Wednesday, November 03, 2021

In December 2019, the Indian government introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which sought to make “illegal migrants" from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who are Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian eligible for citizenship. Subsequently, in May 2021, the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) began inviting applications for Indian citizenship from non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan residing in 13 districts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Punjab.These developments, extending protection to selective communities, highlight the inconsistency in the treatment and protection of refugees and asylum seekers in India.

As of June 2021, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has documented 208,065 “persons of concern" in India. However, India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention under which the UNHCR operates. Nor does it have a domestic legislation regulating the entry and stay of refugees. There is no distinction made between ‘foreigners’ and ‘refugees’ under Indian law. The Foreigners Act of 1946, Passport Act of 1967, Extradition Act of 1962, Citizenship Act of 1955 (amended in 2019) and the Illegal Migrant (Determination by Tribunals) Act of 1983 are some of the laws applicable to both. Under these laws, foreigners can be detained and forcibly deported, even if they are refugees escaping their countries of origin in fear of death.

India is conducted on an ad-hoc basis through administrative decision-making. Since there is no official legislative or administrative framework for refugee-status determination, the government has taken to determining the status of different groups of refugees in different ways.

Protection under international law: Under international law, refugees have two broad rights: the right to seek asylum in another country, and the right not to be returned to a country where they face a threat to their life. These are also principles enshrined under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, which puts an obligation on state parties to grant them entry and protection. In order to stay neutral in the Cold War politics of that era and partially on account of the Eurocentric bias of the Convention, India has been reluctant to sign it. Another sore point for New Delhi had been that it does not account for national security interests.

However, other specialized international laws and human-rights principles are also applicable for the protection of refugees. Instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Convention Against Torture (CAT), Declaration on Protection from enforced disappearances, the UN Principles on Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are also often invoked to provide additional protection.

The administration of refugees in India: The bulk of the refugee population in India originates from Sri Lanka, Tibet, Myanmar and Afghanistan. However, only Tibetan and Sri Lankan refugees are recognized as such by the government. They are provided protection and assistance directly through specific policies and rules formulated by the government. Presently, there are around 94,069 Sri Lankan refugees living in the country, whereas the number of Tibetan refugees has gone down to 85,000 from 1,50,000 since 2011.

On the other hand, around 43,157 refugees from Myanmar, Afghanistan and elsewhere are registered and protected by the UNHCR, as per its mandate under the 1951 Refugee Convention. For these refugees, the UNHCR issues its own documents of registration, which are recognized by Indian authorities to only a limited extent.

While refugees directly recognized by the Indian government are housed in camps and have access to local schools, hospitals and the domestic job market, those registered with the UNHCR don’t get the same treatment. They do not have access to the country’s healthcare facilities, for example, and face difficulties in finding accommodation and jobs. Conversely, complications can also arise for refugees belonging to countries that are classified under the government’s mandate. For example, these refugees, if detained, cannot approach the UNHCR, as it does not have the designated authority to process their asylum claims.

The judicial response: Remarkably, the Indian judiciary has been stepping up from time to time to safeguard refugees from deportation, expulsion and forced repatriation. The Constitution of India safeguards the rights of all persons within its territorial jurisdiction, citizen or non-citizen. Thus, in the light of India’s international human rights obligations, Indian courts have extended the scope of constitutional rights. These rights include protection from discrimination and arbitrary action under Article 14 and the right to life and liberty under Article 21.

In the case of U. Myat Kayew, the Supreme Court waived the requirement of surety so the refugees who could not acquire documentation could be freed to approach the UNHCR for protection. In another case, the expulsion of two UNHCR-certified Iraqi refugees was stopped after the court found their presence was not prejudicial to national security and sending them back could be harmful.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision to allow the deportation from India of about 170 detained Rohingya refugees has been a step in the opposite direction. It was based on the government’s claim that they posed a threat to internal security of the country.

The country’s need for specific legislation: There are gaps in refugee protection in India that can be traced to the country’s differential treatment of refugees. Since the 1951 Convention is not suitable in the South Asian context, where countries like India frequently experience a large influx of refugees, adopting a national law emerges as a better choice.

Till now, Indian administrative policies and judicial interventions have served as alternatives in the absence of sound domestic legislation. However, a long-term practical solution requires that India make a shift from its charitable approach to a rights-based approach by enacting a national refugee law.

A national refugee law will streamline refugee- status determination procedures for all kinds of refugees and will guarantee them the rights they have under international law. Additionally, it could sufficiently address India’s security concerns, while at the same time ensuring that there is no unlawful detention or deportation carried out in the garb of national-security concerns.

Source: Mintepaper, 27/1021

Top 10 IT Issues, 2022: The Higher Education We Deserve

The EDUCAUSE 2022 Top 10 IT Issues take an optimistic view of how technology can help make the higher education we deserve—through a shared transformational vision and strategy for the institution, a recognition of the need to place students' success at the center, and a sustainable business model that has redefined "the campus."

