On this Wednesday of Dec 2019, some interesting news items which I would like to share with you all .
1 Maha Vikas Aghadi ( alliance of Shive Sena , Congress and NCP), which have formed the govt in Maharashtra, till date have not able to finalise the allocation of various ministries to the alliance partners. As per the news available the main bane of contention is Home & Urban Development ministries. Shiv Sena and NCP, both are laying claim on these ministries. The contention of Uddhav Thackrey is that in the out going govt both these ministries were with CM and hence Sena will like to retain them with CM, but NCP is not agreeing for the same. Till now what is decided is that Revenue portfolio will be allotted to Congress, Finance and Planning to NCP and Housing to Sena.
As per the media reports the remaining ministries allocation will be as follows- Congress will get Energy or Industry, Water Resources or Public Works, Medical Education, Labour and Women/Child Welfare. NCP will get Agricultural, Cooperation, Public Health and School Education, they might also get Water Resources if not allotted to Congress. Sena will get Energy or Industry, Transport, Social Justice, Environment, Higher and Technical Education, and Road Development.
The Aghadi govt is facing a public backlash for non allocation of portfolios as for more than 2 months nothing is happening in Maharashtra as far as development or policy work is concerned. Bureaucrats too have shown displeasure over non allocation of departments.
From the above you will notice that NCP is trying to keep Agricultural and Water Resources, which they were handling in earlier Congress/NCP successive govts for 15 years, and all of us remember how they fleeced the funds. Congress always like to keep Revenue and Sena is keeping Housing for obvious reasons because they know there in enough cash in these departments. Sena who was not happy in the last govt (in alliance with BJP) with portfolio allocation because they felt that they did not get any of the major (cash rich) portfolios, and hence the fight between them and BJP started after the election results, and in my opinion they may not feel happy even now because most of the major portfolio’s are annexed by Congress/NCP combine. I do not know for whom the “Achche Din” are coming, whether it will be public or these Maha Vikas Aghadi politicians.
2 Next on the agenda for the Central Govt is “ The Personal Data Protection Bill 2019. The proposed bill gives unrestrained powers to the govt to infringe upon the privacy of individuals, digital rights. The bill in latest form, as per activists, the centre can issue an order to exempt any govt agency from the application of the act. This could severely compromise the privacy of the individual. As per govt, it proposes to arms its investigating agencies with powers to snoop and carry out surveillance on personal data if doing so is necessary to ensure sovereignty and integrity of the country, security of the state, maintenance of public order and having friendly relations with the countries. The bill has been drafted by Justice BN Srikrishna Committee that was tasked with creating the structure of India’s much awaited personal data protection legislation.
The Personal data Protection Bill classifies data into three broad categories- personal, sensitive personal and critical personal-there are the areas where Centre wants to give itself unrestricted access to the information under the designated situations. As per the provision of the bill, the govt will have the power to order or direct any internet or social media provider (believed to be companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Amazon, Flipkart etc)-apart from private citizen-to share data demanded by any of the central investigating agencies. In another provision, the bill proposes the internet/social media companies mandatorily store sensitive personal information on server located only in India, though they may have a right to process the data under certain conditions. The same condition applies to critical data.
This bill when it comes to Parliament for discussion is going to create much upheaval, because everyone is going to say that it is attack on personal privacy, and the same is going to be repeated by media and all the activists. The problem is that till date there was no restriction on the social media, and one could write any damn thing and get away with the privacy of the individual. There have been many instances where critical information is passed , and this information may be highly classified and govt do not want their enemies to know the same. Sometimes wrong elements form the group and propagate anti national propaganda. Most of the developed countries have started some sort of restriction, and India needed certain law to restrict this propaganda/spread of fake news through social media. It is to be seen in which form the bill will be legislised in the parliament.
Awaiting your feed backs/views/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
11thDec 2019