‘Safe harbour’ clause in IT law

‘Safe harbour’ clause in IT law

• New Digital India Act will be a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s cyber laws; many rounds of consultations will be held before it is introduced in Parliament, says Information Technology Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar
• The Union government formally outlined the Digital India Act, of 2023 which is a broad overhaul of the decades-old Information Technology Act, of 2000. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, announced the changes in a presentation in Bengaluru. 
• The government is reconsidering a key aspect of cyberspace ‘safe harbor’, which is the principle that so-called ‘intermediaries’ on the internet are not responsible for what third parties post on their websites. This is the principle that allows social media platforms to avoid liability for posts made by users. 
• Safe harbor has been reined in recent years by regulations like the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which require platforms to take down posts when ordered to do so by the government, or when required by law.

Constitutional protections

• Mr. Chandrasekhar also signaled at social media platforms’ own moderation policies may now take a backseat to constitutional protections for freedom of expression. “Fundamental speech rights cannot be violated by any platform,” the Minister said, “but there is certainly a case that can be made that weaponization of disinformation is not the same as free speech, and that needs to be addressed.”
• An October 2022 amendment to the IT Rules, 2021 says that platforms must respect users’ free speech rights. Three Grievance Appellate Committees have now been established to take up content complaints by social media users. Since the appellate committee portal’s launch on March 1, seventeen appeals have already been filed, according to the website’s dashboard.
• A slew of such digital legislation is now likely to be subsumed into the Digital India Act, the Minister indicated.

Online safety

• The Minister highlighted other aspects that the Digital India Act would cover, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), deep fakes cybercrime, competition issues among internet platforms, and data protection. 
• The government put out a draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill last year, and Mr. Chandrasekhar said that it would be one of the four prongs of the Digital India Act, with the National Data Governance Policy and amendments to the Indian Penal Code being others, along with rules formulated under the Digital India Act. 
• Mr. Chandrasekhar said that the new law would seek to address “new complex forms of user harms” that have emerged in the years since the IT Act’s enactment, such as catfishing, doxing, trolling, and phishing. 
• A new “adjudicatory mechanism” for criminal and civil offenses committed online would come into place, Mr. Chandrasekhar said. An amendment to the Companies Act, 2002 may also be required, he said in his presentation. 

Extensive consultation

• The government will hold multiple rounds of consultations with the public and industry stakeholders to arrive first at the principles for this Act, and subsequently, to iron out a draft that will be put out by the Ministry, Mr. Chandrasekhar said, pointing out that “the internet and the tech ecosystem, in general, has evolved significantly since 2000, when the IT Act first came into being.” 
• The Minister declined to provide a timeline for when the draft would be introduced in Parliament. “We want to make sure that [the Bill] is extensively consulted, that anybody who has any misgivings” or with inputs would be consulted, he said. “
• We will crisscross the country and do this consultation. If it takes another five months, so be it,” he added.

Antibiotic drugs administered on livestock cut carbon in soil and affect climate, says IISc study

• Antibiotics alter the microbial communities in the soil in ways that are detrimental to sequestering carbon
• Researchers at the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have found that grazing by livestock leads to lower carbon storage in soil compared to grazing by wild herbivores.
• In a study conducted in the Spiti region of the Himalayas and which was published in Global Change Biology, CES researchers found that this difference appears to be due to the use of veterinary antibiotics such as tetracycline on livestock.

Released through dung

• The researchers said that when released into the soil through dung and urine, these antibiotics alter the microbial communities in the soil in ways that are detrimental to sequestering carbon.
• “Today, livestock are the most abundant large mammals on earth. If the carbon stored in soil under livestock can be increased by even a small amount, then it can have a big impact on climate mitigation,” said Sumanta Bagchi, Associate Professor at CES and corresponding author of the study.

Previous study

• In a previous study, the researchers had shown how grazing by herbivores plays a crucial role in stabilising the pool of soil carbon in the same region. In the current study, they set out to ask the question: Are livestock such as sheep and cattle similar or different in how they affect the soil carbon stocks compared to their wild relatives such as the yak and ibex
• The researchers studied soils over 16 years in areas grazed by wild herbivores and by livestock respectively, and analysed them for various parameters including microbial composition, soil enzymes, carbon stocks, and the amount of veterinary antibiotics.

