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Gist of EPW February Week 2, 2023: 1. Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022
Gist of EPW February Week 2, 2023: 1. Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022
TABLE OF CONTENTS
• The data protection law can be defined as a legal framework that outlines the
degree of access and control over personal data by the following three major
actors:
o The data principal (individual user to whom the personal data relates),
o The data fiduciary and data processor (the former is the company which
determines the purpose and means of the processing of personal data and the
latter is the company which processes personal data on behalf of a data
fiduciary), and
o The state.
• Data Principal means the individual to whom the personal data relate and where such
an individual is a child, this includes the parents or lawful guardian of such a child.
• Data Fiduciary is defined as any person who alone or in conjunction with other
persons determines the purpose and means of the processing of personal data.
• Currently, the data regime is managed under Sections 43A and 72A of the
Information Technology Act, 2008. But these bills seem to be inadequate under the
present context of the rising volume of data flow in the country.
Read more on the Information Technology Act, 2000 in the linked article.
Data constitutes one of the most important assets of any country and therefore all-out effort
should be made to protect against the breach of data in the country. Prevailing shortcomings
in the data regime should be addressed through discussions with various stakeholders.
Context: Climate finance is central to achieving the target of reducing the temperature to
sustainable levels.
• Fossil fuel still dominates the energy market creating a problem for the expansion
of renewable energy.
• As less than 15% of the required capital flows into environmental conservation, a
large chunk of it is contributed by philanthropic entities rather than by corporations
leading to a financial gap of $70 billion in climate finance accounting.
• Sustainable growth seems to be more ambitious as the current use of fossil fuel in the
world threatens to increase the planet’s temperature by 2.7 degrees celsius above
the pre-industrial level.
• Greenwashing has become another important concern with climate financing. It
is a practice of diverting green bond revenues to projects or activities that have
marginal or negative environmental benefits. Know more about greenwashing in the
linked article.
• One major issue with green financing is measuring the carbon footprint of projects. It
is difficult to get corporations to disclose their total net carbon footprint.
• There is a lack of incentive on the part of the government to incentivise the carbon
emitter to give away their lucrative business.
Funding instruments:
• Green finance predominantly consists of financial instruments like debt and equity.
o Equity financing is the investment in the company stock for an ownership
interest called stocks or shares.
o Debt financing is used at later stages of the development of a company to raise
funds for its projects.
• The Institute of International Finance has reported that green bond issuance nearly
doubled to $500 billion in 2021 from 2020 and forecasts that by 2025, annual
issuance could be as high as $1.2 trillion.
• The focus is also shifting from a narrow “environment-based” financing towards a
broader “sustainability-based” approach in green financing.
In order to go ahead with attaining the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there
is a major push required for green projects and boosted funding for environment-friendly
investments through instruments like green bonds, green banks, carbon credits,
community-based green funds, etc, collectively called “green finance.”
Introduction:
• In the Union Budget 2023–24, the finance minister introduced a new initiative called
National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) that aims at 100%
mechanisation of the cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in the country.
• This central sector scheme is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Social Justice and
Empowerment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• The budget speech of the finance minister stated that “All cities and towns will be
enabled for 100% mechanical desludging of septic tanks and sewers to transition from
manhole to machine-hole mode.”
Positives:
• This scheme has some positive sides, which include ensuring zero fatalities in
sanitation work, no contact with human faecal matter, only skilled workers to perform
this task, access to alternative livelihoods for sanitation workers, etc.
• Further, this scheme aims to identify and enumerate sewer and septic tank workers
with an added focus on the informal and contractual workers engaged in what are
described as “hazardous cleaning operations.”
• The easy recourse to mechanisation envisaged by this scheme treats the issue of
sewage cleaning as merely a technological issue rather than a social one. Merely
replacing “manholes” with “machine-holes,” will not essentially alter the stigma
associated with the task of cleaning waste in India.
• If these cultural factors are not taken into account, sanitation initiatives may fail.
o The word “caste” which constitutes the social origin of differential occupations
that places the obligation of a sewage cleaning on only certain social groups—
found no mention in the policy document of NAMASTE.
• Community involvement is crucial for the success of sanitation initiatives. Treating
sewage cleaning as a purely technological issue may result in a lack of community
involvement, reducing the likelihood of sustainable, long-term solutions.
• Mechanization refers to the use of machines to perform tasks that were previously
done by hand.
• While mechanisation can increase productivity and efficiency, it can also lead to job
displacement if workers are replaced by machines.
• If mechanisation occurs without the creation of decent job alternatives, it can result in
significant job losses and economic hardship for workers who are no longer needed in
their previous roles.
• This can particularly impact workers in low-skill and manual labour jobs, who may
have fewer opportunities to retrain and transition into new roles.
Way Forward:
Details
Also read: National IPR policy (Advantages and Concerns) - UPSC Notes (GS III)
Significance of patenting
• INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS:
o Institutional factors include:
▪ Intellectual property rights (IPR) policies
▪ Intellectual property management activities
▪ Intellectual property-linked incentive schemes
▪ IPR awareness of faculty members
o It should be noted that institutional factors are important for academic
entrepreneurship.
o Universities’ regulations have an insignificant impact on academic innovation
performance.
• DEPARTMENTAL FACTORS:
o Scientific departments where technologies are difficult to invent but easy to
imitate (such as chemical compounds) are more patent-intensive in comparison
to other departments (such as mechanical engineering or metallurgy).
o Departments with more potential for industrial collaboration generate better
results for patent filing.
• The biological age of researchers is also a factor. For instance, the first (and highest)
peak in one's life is when he/she is in his/her late thirties, and another peak comes at
about the age of 60 years.
• Another important factor is the career stage of the researcher. It is found that
researchers in their early and mid-career files more patents for career advancement
and peer recognition.
• The place of Ph.D. training and research exposure in developed countries also affects
the motivation and decision of a researcher to patent their scientific invention.
• Legal and IPR policy regime also has a bearing on researchers filing a patent
application.
• It should be noted that the concept of patenting is still at a nascent stage in
developing countries like India.
Associated concerns
Context: Recent Oxfam report highlights the uneven story of India’s growth trajectory.
What is exclusive growth?
• Exclusive growth is a term which defines lopsided growth in the economy. In other
words, here the growth trajectory tends to benefit the rich more in comparison to the
poor.
• Exclusive growth is growth from the gains from which the poorer segments of the
population are largely excluded.
• The exclusion results essentially from the non-utilisation of the factors of
production of unskilled and low-skilled labour held by the poorer segments of the
population.
• The richest 10% of the population has been the recipient of a large and growing share
of the incremental income generated by growth.
• India's top 1% owned more than 40.5% of its total wealth in 2021, according to a
new report by Oxfam.
o In 2022, the number of billionaires in the country increased to 166 from 102
in 2020, the report said. Meanwhile, it added that the poor in India "are
unable to afford even basic necessities to survive."
Source: Business Today
Source: EPW
• The Indian economy exists at many levels like final goods, and intermediate goods,
and growth does not take place at all the levels simultaneously. Thus, growth leads to
changes in the commodity composition of output, which in turn brings changes in the
spectrum of technologies in use, and thus in the composition of demand for factors of
production.
o Most of these factors of production are owned by the rich and therefore all the
money goes to them.
• One of the main causes of income inequality in India is underemployment. A lot of
people are working at posts and profiles which are not equivalent to their
qualifications which results in low productivity. This ultimately leads to income
inequality. This happens due to the fact that people are not in a position to get the
desired kind of employment.
• In the early 1990s, in the wake of the economic reforms of 1991, that period of high
economic growth began and services became both the dominant and the fastest
growing sector of India’s economy.
o The services sector has traditionally been the most skill-intensive sector
of India’s economy.
• India’s rapid growth that began in 1993 was led by “communication, financial and
business services,” the quintessentially skill-intensive services.
• The main initial beneficiaries of growth, therefore, had been the holders of capital and
skills, that is, the rich, who had been the recipients of a large share of the incremental
income generated by growth.
Inclusive growth is the prime requirement of any healthy society. It ensures that the benefits
of development flow through equality in society. Inclusive growth is also necessary for
establishing harmony in society. So, efforts should be made to ensure inclusive growth and
development.