"There will never be a return to what we knew as normal," a university president stated during one of this year's IT Issues leadership interviews.Here, as we begin another year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all recognize that the higher education we knew will not return. The past two years have served as an inflection point at which the much-discussed and much-debated transformation of higher education has accelerated and proliferated.

Another leader, a chancellor, said: "The best opportunity is to redefine education right now. What does higher education look like in a post-COVID world?" The leaders we interviewed are not reflexively reacting to the changes in the world and simply watching their institutions adapt in response. Instead, they are redefining the value proposition of higher education by reshaping institutional business models and culture to anticipate and serve the current and emerging needs of learners, communities, and employers. Rather than working to restore the higher education we had, they are creating the higher education we deserve.

What is the higher education we deserve? One leader emphasized transformed teaching and learning: "I believe that we have the opportunity to reconceptualize how it is that we are no longer going to be in front of the classroom but, instead, we're going to be facilitators of knowledge."

Another leader described a more "customer"-focused institution: "Universities are going to have to become increasingly commercially-minded and agile and adjust much more to what students want and to what employers and governments are asking from higher education as well. The successful institutions will be the learning institutions that are able to respond more dynamically and be more agile in terms of their response, compared with those universities that are less reflective, less able to change."

Another president emphasized the need for colleges and universities to differentiate themselves. "One of the criticisms of higher education is that it is excessively homogenous. There is substantially less choice for people who want to engage with higher education than you might expect. We need to start carving out areas of very distinctive expertise and advantage and then plug those, in a modular way, into much bigger programs of work. I think the biggest transformation will be the move away from the cookie-cutter institutions that attempt to be all things to all people toward players who really carve out and dominate more spaces. And I think that's going to be a tricky journey."

Each leader defined the new higher education a bit differently, but all recognized that the higher education we deserve cannot be created without technology. In fact, for the first time ever, most leaders spoke of technology not as a separate set of issues but as a driver and enabler of, and occasional risk to, their strategic agenda.

The 2022 Top 10 IT Issues describe the way technology is helping to make the higher education we deserve.^Footnote2 Making the higher education we deserve begins with developing a shared transformational vision and strategy that guides the digital transformation (Dx) work of the institution. The ultimate aim is an institution with a technology-enabled, sustainable business model that has redefined "the campus," operates efficiently, and anticipates and addresses major new risks. Successfully moving along the path from vision to sustainability involves recognizing that no institution can be successful and sustainable without placing students' success at the center, which includes understanding how and why to equitably incorporate technology into learning and the student experience.

2022 Top 10 IT Issues

#1. Cyber Everywhere! Are We Prepared?: Developing processes and controls, institutional infrastructure, and institutional workforce skills to protect and secure data and supply-chain integrity
#2. Evolve or Become Extinct: Accelerating digital transformation to improve operational efficiency, agility, and institutional workforce development
#3. Digital Faculty for a Digital Future: Ensuring faculty have the digital fluency to provide creative, equitable, and innovative engagement for students
#4. Learning from COVID-19 to Build a Better Future: Using digitization and digital transformation to produce technology systems that are more student-centric and equity-minded
#5. The Digital versus Brick-and-Mortar Balancing Game: Creating a blended campus to provide digital and physical work and learning spaces
#6. From Digital Scarcity to Digital Abundance: Achieving full, equitable digital access for students by investing in connectivity, tools, and skills
#7. The Shrinking World of Higher Education or an Expanded Opportunity? Developing a technology-enhanced post-pandemic institutional vision and value proposition
#8. Weathering the Shift to the Cloud: Creating a cloud and SaaS strategy that reduces costs and maintains control
#9. Can We Learn from a Crisis? Creating an actionable disaster-preparation plan to capitalize on pandemic-related cultural change and investments
#10. Radical Creativity: Helping students prepare for the future by giving them tools and learning spaces that foster creative practices and collaborations

Source: 2021–2022 EDUCAUSE IT Issues Panel, Susan Grajek

Monday, November 1, 2021

How we reached this online communication minefield

One of the earliest judgements that looked into whether or not there was such a thing as privacy in private correspondence had involved two of the greatest literary giants of their time, on one hand, and an early inventor of the trashy novel on the other. The case was the final denouement in a long-standing feud that writers Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift had with publisher Edmund Curll. There isn’t enough space in this column for all the gory details and events that led to the final showdown in court. Suffice to say that after a series of increasingly vicious attacks on each other, Edmund Curll got his hands on over 20 years of private correspondence between the two famed writers and published it for all to read.

Never before had a court been called upon to decide on the privacy implications of a new technology. That said, never before had a technology made such radical improvements on the existing state of communications. Thanks to printing technology, what previously took months to manually transcribe now rolled off presses in a matter of hours. As much as this resulted in the widespread dissemination of information, it also made it possible for unscrupulous persons, of the likes of Edmund Curll, to print hundreds of copies of salacious gossip and place it in the hands of people with little effort.