Carbon use efficiency

• The study states that although soils from the wild and livestock areas had many similarities, they differed in one key parameter called carbon use efficiency (CUE), which determines the ability of microbes to store carbon in the soil. The soil in the livestock areas had 19% lower CUE.
• Mr. Bagchi added that antibiotic usage in pastoral ecosystems like Spiti is fairly low and that the situation could be worse in areas where livestock are reared at large scales where they are often given antibiotics even when they are not sick.
• Antibiotics such as tetracycline are long-lived and can linger in the soil for decades, the study adds.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to India

• Australia will host Exercise Malabar for the first time and India will, also for the first time, participate in Australia’s Talisman Sabre exercise, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced.
• India is a top-tier security partner for Australia, he said during a visit onboard India’s indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant in Mumbai.
• “My visit [to India] reflects my government’s commitment to place India at the heart of Australia’s approach to the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” he said addressing the Navy personnel onboard. It is a partnership that is of increasing strategic importance as we navigate the challenges of our region together, he stated.
• Noting that the Indian Ocean is central to the security and prosperity of both countries, Mr. Albanese said there has never been a point in both the country’s histories where “we’ve had such a strong strategic alignment.”
• “We both depend on free and open access to sea lanes in the Indo-Pacific for our trade and economic well-being. And we share an unwavering commitment to upholding the rules-based international order and ensuring the Indo-Pacific is open, inclusive, and prosperous,” he added.
• Recalling the surge in military-to-military engagements between the two countries, he said “Last year, we conducted more exercises, operations, and dialogues than ever before.”
• In a major step forward in our relationship, India and Australia undertook Maritime Patrol Aircraft deployments to each other’s territories for the first time, he noted and added that in November alone the two countries conducted increasingly complex and sophisticated exercises in Indo-Pacific Endeavour and Exercise Austrahind.

High-end military engagements

• More important than these statistics is the sheer complexity and high-end nature of our military engagements, which is unprecedented, he said. “I predict that 2023 will be busier than ever for our defence cooperation.”
• Mr. Albanese referred to the inaugural Australia-India General Rawat Defence Officer Exchange Programme that is currently taking place in India. “This pioneering exchange program, created by Prime Minister Modi, will ensure our defense personnel develops the familiarity and trust that underpins a close and long-lasting relationship.”
• Mr. Albanese landed in Ahmedabad on March 08 as part of his four-day visit where he also celebrated Holi. Earlier in the day, he along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi watched a cricket match, the 4th and final Test Match, between India and Australia in Ahmedabad.
• As part of the program, a 15-member tri-service Australian military contingent, including four female officers arrived in India on March 01. the team visited the Indian Army’s Agra-based Shatrujeet Brigade along with 15 selected Indian Officers who are hosting them.
• Both Indian and Australian officers were taken through a series of training demonstrations related to fighting in built-up areas by paratroopers of the elite formation during the visit, an Army source said.

MoU on semiconductors between India and U.S. and Air India Boing 220 deal.

• Air India-Boeing deal will create a “tremendous number of jobs” in the US.
• Air India’s decision to purchase 220 Boeing aircraft will create a “tremendous number of jobs” in the United States, said Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo
• The two countries will sign an MoU on semiconductors that will support India’s aspiration to play a leading role in the “electronics supply chain”.
• “Just a few weeks ago, Boeing and Air India announced an order for 220 aircraft which is a historic deal that reflects the strength of our economic relationship and will support a tremendous number of jobs in the United States,” said Ms. Raimondo, who met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. She said that the two sides agreed to launch the India-U.S. Strategic Trade Dialogue.
• Mr. Jaishankar said his conversation with Ms. Raimondo included a discussion on “resilient and reliable supply chains and trust and transparency in the digital domain”. 
• Ms. Raimondo will join Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal for the India-U.S. Commercial Dialogue, which will be accompanied by the U.S.-India CEOS Forum. “I am thrilled to say that 10 U.S. CEOs of leading U.S. companies traveled with me for the Forum and are here in person their role working together with their Indian CEO counterparts is to develop our recommendations for how the two governments can expand commercial ties and create more economic opportunities in both of our countries,” said the U.S. Commerce Secretary. 
• Out of several items on the agenda, Ms. Raimondo highlighted the importance of semiconductors in bilateral trade talks confirming that the issue figured in talks “all day today”. “Both the United States and India are implementing semiconductor incentive programs and we discussed how we could coordinate those investments which are in both of our interests and ensure the best possible outcomes for both of our countries. We would like to see India achieve its aspirations to play a larger role in the electronics supply chain and the Memorandum of Understanding that I am signing on this trip around semiconductors is designed to help achieve that goal.”
• Ms. Raimondo appreciated India joining the “supply chain pillar, infrastructure pillar and the tax and anti-corruption pillar” of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework saying the U.S. is focused on getting India on board the “trade pillar”. These steps are aimed at stabilizing global supply chains that were disturbed during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently by the Ukraine crisis.
• Ms. Raimondo did not confirm if the bilateral discussion on semiconductors is aimed at turning India into a “balancer” of China in the semiconductor space arguing that the India-U.S. discussion on the matter is aimed at ensuring a “more resilient and more diversified semiconductor supply chain”.