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The Union government informed the Supreme Court that a new law, namely the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, to enforce individual privacy in online space was “ready”.
The new Bill will be tabled in the Monsoon Session of Parliament in July,” Attorney General R. Venkataramani, appearing for the Union, informed a Constitution Bench led by Justice K.M. Joseph. Mr. Venkataramani’s submission came during the hearing of petitions challenging WhatsApp’s policy to share users’ data with the Facebook group of companies.
The new Bill, if passed by Parliament, will replace the current Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, which was notified in 2011.
The Supreme Court had recognised privacy as a fundamental right in 2017 and highlighted the need to protect online personal data from prying eyes.
In January, the government, in an affidavit filed in court, said that the Information Technology Ministry had initiated a stakeholder consultation exercise on the draft Bill, and invited comments from the public.
India set to grow by 5.9% this fiscal: IMF (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that India’s economy will grow by 5.9% for the current fiscal year April 2023-March 2024, a downward revision of 0.2 percentage points since the January forecast.
The IMF estimated a 6.3% economic growth rate for India for the next fiscal year, a downward revision of 0.5 percentage points from the last forecast.
Editorial
Building safeguards (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court’s observation that preventive detention laws are a colonial legacy and confer arbitrary powers on the state is one more iteration of the perennial threat to personal liberty that such laws pose.
For several decades now, the apex court and High Courts have been denouncing the executive’s well-documented failure to adhere to procedural safeguards while dealing with the rights of detainees.
While detention orders are routinely set aside on technical grounds, the real relief that detainees gain is quite insubstantial. Often, the quashing of detention orders comes several months after they are detained, and in some cases, including the latest one in which the Court has made its remarks, after the expiry of the full detention period.
Yet, it is some consolation to note that the Court continues to be concerned over the misuse of preventive detention. In preventive detention cases, courts essentially examine whether procedural safeguards have been adhered to, and rarely scrutinise whether the person concerned needs to be detained to prevent prejudice to the maintenance of public order.
Therefore, it is salutary that the Court has again highlighted that “every procedural rigidity, must be followed in entirety by the Government in cases of preventive detention, and every lapse in procedure must give rise to a benefit to the case of the detenu”.
Explainer
Saudi Arabia’s quest for strategic autonomy (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Saudi Arabia, which had adopted an aggressive foreign policy in recent years seeking to expand its influence in West Asia and roll back that of Iran, its bitter rival, is now following a dramatic course correction.
It’s reaching out to old rivals, holding talks with new enemies and seeking to balance between great powers, all while trying to transform its economy at home.
If the Saudi drive to autonomise its foreign policy and build regional stability through diplomacy holds, it can have serious implications for West Asia.
For years, the main driver of Saudi foreign policy was the kingdom’s hostility towards Iran. This has resulted in proxy conflicts across the region.
For example, in Syria, Iran’s only state ally in West Asia, Saudi Arabia joined hands with its Gulf allies as well as Turkey and the West to bankroll and arm the rebellion against President Bashar al Assad.
In Yemen, whose capital Sana’a was captured by the Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels in 2014, the Saudis started a bombing campaign in March 2015, which hasn’t formally come to an end yet.
One of the demands the Saudis made to Qatar when it imposed a blockade on its smaller neighbour in 2017 was to sever ties with Iran. However, the Qatar blockade came to an unsuccessful end in 2021.
News
IMD predicts ‘normal’ monsoon as El Nino effect looms large this year (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
India’s four-year run of munificent summer monsoon rainfall is likely to end this year, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasting a 4% shortfall in the coming season.
Though still categorised as “normal”, it is — at 96% of the long period average (LPA) — at the lowest end of what the agency categorises as normal rainfall. Most recently, it was in April 2017 that the IMD forecast 96%, and India saw a 2.6% shortfall that year.
The key factor believed to be playing spoilsport this year is the development of El Nino, a cyclical phenomenon of warming in the central Pacific that in six out of 10 years is linked to diminished rainfall in the country.
Since 2019, India has been under the influence of the converse La Nina or a cooling in those regions, and therefore, getting substantial rainfall.
The “normal” monsoon rainfall over India during June-September is 87 cm (considered 100% of the LPA), though this involves wide spatial variability.
On Monday, the private weather agency Skymet forecast the monsoon to be “below normal” or 94% of the LPA, again premised on the developing El Nino, with Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh expected to be see diminished rains in August and September.
From 1951 to 2022, there have been 15 El Nino years, defined as a rise above 0.5 degrees Celsius in temperatures in the central, equatorial Pacific Ocean with nine of those years witnessing “below normal” rainfall.
In 2015, the last “strong” El Nino year (>1.5 degrees Celsius rise), the monsoon rainfall fell by 14%. A “weaker” El Nino (a sub-one degree rise) in 2018 saw a 7.4% dip.
Experts say that while El Nino conditions are imminent, there are ameliorating factors that may blunt its impact. One, El Nino is only likely to begin to take root in the second half of the monsoon — August and September.
The weather models also indicate the development of a “positive” phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD, or warmer temperatures in the Arabian Sea and hence more moisture and rainfall over India) during these months and so, a somewhat reduced impact of the El Nino, M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences.