Section 153A: its use and misuse

Central idea: A politician was recently arrested under Section 153A of IPC for the alleged use of objectionable words against the Prime Minister.

Section 153A: What the law says

• Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) penalises “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”.
• This is punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine, or with both.
• The provision was enacted in 1898 and was not in the original penal code.
• At the time of the amendment, promoting class hatred was a part of the English law of sedition, but was not included in the Indian law.

Charges laid for remarks against PM

The FIR mentioned the use of Sections-

• 153B(1) (Making imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration);
• 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs);
• 500 (Defamation); and
• 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace).

Conviction rates under Section 153A

• Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show that the rate of conviction for Section 153A is very low.
• In 2020, 1,804 cases were registered, six times higher than the 323 cases in 2014.
• However, the conviction rate in 2020 was 20.2%, suggesting that the process often becomes the punishment.

Issues with the law

• Hate speech laws have been invoked under regimes of all parties to crack down on criticism of public functionaries and to arrest individuals.
• The invocation of Section 153A is often criticized for restricting free speech and misusing the legal processes for political purposes.

Safeguards against misuse

• Given that the provisions are worded broadly, there are safeguards against its misuse.
• For example, Sections 153A and 153B require prior sanction from the government for initiating prosecution.
• But this is required before the trial begins, and not at the stage of preliminary investigation.
• To curb indiscriminate arrests, the Supreme Court laid down a set of guidelines in its 2014 ruling in Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar.
• As per the guidelines, for offenses that carry a sentence of fewer than seven years, the police cannot automatically arrest an accused before investigation.

First ever Tejas at foreign air exercise

Home grown combat jet Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is set to participate in its maiden war game outside India as five such IAF jets will take to the skies at an international air exercise in the UAE between 27 February and 17 March 2023. An Indian Air Force contingent of 110 air warriors has arrived at Al Dhafra air base to participate in Exercise Desert Flag VIII.

More about the Exercise

1. The IAF would be participating with five LCA Tejas and two C-17 Globemaster III aircraft.
2. This is the first occasion when LCA Tejas will fly in an international exercise outside India, an IAF said in New Delhi on 25 February 2023.
3. The gulf drill comes a year after the cancellation of last year’s Exercise Cobra Warrior in the UK, which was to be the first outing of the indigenous fighter jets outside the home. But the Royal Air Force exercise at Waddington was cancelled due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
4. Exercise Desert Flag is a multilateral air exercise in which air forces from UAE, France, Kuwait, Australia, UK, Bahrain, Morocco, Spain, South Korea, and USA would be taking part.
5. India now pitches LCA as an export item competing with the Chinese, which has moved beyond its traditional customer Pakistan and sold JF-17 multi-role fighters to Myanmar and Nigeria.

Flashback

1. An advanced version of the aircraft (LCA Mk-2) is to be rolled out by February, 2024, said an HAL official.
2. Last September, the Cabinet Committee on Security sanctioned Rs 9,000 crore to develop the 4.5 generation LCA Mk-2, which would be technologically much superior to LCA Mk-1.

New brain of ALMA telescope

The Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) — a radio telescope comprising 66 antennas located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile — is set to get software and hardware upgrades that will help it collect much more data and produce sharper images than ever before. The most significant modernisation made to ALMA will be the replacement of its correlator, a supercomputer that combines the input from individual antennas and allows astronomers to produce highly detailed images of celestial objects. Today, ALMA’s correlators are among the world’s fastest supercomputers.

What is ALMA?

1. ALMA is a state-of-the-art telescope that studies celestial objects at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths — they can penetrate through dust clouds and help astronomers examine dim and distant galaxies and stars out there. It also has extraordinary sensitivity, which allows it to detect even extremely faint radio signals. The telescope consists of 66 high-precision antennas, spread over a distance of up to 16 km.
2. Each antenna is outfitted with a series of receivers, and each receiver is tuned to a specific range of wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum.
3. As ALMA is operated under a partnership among the United States, 16 countries in Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Chile, the announcement came after all the partners cleared the funding required for the improvements.
4. Fully functional since 2013, the radio telescope was designed, planned and constructed by the US’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Over the years, it has helped astronomers make groundbreaking discoveries, including that of starburst galaxies and the dust formation inside supernova 1987A.

Why is ALMA located in Chile’s Atacama Desert?

1. ALMA is situated at an altitude of 16,570 feet (5,050 metres) above sea level on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama Desert as the millimetre and submillimetre waves observed by it are very susceptible to atmospheric water vapour absorption on Earth.
2. Moreover, the desert is the driest place in the world, meaning most of the nights here are clear of clouds and free of light-distorting moisture — making it a perfect location for examining the universe.

What are some of the notable discoveries made by ALMA?

1. With ALMA’s capability of capturing high-resolution images of gas and dust from which stars and planets are formed and materials that could be building blocks of life, scientists are trying to find answers to age-old questions of our cosmic origins.
2. One of the earliest findings came in 2013 when it discovered starburst galaxies earlier in the universe’s history than they were previously thought to have existed.
3. These newly discovered galaxies represent what today’s most massive galaxies looked like in their energetic, star-forming youth.
4. Next year, ALMA provided detailed images of the protoplanetary disc surrounding HL Tauri — a very young T Tauri star in the constellation Taurus, approximately 450 light years from Earth — and “transformed the previously accepted theories about the planetary formation”.
5. In 2015, the telescope helped scientists observe a phenomenon known as the Einstein ring, which occurs when light from a galaxy or star passes by a massive object en route to the Earth, in extraordinary detail.

India’s way of addressing sickle cell anaemia

Sickle cell anaemia (SCA), a genetic blood disorder, found mention in the Budget this year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government will work in “mission mode” to eliminate the condition by 2047. India is the second-worst affected country in terms of predicted births with SCA, chances of being born with the condition.

Sickle cell anaemia:

1. In 1910, a physician named James Herrick wrote of discovering unusual red blood cells in an anaemic student from Granada, Spain.
2. Haemoglobin which is tasked with carrying oxygen to all parts of the body has four protein subunits — two alpha and two beta. In some people, mutations in the gene that creates the beta subunits impact the shape of the bloodcell and distort it to look like a sickle.

Impact of this disease

1. A round red blood cell can move easily through blood vessels because of its shape but sickle red blood cells end up slowing and even blocking the blood flow.
2. Sickle cells die early, resulting in a shortage of red blood cells that deprive the body of oxygen. These obstructions and shortages may cause chronic anaemia, pain, fatigue, acute chest syndrome, stroke, and a host of other serious health complications.

Does SCA only affect some?

1. In India, first descriptions of SCD came around 1952, when researchers H. Lehmann and Marie Cut bush were studying tribal populations in the Nilgiri hills.
2. The presence of the sickle haemoglobin was also reported around this time in tea garden workers of Upper Assam – labourers who had migrated from tribal groups in Bihar and Odisha.
3. Research and screening programmes have found that the prevalence of haemoglobinopathies — disorders of the blood — is more common among tribal populations than non-tribal communities in India.
4. Research has shown that SCA is prevalent incommunities residing in areas where malaria is endemic.
5. The sickle cell trait thus gave an evolutionary advantage, offering immunity to some people during malaria epidemics. In India, States and UTs with tribal populations contribute a significant malaria caseload.
6. The documented prevalence of SCA is higher in communities that practice endogamy, as the chances of having two parents with sickle cell trait are higher.

Treatment:

1. Sickle cell anaemia is a genetic disorder, making complete “elimination” a challenge that requires a major scientific breakthrough.
2. The only cure comes in the form of gene therapy and stem cell transplants, both costly and still in developmental stages.

What has India done so far?

1. The Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Rural Health Mission in different States are undertaking outreach programmes for better management and control of the disease.
2. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs launched a portal wherein people can register themselves if they have the disease or the trait, in order to collate all information related to SCA among tribal groups.
3. The National Health Mission guideline on Hemoglobinopathies also identifies “establishing services at the community level for pre-marital and pre-conception screening backed by genetic counselling services” as a strategy for addressing SCA.
4. In the Budget, the Union Health Minister said the government plans to distribute “special cards” across tribal areas to people below the age of 40.
5. The cards will be divided into different categories based on the screening results. The mission will receive funding under the National Health Mission.

Cyberattacks: India’s Opportunity To Conceptualize Global Cyber Security Framework

Central Idea

• The past few weeks have highlighted the soft underbelly of our fast-expanding digital networks. Ransomwares have emerged as the most predominant of malicious cyberattacks. Here, the perpetrators demand hefty payments for the release of withheld data. Data show that over 75% of Indian organisations have faced such attacks, with each breach costing an average of ₹35 crore of damage.

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Two recent ransomware attacks

1. Ransomware attack on AIIMS: The first was the ransomware attack on the servers of India’s premium institute, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. Nearly 40 million health records were compromised and it took over two weeks for the systems to be brought online.
2. BlackCat breached Solar Industries Ltd.: Soon afterwards, a ransomware gang, BlackCat, breached the parent company of Solar Industries Limited, one of the Ministry of Defence’s ammunition and explosives manufacturers, and extracted over 2 Terabyte of data.

What is mean by Cyber-attack?

• Cyberattacks are unwelcome attempts to steal, expose, alter, disable or destroy information through unauthorized access to computer systems.
• These attacks can target various entities such as governments, businesses, organizations, or individuals, and can have serious consequences such as theft of sensitive information, financial loss, reputational damage, or disruption of critical services.

Who is behind cyberattacks?

• Criminal organizations, state actors and private persons can launch cyberattacks against enterprises. One way to classify cyberattack risks is by outsider versus insider threats.

1. Outsider threats: External cyber threats include; Organized criminals or criminal groups Professional hackers, like state-sponsored actors, Amateur hackers, like hacktivists
2. Insider threats: Insider threats are users who have authorized and legitimate access to a company’s assets and abuse them either deliberately or accidentally. They include, Employees careless of security policies and procedures, Disgruntled current or former employees, Business partners, clients, contractors or suppliers with system access

Growing vulnerability

• There are malwares that could infect all kinds of computer systems: With the lines between the physical and digital realms blurring rapidly, every critical infrastructure, from transportation, power and banking systems, would become extremely vulnerable to the assaults from hostile state and non-state actors.
• For instance; Cyber capabilities are also playing a pivotal role: As seen in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, where electronic systems in warheads, radars and communication devices have reportedly been rendered ineffective using hacking and GPS jamming.
• Cyber security breaches would only increase: With the introduction of 5G and the arrival of quantum computing, the potency of malicious software, and avenues for digital security breaches would only increase.
• For instance: This year, cybercrimes are expected to cause damage worth an estimated $8 trillion worldwide.

India’s cybersecurity architecture

• CERT-In: In 2022, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which is India’s cybersecurity agency, introduced a set of guidelines for organisations to comply with when connected to the digital realm. This included the mandatory obligation to report cyberattack incidents within hours of identifying them, and designating a pointsperson with domain knowledge to interact with CERT-In.
• Draft Digital Personal Protection Bill, 2022: India’s draft Digital Personal Protection Bill 2022 proposes a penalty of up to ₹500 crore for data breaches.
• Defence Cyber Agency (DCyA): Recently, India’s armed forces created a Defence Cyber Agency, capable of offensive and defensive manoeuvres. All Indian States have their own cyber command and control centres.
• Cybercrime Co-ordination centre: The Indian Cybercrime Co-ordination Centre (I4C) established by the Ministry of Home Affairs, acts as a nodal point in the response against cybercrime by coordinating with state police forces across the country. It also co-ordinates the implementation of mutual legal assistance treaties (MLAT) with other countries.

Have you heard about “Bluebugging”?

• It is a form of hacking that lets attackers access a device through its discoverable Bluetooth connection.
• Once a device or phone is blue-bugged, a hacker can listen to the calls, read and send messages and steal and modify contacts.
• It started out as a threat for laptops with Bluetooth capability. Later hackers used the technique to target mobile phones and other devices.

Limitations In India’s cybersecurity infrastructure

• Lack of tools to identify: Most organisations lack the tools to identify cyberattacks, let alone prevent them.
• Scarcity of cybersecurity professional: India also faces an acute scarcity of cybersecurity professionals. India is projected to have a total workforce of around 3,00,000 people in this sector in contrast to the 1.2 million people in the United States.
• Private sector participation is limited: Most of our organizations are in the private sector, and their participation remains limited in India’s cybersecurity structures.

Global understanding is essential

• International cooperation is critical: With most cyberattacks originating from beyond our borders, international cooperation would be critical to keep our digital space secure. It would also be a cause which would find resonance abroad.
• Cybersecurity treaties: India has already signed cybersecurity treaties, where the countries include the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, South Korea and the European Union.
• Multinational frameworks are there but there is no truly global framework: Even in multinational frameworks such as the Quad and the I2U2 (which India is a member of) there are efforts to enhance cooperation in cyber incident responses, technology collaboration, capacity building, and in the improvement of cyber resilience. Yet, there is no truly global framework, with many operating in silos.
• UNGA established two processes on ICT: The United Nations General Assembly establish two processes on the issues of security in the information and communication technologies (ICT) environment.
• The Open-ended Working Group (OEWG), comprising the entire UN membership, established through a resolution by Russia.
• The other is the resolution by the U.S., on the continuation of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), comprising 25 countries from all the major regions.
• Differ vastly on many aspects of Internet: The two antagonistic permanent members of the UN Security Council, counted among India’s most important strategic partners, differ vastly on many aspects of the Internet, including openness, restrictions on data flow, and digital sovereignty. Amidst the turbulent current world events, these UN groups would struggle to have effective dialogues.

Conclusion

• The G-20 summit this year in India, which will see participation by all the stakeholders driving the global levers of power, is a rare opportunity to bring together domestic and international engagement groups across the spectrum, and steer the direction of these consultations. India could make an effort to conceptualize a global framework of common minimum acceptance for cybersecurity. This would be one of the most significant contributions made by any nation towards collective security in modern times.