How is IoT impacting the digital transformation of education?

 

Education 2.0

Until the pandemic struck, educational institutions in India used chalk and talk for lectures and a manual attendance process by using roll call and other administrative processes.

Topics like Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) were restricted to debates and academic discussions. But COVID-19 forced them to explore technological tools, something that other sectors had already done and reaped many benefits.

What is IoT?

It is an environment in which physical entities that have inbuilt sensors and software can exchange data and information automatically with each other without manual intervention over the Internet. This has the potential to dramatically transform the process of learning and also update administrative systems. Some of the uses have been listed below:

Tracking movement: Integrated systems of IoT, which automatically transmits information about the child boarding the bus, the bus reaching the school and the child entering the school premises, can be available to both parents and teachers via an app and automated messages.

Attendance system: Teachers and faculty members need not waste time on roll call. Instead, the student’s identity card automatically communicates with the sensors in the classroom and marks attendance.

Automatic sharing: Taking notes and marking critical points is an integral part of a student’s class activity. But, with IoT, all the contents on the black/whiteboard is automatically converted into a portable document and shared over email.

Session capture: An IoT environment automatically captures a classroom session (audio and video) and puts it on a shareable drive. This can be accessed by those students who missed the class. This way learning becomes both inclusive and accessible.

Ensuring security: With COVID-19 still doing the rounds, an IoT-based system integrated with CCTVs can scan the campus and spot people who are not wearing masks. The coordinates can be sent as an SMS and a email to the administrative authority for further action.

Read and translate: IoT can also be used to quickly scan editable text from books, papers and other documents directly into a phone, tablet or computer and translate into more than 40 languages.

This allows students to read the content in the language they are comfortable with and to use the application to read and listen to the text.

Thus, using IoT in educational institutions allows a better connected and more collaborative and inclusive learning environment.

Ramakrishnan Raman

The writer is Professor and Director Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune

Source: The Hindu, 27/11/21

Sharp spike in students with smartphone access, but UP, Bihar and Bengal lag: ASER survey 2021

 

The ASER report also underscored that the likelihood of a household owning a smartphone goes up with the parents' educational level.

Even as smartphone availability in households across the country has registered a sharp rise since 2018, many states have left Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal miles behind, show findings of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey 2021.

Overall, the availability of smartphones in homes of enrolled students has nearly doubled from 2018 to 2021, from 36.5 per cent to 67.6 per cent. But state-wise numbers show that the rise has been highly uneven, with some states that were laggards catching up with better positioned ones, while a few require further push despite showing some improvement.

For example, in 2018, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland had 58 per cent, 53.4 per cent and 50 per cent households of enrolled students respectively having at least one smartphone. In 2021, the corresponding shares have increased to 95.6, 92.9 and 92.9 per cent respectively. In Kerala, where 80.9 per cent families of students had smartphones even in 2018, the share has further risen to 97.5 per cent.

In contrast, Bihar has reported 54.4 per cent households of surveyed students with smartphones, up from 27.2 per cent in 2018; West Bengal 58.4 per cent as against 26.8 per cent in 2018 and 58.9 per cent in Uttar Pradesh compared to 30.4 per cent in 2018. The findings mirror a recent report of the Union Ministry of Education which showed that the digital divide has hit some states like Bihar disproportionately hard.

The ASER report also underscored that the likelihood of a household owning a smartphone goes up with the parents’ educational level. “In 2021, over 80% of children with parents who had studied at least till Class 9 had a smartphone available at home, as compared to just over 50% of children whose parents had studied till Class 5 or less,” it says, capturing the impact of the pandemic-induced disruptions on the marginalised and economically downtrodden.

But in a sign that even those at a position of disadvantage tried to catch up, numbers show that even among children with parents in the low education category, over a quarter of households had bought a new smartphone for their children’s studies since the lockdown began in March 2020.

Be that as it may, access of children to smartphones in a family was found to be limited across income groups. “Although over two thirds of all enrolled children have a smartphone at home, just over a quarter of these have full access to it for their studies (27%), while close to half have partial access (47%) and the remaining quarter have no access at all (26.1%),” the report states.

Even in terms of access, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal find themselves towards the bottom of the rankings. In Bihar, 53.8 per cent children of households with a smartphone cannot access it, in UP 34.3 per cent and 46.5 per cent in West Bengal.