Technology constantly improves the way in which ideas are communicated—the speed with which they are created, the distances they travel and the audiences they reach. As much as each of these advances has improved the overall quality of knowledge in society, every iteration has resulted in progressively greater incursions into our personal space.

The postal system allowed messages to be sent further afield than was previously possible. But even though this allowed people separated by great distances to stay in touch, it increased the likelihood that what they said to one another would fall into the hands of strangers along the way. So serious was this concern that most countries criminalized the act of opening letters entrusted to the postal department by anyone other than its intended recipient.

The telegraph, the next improvement on communication technology, placed even greater stress on privacy. In order to send messages over the wires, telegraph companies had to employ operators to transcribe messages from Morse Code to English. As a result, even though the telegraph ensured that messages reached their intended recipients faster, the technology introduced novel constraints on what could be said, given that the very operation of the system required it to be read several times along the way.

Next came telephones, a technology that made it possible for individuals to speak directly with each other over long distances. In the very early days, entire neighbourhoods had to be connected using a single ‘party line’ that was used simultaneously by a number of families. While your telephone only rang when you were getting a call, it was entirely possible for you to pick up the phone and listen in on someone else’s conversation on that line. Even after individual homes were directly linked with exclusive telephone lines, calls still had to be put through by switchboard operators who could (and did) regularly listen in.

Each time a new technology is introduced to society, the novel features it has to offer are welcomed with enthusiasm. Thanks to this initial euphoria, it takes time for its effects on personal privacy to be felt. But every technology inevitably faces a societal backlash, which is usually from the upper sections of society, people who often have the most to lose if their privacy is infringed. But then, with the passage of some more time, society typically learns to adapt by adjusting the manner in which people communicate to account for constraints imposed by the new technology.

We are currently in the midst of the latest evolution in communication technology. The mobile internet has upended the way we interact, and, for most of us, the initial euphoria has begun to wear thin. Since the internet never forgets, tools like news-feeds, search and algorithmic amplification surface information that most of us would rather had remained buried. Things said over a decade ago in an entirely different context can cause all sorts of embarrassment if dredged up today.

In a recent article, writer Byrne Hobart pointed out that privacy in online communication can never be absolute. The reason we find it hard to safeguard our privacy, Hobart argues, is that “the whole point of communicating is to violate your own privacy in a controlled way".

No matter how carefully we think about what we are posting online before we hit ‘send’, since we are susceptible to the very human failing of statistical bias, chances are that sooner or later, our assessment will turn out to be wrong. Which means that we need to view the very act of engaging in online communication as a risk management exercise that requires us to balance the benefit we hope to gain against the risks we could be exposed to as a result of it.

This realization has already altered the way that many of us communicate, forcing us to be more circumspect about how we engage in conversations online, mindful of the harms that could befall us if we are careless. The vast majority, though, still appear to get caught unawares when an innocuous or offhand remark sparks an uncontrollable conflagration of public response.

Source: Mint epaper, 2/11/21

Tuesday, November 02, 2021

Quote of the Day

“Life is for one generation; a good name is forever.”
Japanese Proverb

“ज़िंदगी तो कुल एक पीढ़ी भर की होती है, पर नेक काम पीढ़ी दर पीढ़ी चलता है।”
जापानी कहावत

India-World Bank sign MoU to strengthen health systems in Meghalaya

Indian government and the World Bank have signed MoU for a $40 million project for improving the quality of health services in Meghalaya

Key Points

This MoU will strengthen the capacity of state to handle future health emergencies like covid-19 pandemic.
Project is dubbed as “Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project”.

Significance of the project

Project will enhance management & governance capabilities of the state as well as its health facilities.
It will expand the design and coverage of health insurance program in state.
It will improve the quality of health services by means of certification and better human resource systems.
It will finally enable efficient access to medicines and diagnostics.

Who are the beneficiaries?

This project will benefit all the 11 districts of state. It will further benefit the health sector staff at primary and secondary levels by building their clinical skills and strengthening planning & management capabilities. At the community level, it will enable women to better utilize healthcare services. Through this project, coverage of health services will be made accessible and affordable to the poor and vulnerable.

Megha Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS)

This project will help in strengthen the effectiveness of Meghalaya’s health insurance program dubbed as Megha Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS). MHIS currently covers 56% of the households. Now, with integration with the national Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), scheme plans to cover 100% of the households. It will reduce barriers to accessing hospital services as well as prevent catastrophic out-of-pocket costs for poor & vulnerable families.

Performance based financing system

This project will move towards a performance-based financing system, in which Internal Performance Agreements (IPAs) will be signed between DoHFW and its subsidiaries. It will thus foster more accountability at all levels.

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