In Focus by The Hindu

The 28th UN climate conference, or COP28, is starting today in Dubai, and will go on till December 12th. Delegates from almost 200 countries, as well as climate scientists, business leaders, and other stakeholders will take part in the meeting.

It is clear the world is not on course to meet the target set in the Paris Agreement – which is to keep the global rise in temperatures within the 1.5-degree Celsius limit. There are indications that if we continue with our current climate policies, the earth would be warmer by 3 degree Celsius by 2100 – which would make severe climate events a regular occurrence.

What is top of the agenda at COP28? Will there be progress in funding the ‘loss and damage fund’ established at COP27? Is there a developing consensus on what climate accountability might look like?

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After winning ten matches on the trot, India could not win one more and bring home the World Cup. It started the final as favourites, but things did not go according to the expectations that fans had built up over one month of pure magic.

So, what went wrong for India? Was the match lost with the toss itself? Was Australia too good on the day? Or did India make mistakes? If it did, what were they, and what are the positives we can take away from this tournament?

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Most of us would remember the sudden shortage of semiconductor chips during the pandemic – how it affected automobile manufacturing, delaying deliveries, and in many cases, even caused manufacturers to deliver cars without some features. But semiconductors form an integral component of not just cars but almost any high tech device we use today – from smartphones and laptops to televisions, satellites and, of course, all kinds of advanced military hardware.

As nations jockey for geopolitical dominance, in addition to traditional factors such as military capabilities and economic power, technological prowess has become another, and perhaps most critical factor. Control over the manufacture and availability of the most advanced semiconductors is a key element of geopolitical security and strategic autonomy.

And yet, geopolitics and semiconductor supply chains have mostly figured in separate debates. A new book, titled ‘When the Chips are Down’, by Pranay Lotasthane and Abhiram Manchi brings the two parallel discourses together, and also presents a framework for understanding where India fits into the picture.

We speak with the authors Pranay Kotasthane and Abhiram Manchi. 

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The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) released a set of guidelines last month for the Central and State governments to tackle the problem of Child Sexual Abuse Material or CSAM on the internet. Over the past few years, there has been a colossal increase in the availability of CSAM online. In its 2023 report, WeProtect Global Alliance, which consists of governments, companies and charities working together for digital safety, said there was an 87% increase in such cases since 2019. What is the situation like in India? The NHRC says, that according to the Cyber Tipline 2022 statistics, of the 32 million reports received about child sexual abuse material, 5.6 million reports were uploaded by perpetrators based in India.

Recently, the United Kingdom passed a stringent online safety bill that introduces a number of obligations on how large tech firms must design, operate and moderate their platforms. Other countries too are contemplating or have already put in place such measures.

What are the vulnerabilities children in our country face, when they go online with their devices? How does child sexual abuse material online lead to offline consequences? Where does India stand when it comes to regulating and making the digital space safe for children?

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As we keep hearing everyday, artificial Intelligence is on the verge of fundamentally changing the way human beings live and work. There are also many fears about the dangers posed by AI – which range from mass disinformation and privacy risks, to extinction of the human race itself.

Amid this debate over how to regulate AI so that we are able to benefit from it while keeping it safe, governments around the world have been coming up with proposals for AI governance. The latest is the Biden administration’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.

What are the concerns shaping these preliminary moves toward AI regulation? Are there any fundamental principles that an AI regulatory regime needs to address? What are the potential conflicts – say, between the interests of AI researchers and ordinary citizens --- when framing such laws?

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Just about a month ago, Rescurity, an American cyber security firm, said that personal information of 815 million Indians was being sold on the dark web. This included details such as Aadhar numbers and passport details. The persons selling this information claimed that it was from the Indian Council of Medical Research or ICMR, the country’s premier scientific research body. This is not the first time ICMR has been subject a cyber attack – 6,000 such attempts were reported just last year. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences – AIIMS in Delhi has also been hit by cyber attacks – in one ransomware case, the hackers took over the servers, encrypted the data, and made it impossible for the hospital to access its own systems.

Health data consists of sensitive, personal information and once stolen, can increase the risk of digital identity theft, online banking thefts, tax frauds and other financial crimes. India was ranked fourth across the world in all malware detection in the first of 2023, as per a survey from Resucurity.

Even as this is going on, the Central government launched an ambitious Ayushman Bharat Digital Initiative in 2021. During the Covid-19 pandemic, our Aadhar and other details were used for both testing and vaccination services.

So how safe is our health data with the government or private health organisations? How well does the Data Protection Act, that came into force this year protect this sensitive information? Is our right to privacy over our personal information being adequately safeguarded in India?

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Can breathing in polluted air, day after day, increase your risk of diabetes? A study conducted in India and published in the BMJ Open Diabetes Research and Care journal last month, says, yes. Researchers studied over 12,000 adults in Chennai and in Delhi over a period of seven years from 2010 to 2017. Their blood sugar levels were measured periodically. A satellite-based hybrid exposure model was used to check for pollution levels – this assessed the daily average ambient PM 2.5 concentrations in Delhi and Chennai for each day of the study period. PM 2.5 refers to particles that are really tiny – 2.5 microns or less in diameter. These can enter the bloodstream and cause a number of respiratory and heart diseases.

Considering that India was ranked the 8th most polluted country in the world as per the 2022 World Air Quality Report, and with Delhi currently choking on a toxic smog and the air quality remaining poor, this is of special concern in our country. Added to this, latest estimates indicate that 10.13 crore people in our country of 140 crore could potentially be diabetic.

So how does pollution increase your risk of type 2 diabetes? Are those growing up in India now at a significantly higher risk of getting diabetes younger? Do we need to add polluted air to the list of risk factors such as unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles? And what steps can the government and the public take to help decrease this risk and work towards clean air for all? 

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A court in Qatar has handed death sentences to eight Indian citizens, all of them former personnel of the Indian navy. The ex-navymen were convicted on espionage charges. India has termed the sentencing ‘deeply shocking’ and has said it is exploring all legal options.

The Indians were all employees of a defunct company, Doha-based Dahra Global, and had been arrested in August 2022.

How did these Indian nationals end up in this situation? What are the chances that their lives can be saved? And what can New Delhi do to bring them safely back to India?

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This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Prof Claudia Goldin for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes. Prof Goldin’s work has looked at women’s participation in the labour force, changes across decades and the gender gap in earnings that continues to exist even today. In fact, the 2023 Global Gender Gap report pegged the gap score at 68.4%, and said it would take 131 years to equalise earnings between men and women at the current rate of progress. 

But how does India fare in all of this? A State of Working India 2023 report, brought out by the Azim Premji University reveals that some of Prof Goldin’s findings about women in the workforce may apply in India as well. The double burden of household work and a job continues to affect women, gender norms play a significant role and the Covid-19 pandemic had a massive impact.

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Maldives has elected a new President, Mohamed Muizzu from the Progressive Party of Maldives. In the elections that concluded in September, he defeated the incumbent, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih of the Maldivian Democratic Party.

The elections were also viewed by many as a referendum on the country’s foreign policy. While Solih was perceived as pro-India, Muizzu is seen as pro-China. One of the main election promises made by Muizzu was to end any Indian military presence on Maldivian territory. Muizzu is set to formally take office on November 17.

What prompted Muizzu to build his poll campaign around opposition to Indian military presence in Maldives? Will Maldives foreign policy now take a pro-China tilt? And for India, what are the strategic implications of Solih’s exit from power?

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