Written by Sourav Roy Barman

Source: Indian Express, 18/11/21

Digital divide in education can’t be bridged by laptops and smartphones alone

 

M Kunhaman writes: Its roots lie in socio-economic inequalities, which can only be addressed through systemic changes

The switch to online education under the inexorable pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into relief certain realities, which would not have otherwise received much attention. The most basic is the divide between the digital haves and have-nots, a reflection of economic inequality. Distributing smartphones and laptops to children in this context is like treating the symptom rather than the disease. The lasting solution would be in taking all-encompassing policy decisions. Paradoxically, those who need a change cannot bring it about and those who can do not want it. Going behind the façade of the digital divide enables us to unravel the real dynamics.

Globally, the neoliberal era has seen paradigm shifts in education. The shift towards a materialist philosophy in education has been caused by four structural developments: One, the entrepreneurship-led economic growth powered by innovation and technology; two, increasing knowledge intensity of production; three, a borderless world facilitating knowledge flows; four, knowledge explosion, coeval with knowledge implosion. The networked world of flexi-specialisation and changing skill matrix prioritises learning (lifelong) over study (terminal). Knowledge obsolescence involves “creative destruction”, not only of goods and machines, but also of ideas, knowledge, values and attitudes. As the shift from resource-/labour-intensity to knowledge-intensity occurs, knowledge becomes a commodity, leading to commercialisation of education, predicated on creativity and innovation.

While the Industrial Revolution was the first systematic attempt at coordinated/syncretic application in the production of knowledge, today knowledge production, collation, transaction and application are themselves independent economic activities, employing burgeoning armies of scientists, scholars, supporting personnel and using a vast array of labs, libraries and computer networks. The knowledge economy is booming.

The Indian education sector has been undergoing an unprecedented transformation. There has been a rapid increase in student enrolment and diversity; quality and relevance considerations are dominant. Parents and students consider education an assured instrument of mobility. This was, till recently, a middle-class feature, but is now seen across the class spectrum, leading to demands for an inclusive system. Knowledge is a commodity with a thriving market. Commodification leads to commercialisation, attracting private investment. This must be welcomed.

The question of who provides education and with what motives is less important than value re-orientation and attitudinal change. Modern values — quality, competence, competitiveness, optimism, confidence, innovation — must replace older ones — discipline, obedience, hard work, respect, compliance, allegiance. A system of education extolling hard work is anti-human, unproductive and regressive. The importance of creative/productive work done in non-exploitative, self-actualising, self-fulfilling atmospheres must be flagged. Raising questions and seeking answers should form the bedrock of education.

The digital inequality in Indian education is a cause for concern. There is a digital divide which is not educational, but a socio-economic one. The material poor are also the digital poor. The digital revolution, with its emphasis on robotics, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, will bypass the “capability poor”. The solution hinges on guaranteeing economic security with assured basic income through provision of universal property rights. Article 21A now guarantees the right to education for children in the six-14 age group. This progressive step should be extended to all sectors and levels of education.

Modern education is costly. The exponential growth of demand cannot be curtailed as it is linked to rising democratic and human rights consciousness. The solution lies in exploring the scope for financing on a larger canvas, tapping into the hitherto unexplored avenues, the bottomline being that no student drops out due to an inability to pay. The steps towards this solution could include: One, enhancing budget allocation by reordering fiscal priorities, and applying methods like zero-based/ outcome budgeting etc. Two, put education at the centre of economic/ development policy formulation. Involve the corporate sector in meeting the demand for publicly funded education, not just through CSR, but as part of academic social responsibility, in return for special concessions and incentives. Three, require parents to pay for education by ramping up their economic base through the measures mentioned above. Parents in the new scenario won’t grudge payment. Four, institute endowments and enhance diaspora contributions. Education today is not a question of charity, but a matter of right.

Written by M Kunhaman

The writer is an economist and former professor at TISS, Tuljapur campus

Source: Indian Express, 18/11/21

Education Ministry report: At least 40% school children in 7 large states lack access to digital devices

 

The report, Initiatives by the School Education Sector in 2020-21, shows that the digital divide has hit some states disproportionately hard, while a few may have coped well due to adequate availability of smartphones and television sets.

BETWEEN 40% and 70% school-going children in seven large states – Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand – do not have access to digital devices, according to a report prepared by the Union Ministry of Education that documents the response to challenges thrown up by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The report, Initiatives by the School Education Sector in 2020-21, shows that the digital divide has hit some states disproportionately hard, while a few may have coped well due to adequate availability of smartphones and television sets. However, the picture remains incomplete in the absence of data from states such as Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, and questionable claims like that of Rajasthan that it does not have students without digital access.

The report, which was made public on Wednesday, has been prepared based on data shared by 22 of 28 states, and seven out of eight Union Territories. The state-wise interventions to bridge the divide also reflect the same disparity – with some like Tamil Nadu claiming to have distributed 5.15 lakh laptops among students, as against 42 mobile phones by the Bihar government.

In absolute numbers, prepared on the basis of surveys of various sample sizes by the states and UTs in 2020 and 2021, 29 crore students, including 14.33 crore in Bihar, were found without access to digital devices. “The ‘new normal’ may also have a huge impact on the learning levels for almost all children; learning loss may be a reality for many children,” the report says.

Among the states to have responded, those having a very high share of students without digital access include Madhya Pradesh (70%), Bihar (58.09%), Andhra Pradesh (57%), Assam (44.24%), Jharkhand (43.42%), Uttarakhand (41.17%) and Gujarat (40%). Among the better placed states and UTs are Delhi with around 4% students without access, Kerala 1.63%, Tamil Nadu 14.51%.

A look at some of the findings of the report:

Assam: The state reported 3,10,6255 students with no digital device. According to Unified District Information System for Education data, it has 7,01,5898 students across 65,907 schools. While the state did not distribute devices, it organised home visits by teachers, and launched a toll-free helpline for students to clear academic doubts and address psycho-social issues.

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Andhra Pradesh: The state surveyed 29.34 lakh out of the total 81.36 lakh students in May 2021 and found 2,01,568 students have no cellphone access. Parents of 10.22 lakh have phones that can only make calls, and 4.57 lakh students have access to phones with no mobile data. It found that 3.88 lakh students don’t have access to TV. Only 5,752 students have laptops. The state has so far distributed 2,850 laptops and 18,270 tabs, and is planning a toll-free number.

Bihar: The state, which has 2.46 crore students, reported that 1.43 crore children have no access to digital devices. In terms of interventions to bridge the gap, it gave cellphones to 42 students, and plans to provide tablets to 250 schools. With assistance of UNICEF, mobile vans equipped with TV, videos, math game, and toys were deployed across seven districts, with special focus on Mahadalit/Mushahar communities.

Gujarat: A UNICEF survey of 12,000 schools found 40% of the students did not have access to smartphones and Internet. The state has 1.14 crore students across 54,629 schools. To bridge the gap, the state government distributed blended learning modules, and launched an IVRS helpline. Around 11,200 devices were provided to students and 40,000 to teachers.

Jharkhand: Out of 74.89 lakh students, 32.52 lakh do not have digital access. The state informed the Centre that tablets had been provided to schools and cluster resource centres in 2018-19. As the number of android phones in remote tribal-dominated villages is “very low”, the state tied up with UNICEF to develop modules of home-based learning and started mohalla schools in remote areas.

Madhya Pradesh: An education department survey of 98 lakh of the state’s 1.57 crore students found that 70% of them do not have access to smartphones. The April 2021 survey said 53 lakh have access to TVs, and 57 lakhs to radio sets. Among the interventions listed are mohalla classes and regular teacher-parent interactions over the phone. A radio school programme was also launched immediately after the national lockdown.

Uttarakhand: State authorities surveyed 5.20 lakh out of 23.39 lakh schoolchildren and found 2.14 lakh do not have access to digital devices for online learning. It proposes to distribute more than 35,000 e-books to school students. The state also attempted community outreach to keep in touch with such students, distribute worksheets among them and also took the help of community radio in five districts

Driving home a point

The Education Ministry report once again spotlights the grim reality of differential access to education, made starker by the pandemic-induced disruption and the consequential digital divide. The official figures also validates the concerns expressed by non-profits working in the education sector. The report also highlights the interventions at various levels to bridge the divide, but one cannot emphasise enough on the need to scale up the efforts.

Source: Indian Express, 8/10/21

Break the traditional rhythms

 

The real question is not when colleges can reopen, but whether our educational structures and delivery formats can be more agile compared to the pre-pandemic period

With COVID-19 having pushed colleges and universities to new delivery modes since March, many of us have realised how humane and important it is to have direct face-to-face teaching and learning. While there is a debate over when we can re-open the institutions, another question is whether our educational structures and delivery formats can be more agile, compared to the pre-pandemic period?

New scenarios

Inevitably, the priority of coming days will be the health and safety of students, professors and staff. We cannot completely digitise the educational, social, and psychological support available on-campus. Many experts also do not see a complete return to full-capacity campus soon. So, apart from mere reopening with a protocol, each institution needs a strategic plan.

In their recent work, education futurists Maloney and Kim propose that university leaders will need to bring a framework of density, not location, in their planning for coming academic terms. Campus density refers to how many individuals can occupy the campus safely at a time for work, study and living. Between the continuum of back-to-normal (full density) and fully remote (no density), they suggest different scenarios. One way is to alter institutional timings by shifting semesters or providing a gap year. Another is to revisit the curriculum and schedule. In India, this includes opting for block plan, or modularising curriculum or devising a split curriculum.

Under the block plan method, students stay in the campus for four or five weeks to learn a single course, which is considered as a block. The institution can plan how many blocks it can afford to offer and can add blocks in a phased manner. This plan can be adapted to emergencies.

Modular courses are short, topical, and experiential and are largely online. Because of flexibility in length, topics, links across concepts, access and sequencing, students find modular courses more constructive. This method requires re-designing individual components of the course and sequence to suit the local context and may also require training of faculty.

Under the split approach, courses are delivered both in-person and online at the same time by the same faculty. The students can choose whether to attend the physical class or join online. However, this may need more investment in classroom technology.

A broad alternative for residential campuses is low residency courses that have already been adopted by many IITs, IISc and national institutions in their programmes for working executives. Its compressed and focused nature makes it more effective than the traditional pattern at times.

Institutions can weigh the risk factors and resources for different scenarios and opt for the best strategy by combining them in myriad ways.

We need more hybrid and highly flexible modes of working. Agile academic structures and administration are the determinants in the game.

Digital equity

Education inequalities at the global level are accelerating, especially where these differences were high before the pandemic, points out a study by Vegas and Winthrop published by Brookings. In many places in India, communities have shown the potential to solve digital inequality. However, Despite the best efforts from governments, the last eight months have seen different levels of digital inequity at play. The disparity in income levels reinforces physical access to digital technologies. It further permeates to skill difference or the ability to use the technology.

The emergency remote teaching that we have been doing was unplanned. Therefore, many inefficiencies and gaps can be excused. However, while reopening institutions, we need to use strategic tools that are adaptable. To aid this, we suggest a template for a digitally-equitable institution based on 20 parameters grouped into five broad dimensions for each student:

Device: Availability, Quality, Usage, Power

Connectivity: Infrastructure, Reliability, Power

Affordability: Price, Choice, Payment terms, Financial assistance

Relevance: Content form, Content level, Context, Language, Universal design

Support: Educator support, Technical support, Maintenance load, Digital leadership

The learner data on these parameters will act as a baseline to develop strategies for digital equity in each institution. This can also guide the revamp of IT policies, develop course protocols, and ensure sustained digital leadership in the institution.

Future disruptions

As climate change and depleting resources are daily realities, ensuring that the learning process is not affected by emergencies requires a shift from the current institutional practices. We need to develop differentiated plans for probable uncertainties, plan and build for varying scenarios, and accommodate meaningful flexibility in institutional practices.

We will soon find ourselves implementing many changes in academic logistics such as dynamic timetables, alternate shifts, modular low-residency courses, hybrid and hyflex programmes along with the efforts to be more digitally equitable. Such efforts free us from the current black-and-white thinking of online versus offline.

Amid the changes, designing a core curriculum around student experience will remain the key to emerge stronger. To provide safe and reliable ways of retaining the best of the campus experience, many prevailing structures and hierarchies will have to take a back seat to ensure sensible and sustainable learning.

G. Srinivas is the Additional Secretary and Salil S. is the Education Officer with University Grants Commission.

Source: The Hindu, 7/11/20

Digital India’ is not prepared for digital education

 

Transition from teacher-class based teaching to digital-education will need multi-pronged efforts over time. For parents, students, teachers and institutions, investment and infrastructure are needed.

Education is empowering and redefining. For hundreds of millions of the young in India, education is also about discipline, development, curiosity, creativity and a path to breaking the cycle of ignorance and poverty leading to employment and prosperity. I know this because as a poor kid from a tribal village in Odisha, I was lucky enough to get a Masters in Physics in 1964 in India for just over $10 in fees. Where else in the world can you do that? Having studied Physics in India and Electrical Engineering in the US, I acquired a new caste — an engineer — and helped lift my entire family of five sisters and three brothers to college education, enlightenment and lifelong prosperity. This is the dream of many young students in India.

As the government announced the New Education Policy 2020, I was heartened to see education at the forefront of the national agenda. Today, the growing aspirations of children and parents in India are reflected in an increasing demand for education, which has far exceeded the supply. We at the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) (2004-2009) brought the idea of educational transformation for 21st-century needs into the mainstream thinking of the government, with an emphasis on expansion, excellence, and equity. The recommendations of the Commission impacted the education sector through far-reaching initiatives of the UPA government on multiple fronts leading to almost 900 universities, many new IITs and IIMs, increased funding for education in the 11th Five-Year Plan and the Right to Education Bill. NEP 2020 as a statement of intent has much in it that is positive. The challenge, as always, is in the details and in delivering on promises.

