During the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter flagged fake news through fact-checking. But despite these efforts, the U.S. Capitol was attacked, owing to widespread belief in false propaganda and misinformation. India has lessons to learn from this experience.
Freedom Gazette
The seabed of the world's oceans is filled with black potato-shaped polymetallic nodules, containing rare-earth metals. These metals can sustain the world's energy needs for centuries, and China has already begun building a healthy lead over its peers in the competition for these deep-sea minerals.
In the absence of any spending by industry or consumers, the government wants to say that it is now spending in their place. But many spending allocations in the budget seem opaque when analysed by sector. This year too, there was some smart wordplay and marketing wizardry at play.
India could soon become the first country in the world to introduce legislation on non-personal data protection. But the draft framework leaves more questions than answers on the rights of individuals and the duties of data businesses, and the feedback received on the draft law has been kept confidential.
The newly planned Uttar Pradesh Special Security Force is meant to reduce the workload of the Uttar Pradesh Police and Pradeshik Armed Constabulary. But the law introduced by the Uttar Pradesh government protects the Force from being prosecuted for any excesses or criminal violations.
Breakdown in communication and trust between the government and citizens resulted in heavy hardship as citizens lost access to basic services. There are lessons to be learnt from Punjab, Kerala and Odisha. We need to build enabling infrastructure that helps communities to act freely to meet their own needs.
The objective of the electoral bonds scheme was to infuse ‘white money’ into the political system. But its provisions, along with other amendments, open up Indian politics to opaque and undetectable influence from the corporate sector, while giving the ruling party undue advantage. There are alternatives.
Indian courts are constantly under pressure to impose capital punishment for sexual offenses, despite little to no proof that capital punishment directly deters crime in our society. But a more effective solution to sexual violence has already been found in the rest of the world: rehabilitation.
Armenia's attack on Azerbaijani territory in 2020 was not only an assault on Azerbaijan but also on European and Asian energy security. The world has remained neutral in the face of this most recent Armenian aggression, creating a dangerous global precedent and eroding trust in global institutions.
Voter targeting is enabled by collecting personal data, including online shopping history, likes, shares and comments. The use of such personal information for political messaging can help spread misplaced fears of potential attacks on what people hold dear. Democracies need better privacy laws.