National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 8th November 2019

Online Political Advertisement

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: Recently Twitter announced that it will no longer carry political advertisements as the power of Internet advertising “brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes”. On the other hand, Facebook has said it will not fact-check political advertisements as it does not want to stifle free speech.

What makes online political advertisements different or maybe even problematic?

• There are two things that make online political advertising different.
• One is One couldn’t engage in personalised targeting based on multiple attributes that is possible through platforms like Facebook and Twitter earlier through Medias like print.
• Micro-targeting has got potentially damaging results in the context of political advertising, particularly for elections.
• These platforms make it possible to go from manufacturing consent to manipulating consent. A person is continuously fed with information to vote for a particular party.
• The second is the invisibility of this kind of advertising. If there’s a billboard in the real world, everyone gets to see it. However, if there’s targeted advertising on a social media platform, not everyone gets to know of it.

What role is played by the online Platforms in this regard?

• Platforms, particularly Facebook, have been washing their hands of the issue saying they are only intermediaries providing space; that the content is being generated by the people to be consumed by the people, and they have no role to play.
• But this is false. If one look at the complete business model of Facebook, Google, or any of the platforms, they clearly provide micro-targeting, or allow people to be manipulated for a particular purpose.

How the EC can play a role in this?

• EC could bring the largest online platforms together to get transparency commitments from them.
• Then this information needs to be made publicly available, so that the invisibility which happens with targeting gets countered.
• Given that elections are geographical in nature in India, if one want to engage in advertising, one have to do it on the basis of geography, not on the basis of specific kinds of attributes of a person(like caste, religion, class etc.).

Source: Hindu

Alternative Investment Fund for Real Estate

Topic: Economy

In News: Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) for real estate, the long-awaited package to support the real estate sector, cleared by the Cabinet recently.

More on the Topic:

• The AIF will provide funds to bail out stalled real estate projects with unit size of less than ₹2 crore a unit in metros and ₹1 crore in other places.
• The Centre will contribute ₹10,000 crore, with the State Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India providing the balance.
• The fund, to be managed by SBICAP Ventures, will offer support to viable projects with a positive net worth and registered with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.
• It will also apply to projects that have been declared as non-performing assets by banks and to those lined up before the insolvency court.
• Apart from real estate promoters, this will also aid lenders, mainly finance companies and banks, whose funds are locked up in these projects.

Challenges Ahead:

• Identifying the genuine projects in need of support and ensuring no biases and corruption takes place.
• Attracting more investors into the AIF is also a challenge.

About Alternative Investment Fund:

• Alternative Investment Fund or AIF means any fund established or incorporated in India which is a privately pooled investment vehicle which collects funds from sophisticated investors, whether Indian or foreign, for investing it in accordance with a defined investment policy for the benefit of its investors.

Source: The Hindu

India Justice Report

Topic: Reports and Honours

In News: India Justice Report was released by Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for Social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, DAKSH, TISS- Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

More on the Topic:

• Maharashtra has topped the list of states in delivering justice to people followed by Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Haryana, according to a report by Tata Trusts.
• Among the small states (where population is less than one crore each), Goa has topped the list followed by Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
• As per the findings, the country, as a whole, has about 18,200 judges with about 23% sanctioned posts vacant.
• The report, in order to assess the capacity of states to deliver justice, looked at data indicators from the four pillars.
• The indicators, across the pillars, covered the themes like infrastructure, human resources, diversity (gender, SC/ST/OBC), budgets, workload and trends over the last five years.
• Women are also poorly represented in these pillars, constituting just seven per cent of the police.
• Prisons are over-occupied at 114%, where 68% are under trials awaiting investigation, inquiry or trial.
• Regarding budgets, most states are not able to fully utilise the funds given to them by the Centre, while the increase in spending on the police, prisons and judiciary does not keep pace with overall increase in state expenditure.
• Some pillars also remain affected by low budgets. India’s per capita spend on free legal aid-which 80% of the population is eligible for is only 75 paise per annum.

Source: Hindu

IAMAI Internet Penetration Report

Topic: Reports and Indices

In News: Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has released ‘India Internet 2019’ report.

More on the Topic:

• Delhi NCR topped the list with 69% penetration.
• The lowest penetration rate was in Odisha (25), Jharkhand (26) and Bihar (28). It is to be noted that the figure for Jammu & Kashmir is not reflective of the current situation as the survey period was before it was divided.
• The IAMAI report also notes that Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Delhi have the highest proportion of female Internet users.

India Internet Usage Statistics:

• According to Google’s ‘Year in Search – India: Insights for Brands’ report, an estimated 40 million Indians are joining the internet bandwagon annually, and this rate of expansion is among the fastest in the world.
• At 400 million active internet users, India is the second largest internet user market after China.
• The average mobile data usage per subscriber is pegged at about 8GB a month, which is at par with the consumption seen in developed markets.
• As more and more Indians are using the internet, the problem of ‘digital divide’ in the country will get resolved.
• More and more players across several digital platforms will adopt a regional content strategy to reach out to the Indian masses.
• The attitudinal shift to online services will aid in digital banking, digital governance etc.

Source: Hindu

Tiger TRIUMP

Topic: Defence Sector Affairs

In News: India and US are to jointly conduct Tiger TRIUMP, the first ever tri-services amphibious exercise.

More on the Topic:

• It is to be conducted in Visakhapatnam and Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. It includes field training and events that simulate humanitarian assistance in disaster times. The event will also hold simulations in moving disaster relief forces from ship to  shore.
• The exercise will help both the countries to exchange knowledge and to establish professional and personal relationship.
• It boosts the capability of the Indian and US troops in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and counter terrorism.

Source: Hindu

‘Samudra Shakti’

Topic: Defence Sector Affairs

In News: The Navies of India and Indonesia are holding bilateral naval exercise called ‘Samudra Shakti’ in Bay of Bengal.

More on the Topic:

• As part of exercise INS Kamorta, India’s anti-submarine warfare corvette, is jointly exercising with Indonesian warship KRI Usman Harun, a multi-role corvette.
• The objective of the exercise is to strengthen bilateral relations, expand maritime co-operation, enhance interoperability and exchange best practices between the Navies of India and Indonesia.

Source: PIB

Office of Profit

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: President has rejected a petition demanding disqualification of 11 Delhi MLAs belonging to Aam Aadmi Party for allegedly holding office of profit.

More on the Topic:

• If an MLA or an MP holds a government office and receives benefits from it, then that office is termed as an “office of profit”.
• A person will be disqualified if he holds an office of profit under the central or state government, other than an office declared not to disqualify its holder by a law passed by Parliament or state legislature.

Underlying principle for including ‘office of profit’ as criterion for disqualification:

• Makers of the Constitution wanted that legislators should not feel obligated to the Executive in any way, which could influence them while discharging legislative functions. In other words, an MP or MLA should be free to carry out her duties without any kind of governmental pressure.

Source: Hindu