For instance, allocating 6 per cent of GDP on education spending is needed and welcome. But how and when? In 2020-2021, the government spent only 3.2 per cent of GDP on education, down from 4.14 per cent in 2014-2015. The government that reduced education spending by 25 per cent in good times is going to double it in bad times? Please show how this is possible before promising a pie in the sky.

The COVID crisis has shown that hoping for the best does not help. We must plan for the worst and hope for the best. The migrant labour crisis was a recent example of our inability to execute.

Education is in crisis at the moment. Most probably, schools and colleges campuses will be closed through 2020 due to an increasing number of COVID cases. This could even extend to 2021.

Can we ensure the safety and security of our students, teachers and staff? How do we discipline students? How can we protect older teachers? Will testing be available at every school and college? How do we redesign classrooms? Do we have supplies for the schools? Can we afford to pay teachers without students? Can parents afford to pay fees without work? There are many unanswered questions.

Our answer to the education crisis during the pandemic has been to offer online education. However, there are serious issues related to access, devices, content, curation, teachers, training, testing, exams, grades, funding, facilities, salaries, parents and fees. It is estimated that only about 25 per cent of Indian households have an internet facility. For rural households, that number drops to 15 per cent. The worst affected, as always, will be the marginalised, rural and poor populations.

Digital education is not about videos of lectures on blackboards by teachers on the internet. It is about appropriate platforms, technology, tools, interactivity, curation, content and a lot more. We are completely underprepared. Government schools and colleges do not have the resources to provide digital education. Private schools and colleges are no different. However, they all want parents to pay full fees to be able to pay their staff and maintain facilities. The financial model for education is falling apart everywhere during this pandemic. In India, the situation is even more complex because of the lack of a proper policy on digital education, infrastructure and multiple languages.

There are many other challenges for the parents beside fees for services which schools and colleges are not equipped to provide. Who will assure uninterrupted broadband connectivity for several hours a day? Who will pay for the data? Is there adequate space and peace at home for students to concentrate? What happens when the power goes out? How to train kids at home to follow digital discipline? These are huge problems for working parents and poor people in slums and rural areas.

At the end of the day, education is about motivation, time and content. If you are motivated and willing to spend the required time to learn, there is enough content by global experts on the internet. The challenge is curation and mentoring. Unfortunately, teachers are trained to teach and not mentor. Digital education requires flipped classrooms where you do exactly the opposite of what you do today. As opposed to listening to lectures by teachers in classes, you listen to lectures at home. Similarly, as opposed to doing homework at home you do homework with others in the classrooms. All of this requires a new mindset and framework.

In the past, we took two bold initiatives to help digital education in the future: NOFN — National Optical Fibre Network (Now called Bharat Network) to connect all 2,50,000 panchayats at the cost of over Rs 40,000 crore and the National Knowledge Network (NKN). The NOFN is still not completely operational, after almost eight years. However, it has reached many rural areas telecom operators did not want to serve due to lack of profitability. The Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund was used to build NOFN.

NOFN was planned as a part of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) to enable the free flow of information to all. Education and health were the first services that were planned to be rolled out. It was conceptualised as a bulk broadband common infrastructure for the country. Overlaying education and health services up to panchayats and villages was an important component of the strategy.

The NKN was established as a high bandwidth, low latency network to connect all knowledge-creating organisations comprising IITs, IIMs, universities, research labs and other e-governance institutions up to the district level. It was aimed at encouraging collaborative development and building a repository of knowledge in all fields. This network exists and is fully functional. But only a few institutions take full advantage of it because of a lack of understanding, local facilities, funding and technical expertise. The new policy makes no mention of leveraging this network effectively. In fact, the government’s entire e-Gov programme works on the backbone of NKN.

The driving force behind NOFN and NKN was to build an IT-based teaching system, which could address the shortage of teachers — more so of quality teachers — and school infrastructure at the bottom of the economic pyramid. For this, free 100 Mbps to 1Gbps bandwidth was planned at each panchayat.

The NKC also experimented on the use of IT in panchayat schools. It was realised that the present teacher-centric education and IT-based teaching were not in sync because of the old mindset and vested interests. The transition from teacher-class based teaching to digital-education will need multipronged efforts over time.

I understand that NKN is being expanded soon, which is a positive step. There is, however, an urgent need to relook at the NOFN (BBNL) and make it a core component of the Digital India initiative and leverage it to provide e-services at the bottom of the economic pyramid. It is time to use NOFN and NKN to connect all our schools and improve the digital education ecosystem.

All of this will take a long time and substantial resources. The key question at this time is: Why should parents pay fees when the education system is not prepared to deliver the required services? People will and should pay only when services are delivered to their satisfaction. In the process, children are at home, waiting to get the real education they need to succeed. This is a drain on national resources. The long-term implications of this crisis will be felt in the workforce in the future.

“Digital India” is not prepared for digital education.

This article first appeared in the print edition on September 3, 2020 under the title ‘The digital over-promise’. The writer is former chairman of the National Knowledge Commission and the National Innovation Council

Source: Indian Express, 3/09/20

Digital media is redefining modes of political communication and mass contact

As India enters a technology-driven world, changes in the country’s political discourse are natural and communication between parties and people will become simpler.

Public participation is the bedrock of a successful and vibrant democracy. Debates, discussions and a healthy exchange of ideas go a long way in strengthening the foundations of democratic systems. Countries across the globe took to newer modes of public communication even as their democracies kept evolving. With the advent of the printing press in the 15th century, science and knowledge found the fuel to spread from one corner of the world to the other. These printing presses also played a major role in the Renaissance that swept through Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The first experiment with public gatherings to take political ideas to people happened when the 19th century was drawing to a close. William Ewart Gladstone, who got elected as Britain’s prime minister in 1892, had made public gatherings the medium to communicate his political ideas. Around the same time, leaders in America too were engaged in similar experiments.

During India’s freedom struggle, the trend of using newspapers and magazines for communication picked up. Post-Independence, political parties continued to use them to further their political discourse. In fact, newspapers and magazines became a tool for politicians to convey their ideas to the masses.

Around the same time, radio emerged as a medium that not only provided a platform for political debates but also helped to spread social awareness even in distant villages. Radio programmes on farming, women empowerment and other indigenous issues were received well by people.

The entry of television triggered a huge transformation. The presence of visuals was television’s biggest advantage. It is for this reason that TV has remained a medium for debates between political parties.

The advent of new mediums, however, has in no way rendered the old modes of communication redundant. Even in this era of social media, print, radio and television remain relevant in several ways. Programmes such as “Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri’ and political exit polls keep people glued to television. Radio continues to be widely popular among the urban youth. Newspapers have undergone changes to meet the requirements of changing times.

The digital mode of communication is now the most effective mode of communication. Tweets and Facebook posts are sources of information even for the so-called mainstream communication channels. However, the discussions happening on these platforms seldom result in ideas that last.

The situation emerging from the coronavirus pandemic signals changes in the ways of public communication and mass contact. With social distancing norms becoming mandatory amid the growing need for public communication, media has emerged as a powerful platform. Since India is a multi-party democracy, political parties are expected to keep channels of communication open even during difficult situations.

Home Minister Amit Shah’s Bihar jansamvad rally has introduced us to a new experience of digital communication. The digitally-held rally saw the participation of crores of people. The experiment was also important as it allowed such a huge programme to be organised with such little resources and so little time. Because a large number of people turn up at public rallies, a lot of resources are spent in managing the logistics. And it is only natural for the public to join public communication programmes with enthusiasm.

The success of these digital innovations in public communication has opened the doors for its increased use in the times to come. This has also been possible because of the growing penetration of digital technology in India’s rural areas. There is no doubt it will aid in strengthening public participation in India’s democracy.

As India enters a technology-driven world, changes in the country’s political discourse are natural and communication between parties and people will become simpler. It is also possible that the use of banners, posters and pamphlets will reduce in the near future and there is likely to be greater acceptance of campaigning through digital means. The country is, without a doubt, entering a new phase of political public communication.

This article first appeared in the print edition on June 24, 2020 under the title “The New Public Sphere”. The writer is general secretary, BJP, and Rajya Sabha MP

Source: Indian Express, 24/06/2020

Reforming competition law for the digital age

It’s important to address the issue of data dominance that an acquisition in the tech industry could throw up.

At a recent event, the chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) cautioned against the creation of large digital platforms and the agglomeration of data in the hands of a few entities. However, the extent to which this is a policy concern merits careful evaluation, keeping in mind the fact that political considerations have long dictated the government’s response to e-commerce players and other digital platforms. Any attempt to reform competition law for the digital age must instead focus on the actual cause for harm and then tailor remedies that address this cause.

