Some thoughts on this deep dive by the @EconomicTimes into the making of the Data Protection Report (article unfortunately paywalled, but honestly, just this one alone is worth the subscription).
@EconomicTimes When the Data Protection Report came out, many of us voiced concern about how surveillance reform was completely excluded.
Now it turns out that the same people who were drafting the Data Protection Report were also advising government on NATGRID.
(2/N)
@EconomicTimes And not to mention, had argued against the right to privacy in the Supreme Court.
You may have the best will in the world, but simultaneously advising the government on how to facilitate a national surveillance database, while drafting a data protection report...?
(3/n)
This is like putting the wolf in charge of the sheephouse. The wolf may be a nice guy. He's still a wolf.
(4/n)
It was also pointed out when the Data Protection Report came out that it seemed to be explicitly drafted to "save" Aadhaar. Someone sarcastically called it the "Aadhaar Saving Report." Well, the people drafting it had facilitated the Aadhaar Act and defended it in Court.
(5/n)
What you effectively get in the end, therefore, is not "independent" work, but - and there's a lot in the ET report that indicates this, including comments by committee members - work that is beholden to government and private interests, such as NATGRID, Aadhaar etc.
(6/n)
Closing this thread by emphasising once again that this is not about individuals.
This is about a broken system of lawmaking, defined by opacity and backdoor facilitation of government interest under the mask of framing an "independent" Data Protection law.
(7/n)
In conclusion, repeating yesterday's point: the moral and ethical responsibility of wielding law as a weapon against people's rights is a heavy one.
Don't be the drafters of India's equivalent of the torture memos.
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Important part of the #PriyaRamani judgment: the Court affirms that an honest error of fact will not lead to liability for defamation, as long as reasonable efforts were made to ensure veracity (in the context of Akbar's resignation as Minister).
Other important findings:
- the length of time between the incident of sexual harassment and making it public is irrelevant (pg. 90)
- the absence or failure of institutional mechanisms means that survivors are entitled to use other media to speak up. (pg. 90)
- speaking up on public platforms is a form of self-defence (pg. 90)
- sexual harassment undermines both dignity (Article 21) and equality (Articles 14 and 15) because of its gendered nature; these rights override the right to reputation (pg 90)
"Memory is not a geometric shape drawn with instruments, mathematical decisions and a calculator, an area of glorious joy next to an area of pain."
"... through its form, poetry can resist the content of authoritarian discourse. By resorting to understatement, concrete and physical language, a poet contends against abstraction, generalization, hyperbole and the heroic language of hot-headed generals and bogus lovers alike."
With Hugo Noms open, will try to highlight, over the next few days, some of the work I read in 2020, with the caveat that I'm sure there is a lot of amazing work I couldn't read.
By fellow-Indians: @lavanya_ln's Analogue/Virtual for best novel:
Back to the novel category, I would commend for your consideration @EssaHansen's Nophek Gloss, Seth Dickinson's The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, and @aptshadow's The Children of Time.
The Court act as if it can "suspend" laws of its own sweet will. It can't.
For the Court to stay a law, it has to find that it is prima facie unconstitutional, and issue a reasoned order saying so. This is *not* optional.
For obvious reasons, it has not done so here.
It is cynical for another reason. A host of laws have been challenged before the Supreme Court in recent times, where arguments were *actually* made for prima facie unconstitutionality. The Court refused to stay any of these laws, and refused to even engage with the arguments.
Let's be very clear that what Salve wants to do here is to effectively kill the right to protest by firing from the court's shoulder. It's the easiest thing for State agents to infiltrate a peaceful protest, cause violence, and then leave the "organiser" to bear the brunt.
In fact that's what the UP government has been up to with its ordinances. Make sure nobody ever calls a (peaceful) protest, because even if somebody totally random causes violence, the state can swoop down, confiscate your property, and put you in jail.