilizer imbalance.
• Costs on Economy and Environment: Fertilizer subsidy is the second-biggest subsidy after food subsidy, the NBS policy is not only damaging the fiscal health of the economy but also proving detrimental to the soil health of the country.
• Black Marketing: Subsidised urea is getting diverted to bulk buyers/traders or even non-agricultural users such as plywood and animal feed makers. It is being smuggled to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal.

Way Forward

• In order to address the imbalance in the fertilizer use, urea has to come under NBS.
  • A feasible way to do it is by hiking urea prices and simultaneously reducing the NBS rates of phosphorus, potash and sulphur to make other fertilisers cheaper.
• Considering that all three nutrients namely N (nitrogen), P (phosphorus) and K (potassium) are critical to increasing crop yields and quality of produce, the government must necessarily go for a uniform policy for all fertilisers.
• In the long run, NBS itself should be replaced by a flat per-acre cash subsidy that could be used to purchase any fertiliser.
  • This subsidy must include value-added and customised products containing not just other nutrients, but delivering even nitrogen more efficiently than urea.

Two-Finger Test

Context: Recently, the Supreme Court has said that those conducting the ‘two-finger test’ on alleged rape victims will be held guilty of misconduct.

What is the Two-Finger Test?

About:

• The two-finger test, carried out by a medical practitioner, involves the examination of her vagina to check if she is habituated to sexual intercourse.
  • The practice is unscientific and does not provide any definite information. Moreover, such ‘information’ has no bearing on an allegation of rape.
• A woman who has been sexually assaulted undergoes a medical examination for ascertaining her health and medical needs, collection of evidence, etc.
• A handbook released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on dealing with sexual assault victims says, “There is no place for virginity (or ‘two-finger’) testing; it has no scientific validity.”

Supreme Court’s Observation:

• In 2004, a bench of Supreme Court stated that “whether a woman is ‘habituated to sexual intercourse’ or ‘habitual to sexual intercourse’ is irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether the ingredients of Section 375 (rape) of the IPC are present in a particular case.
• The court stated that it is patriarchal and sexist to suggest that a woman cannot be believed when she states that she was raped, merely for the reason that she is sexually active.
• In May 2013, the apex court had held that the two-finger test violates a woman’s right to privacy and asked the government to provide better medical procedures to confirm sexual assault.
• Invoking the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights 1966 and the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power 1985, the apex court said rape survivors are entitled to legal recourse that does not re-traumatise them or violate their physical or mental integrity and dignity.
• In April 2022, the Madras High Court directed the state to ban the two-finger test.

What the Government’s Guidelines say?

• After the 2013 Justice Verma Committee report on amendments to criminal law for a faster trial, and enhanced punishment in sexual assault cases, the Union Health Ministry brought out detailed guidelines for the medical examination of victims of sexual assault in early 2014.
• According to the guidelines ‘two-finger test’, must not be conducted for establishing rape/sexual violence.
• The guidelines state that a rape victim’s consent (or her guardian’s, if she is minor/mentally disabled) is necessary for any medical examination. Even if the consent is not provided, the victim cannot be denied medical treatment.
• However, these are guidelines and are not legally binding.

Way Forward

• The guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare should be circulated to private and government hospitals.
• Workshops should be held for health providers to prevent the test from being conducted on rape survivors.
• The issue can be addressed by widespread sensitization and training of both doctors and police personnel.