Amazon’s brick-and-mortar competitors, politically relevant and well-organised through associations such as the Confederation of All India Traders, have for long complained about deep discounting practices. The technology behemoth has also been accused of using its vast data insights to directly compete with sellers while distributing their products on its platform. This erosion of platform neutrality had earlier influenced key choices in India’s Foreign Direct Investment policy, including a clear preference for marketplace models over inventory-based models. Subsequently, in February 2019, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade published a draft national e-commerce policy advocating drastic measures such as restrictions on cross-border data flows and mandating big tech companies to open their data for the benefit of Indian startups.

These responses have invited criticism on the basis that they are more about knee-jerk politics than well-informed policy. The recent call for reform of antitrust law and competition policy must be appreciated with these developments and criticisms in the background.

The Indian Competition Act 2002 has broadly operated along the lines of antitrust law in the United States, which is to say that its foundations have been rooted in arguments of economic efficiency. These arguments that trace their origins to Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox (1978) did not factor in the evolution of data as an economic asset. For Bork, anti-competitive behaviour meant practices that resulted in price distortion.

Data-driven innovation, on the other hand, is centred on identifying efficiency gaps in traditional business models and fixing them using an assortment of data mining and predictive analytics. In the course of advancing efficiency, digital platforms also gain from network effects. In simple terms, the more the number of consumers and sellers transacting over a platform, the more essential and indispensable the platform becomes to both sides. Apparently, consumers benefit from this phenomenon as platforms vie to get them on board. However, existing sellers would stand to be in an unequal bargaining position with the digital platform. Moreover, startups would find it difficult to compete with dominant technology platforms because the latter already control vast amounts of data. Competition law has been struggling for a while to capture this.

Before the present competition law came to be, the practice was to clamp down on businesses that expanded in size and scale. This was motivated by the philosophy that big is evil. The Competition Law Review Committee, chaired by Injeti Srinivas, submitted a report to the ministry of corporate affairs in July 2019, which echoes this philosophy. In order to tackle big ticket digital platform acquisitions, the report advocates scrutiny of mergers above a certain deal value over the existing practice of scrutinising mergers based on asset value. This is on account of many digital platforms falling short on assets and being valued instead for their network and data wealth.

It is true that many of the bigger digital platforms have wiped out competition by simply acquiring smaller platforms. Yet, experience suggests that many of these acquisitions eventually fail, leading to heavy losses for the acquirer. For example, Flipkart recently shut down the online retail platform Jabong that it had earlier acquired for $70 million.

Decisions on firm acquisitions should be left to the acquirer and any ex ante competition scrutiny based on deal value must be avoided. Instead, real reform should address the truly worrisome cause — the data dominance that any acquisition in the tech industry could potentially result in. Even this idea of data dominance is too broad, with room for further refinement and granularity in competition oversight through merger control. Big data analytics is usually thought of as deriving value from four Vs; veracity, velocity, volume and variety of data. Of these, the enhancement of data variety on account of an acquisition is probably most harmful, as it permits technology platforms to extend their dominance to other sectors.

CCI must, therefore, benchmark the variety of data in the hands of the acquirer, compare that with the variety of data in the possession of the acquired, and then evaluate whether post-acquisition, the variety of data in the control of the merged entity or acquirer firm would be such that it can result in long-term undesirable consequences on data-driven innovation, including excessive centralisation of power. This is just one instance of fitting the remedy to the cause, and similar mindfulness to the actual harm must dictate any future reform of competition law to suit the digital age.

Ananth Padmanabhan is dean, Academic Affairs, Sai University and visiting fellow, Centre for Policy Research

Digital India versus Real India

In the run-up to the general election, global tech companies must find ways to live with populism, pandering and paranoia.

As a digital destination, India is red-hot. After all, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his maiden appearance at Davos, had declared that he was replacing red tape with a red carpet; his administration had already embraced Digital India, the brand poised to displace the Incredible India of palaces, camels and yoga retreats. While Digital India is a mix of many public sector initiatives as well as private ones — such as a 4G network blanketing the nation with Internet access at throwaway prices — it needs the digital players from the outside. And these outside players have responded. Amazon was so gung-ho that it pledged $5 billion on cracking India. In response, arch-rival, Walmart, raised the bar by putting down $16 billion to secure its own toehold. Nevertheless, Amazon has dug in for the long haul; after “Prime” and “Alexa”, apparently, “India” is the third-most frequently used term in its recent letters to shareholders. Beyond the retail giants, there are the usual Silicon Valley suspects — Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc. — hoping to be the stewards of a digitally-emergent nation. Even Indian startups have felt the love. Ventures, mostly digital ones, have raked in over $10 billion in funding from overseas for two years in a row.

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Modi’s “red carpet” call was issued from the Swiss mountains a year ago — in 2018. But, for now, welcome to 2019, notably, an election year. The digital CEOs jetting in expecting that red carpet must recognise that this is a year when “real” India takes precedence. They must also be able to distinguish between the many faces of real India and frame their strategies appropriately.

First, there is the India of small towns and villages that makes for riveting case studies in business school classrooms. This is the India where the nawabs of the Net go native: Finely calibrated products and processes are re-calibrated to suit the uniquely Indian context. Websites and apps are stripped-down to work with low-end phones. Local shopkeepers, whose businesses will be eviscerated by global e-commerce, are re-deployed to become the distribution agents of those e-commerce giants by taking to bicycles and two-wheelers to navigate the unpaved roads and unmarked addresses that Google Maps cannot locate. This is the India where digital players put aside their allergy to the analogue world and accept cold hard cash. This is the India where the Googles and Amazons must invest in translation to multiple language to ensure they are truly making inroads. Suffice it to say, any digital player serious about the Indian consumer has been working hard to figure out how to crack this facet of Indian reality.

Then, there is a second face of real — mostly urban — India attempting to grapple with the same struggles as their counterparts in the rest of the world: Balancing the conveniences and the sheer thrill of digital connectivity with concerns about violation of privacy and manipulation by nefarious groups. WhatsApp, India’s prime conduit for digital rumour-mongering, has taken several steps, ranging from public service advertisements and appointing a grievance officer (albeit one who is still based in California) and limiting forwarding of messages. It is unclear how effective these measures will be, particularly in advance of an election season. If the recent experience prior to the elections in Brazil — marked by an “unprecedented industrial use of disinformation” (according to the fact-checking organisation, Aos Fatos) — is any indicator, the Indian voters should brace themselves for a whirlwind ahead. The digital players are still fumbling in their attempts to address these concerns and will continue to grope around in the dark looking for a solution.

This brings us to a third face of real India that shows up prior to election season: A reality that is a perfect storm of populism, pandering and paranoia. For populism, one needs to look no further than the world’s digitally most connected politician. Prime Minister Modi continues to brand himself as a champion of the aspirational middle-class and has seized the political narrative using digital tools, such as the NaMo app. This is just fine, except that when the NaMo app comes pre-installed in 40 million Reliance Jio phones, the branding begins to feel a tad Orwellian. When Modi’s image is, in turn, used in advertisements for “Jio Digital Life”, the Orwellian circle is complete.

Then there is the pandering. Apart from the cozy connections with certain large businesses as evidenced above, pandering takes place in the form of protectionism on behalf of local businesses, both large and small. Recent draft government rules suggest a plan to require that Indian users’ data be stored locally. Since international digital players typically store data in servers around the world, this would drive up their storage costs disproportionately. This would, obviously, please local businesses and work in the current administration’s favour in an election. To pile on the munificence to local businesses, the Modi administration recently tightened rules on international e-commerce players, effectively preventing them from selling products from affiliated vendors or selling proprietary products at discounted prices. This, too, builds much-needed goodwill prior to elections. One can only hope that there is no demonetisation 2.0 that is sprung on the country given how well that worked in pandering to the “ordinary man”.

Finally, to see paranoia in action consider the home ministry’s recent authorisation extended to 10 government agencies with rights to access user data “for the purposes of interception, monitoring and decryption of any information generated, transmitted, received, or stored in any computer resource”. All of this, of course, runs counter to the Supreme Court’s determination of citizens having a fundamental right to privacy. Even though government surveillance can, in theory, be carried out on anyone, it is fair to assume that it could have a chilling effect on the administration’s critics and political opponents.

Each of these pre-election moves can be confounding to the uninitiated international CEO and it is unclear if they are in the best interests of the users. I am afraid, even the world’s most sophisticated digital players haven’t figured out how to deal with this face of real India, that is, the politically charged India of the election season where the red tape abruptly returns and replaces the red carpet.

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The lesson is clear: Digital India can never out-run the real India; the two must share the same road. Much like on the very real roads of India, digital players must learn how to swerve, speed up and hit the brakes at any time. They must constantly “blow horn” to make a noise and ensure their presence is felt. If it doesn’t figure out how to do the swerve-speed up-brake and blow horn routine, digital India will be on a collision course with real India — and there is little doubt which India will win.

Ever the wordsmith, Prime Minister Modi had remarked in an early trip to Japan: “We used to play with snakes, now we play with the mouse. When we move a mouse, the whole world moves.” My one piece of advice to Amazon, Walmart, Google and all others of their ilk: Don’t get too comfortable with that mouse. We still play with snakes.

Source: Indian Express, 18/01/2019