Cyber security no longer a governmental responsibility

Cyber security no longer a governmental responsibility
It is imperative that the private sector also appreciates its responsibility of protecting and preserving cyber security, especially when working with intermediaries
In the last few years, cyber security has assumed tremendous significance. The number of cyber security breaches is constantly growing with each passing day. As a result, the annual cost of cybercrime is constantly increasing. As per a recent survey, it has been estimated that the total global cost of cybercrimes is $445 billion. Hence, the protection and preservation of cyber security becomes an important priority for all stakeholders.

In the Indian context, it is perceived that cyber security is primarily a governmental responsibility. However, nothing can be farther than the truth. Cyber security as a phenomenon refers to security of computer networks and computer systems which are used for accessing the electronic ecosystem. While it is absolutely clear that the Government is responsible for protection of cyber security of governmental networks, it also needs to be appreciated in the peculiar context of Indian conditions that a large number of computer systems constituting Critical Information Infrastructure of the country are located in private hands. Examples include telecommunication networks, insurance networks and private banking networking apart from private medical health network. In such a scenario, therefore, it becomes imperative that the private sector also needs to appreciate its responsibility of protecting and preserving cyber security.

Worldwide, the private sector is now increasingly being exposed to legal consequences for their failure to put in place security mechanisms to prevent hacking and other unauthorized access or cyber security breaches.

Recently, the Ashley Madison website hacking case came to light. The online dating website for married persons was hacked and subscriber details made available. Consequently, legal actions have already been filed in the US for damages for the failure to put in place adequate security to protect the confidentiality of consumers’ data. Increasingly, companies now need to be prepared that they could potentially be sued for cyber security breaches and hence need to incorporate proactive cyber security legal compliances as an integral part of their day-to-day business operations.

When one specifically examines the Indian context, it is clear that India does not have a dedicated law on cyber security. Indian cyber law is grounded in the Information Technology Act, 2000, which is a jack of all trades and master of none. Its amendments in 2008 incorporated various cosmetic amendments including giving a definition of cyber security.

The definition of cyber security inserted by virtue of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 is broad enough to mean protecting information, equipment, devices, computer, computer resource, communication device and information stored therein from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification or destruction. Some provisions pertaining to breach of cyber security were added in the Information Technology Act, 2000 but they have not been invoked frequently or efficiently.

Indian cyber law has also come up with the concept of intermediaries. All private and governmental service providers providing services on the network or dealing with third-party data are classified as intermediaries. Intermediaries under Indian cyber law are mandated to exercise due diligence while discharging their obligations under the law. Consequently, some parameters of due diligence were incorporated. In case, if an intermediary is dealing, handling sensitive personal data, additional compliances have been stipulated.

Intermediaries are mandated to implement and maintain reasonable security practices and procedures while they deal, handle or process third party data. ISO 27001 standard has been recognised as one such methodology of reasonable security practices and procedures.

However, when one looks at the complete set of duties and obligations stipulated for intermediaries, one will quickly realize that intermediaries have not been straddled with the responsibility for ensuring protection and preservation of cyber security.

It will be a great step forward if the intermediaries are also handed the responsibility to protect and preserve cyber security. This becomes all the more important as cyber security is as strong as its weakest link and therefore the service providers need to be given the mandatory responsibility to contribute towards protection of cyber security. World over, intermediaries are now increasingly being straddled with these kind of responsibilities.

Further, it is very unfair to expect that the Government would protect networks of the intermediaries when they are dealing, handling or processing third-party data. As such, the Indian law needs to take a stride forward. India needs to come up with a dedicated law on cyber security and needs to specifically address the various complex, complicated yet interconnected issues concerning cyber security ecosystems whether it is encryption, protection of critical information infrastructure, surveillance, monitoring, online liberty, privacy or any other aspect.

The announcement of the Digital India program has been met with tremendous enthusiasm. For the success of the governmental programs like Digital India and Make in India, it becomes imperative that more focus needs to put on cyber security and the compliances of connected regulations by all stakeholders. As time passes by, India has to start inculcating the culture of cyber security as a way of life.

We need to ensure that education concerning cyber security and cyber law needs to start at a very early age as an integral part of the school curriculum. In this regard, appropriate reforms in the education curriculum needs to be put in place.

Cyber security today is presenting large amount of challenges and as such legal frameworks need to have appropriate flexibility so as to meet with the emerging challenges of the evolving paradigm of cyber security as time passes by.

Winds of change

Winds of change
The NDA government has ushered in two big changes. The first relates to the manner of appointing key bureaucrats in important central ministries and the second relates to the accountability of top civil servants
Since the last 16 months that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been running its government at the Centre, civil servants have had to deal with a new governance structure. For some of them, the winds of change have been unsettling and for some others, the new environment has required them to reset their functioning style.

The first big change is the manner of appointing key bureaucrats in important central ministries. In the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) era, the Cabinet minister would have a substantial role in identifying the secretaries to head the various departments in his or her ministry. So much so that in some cases, even the prime minister's choice of a civil servant to head a ministry would be overruled and the secretary endorsed by the minister concerned would get appointed.

In the current NDA regime, the prime minister and his office play a decisive role in appointing a secretary in a ministry. The minister in charge may be consulted or his concurrence for an appointment may be obtained, but it is clear to both the minister and the civil servant concerned that what matters the most in the selection process is the view of the prime minister and his office.

Some bureaucrats feel that this is a good system that results in cohesive functioning as the prime minister and the central ministries can operate with better coordination. They also attribute the rising role of the prime minister and his office in the selection of secretaries to the nature of the current government. Even though it is an alliance of a few like-minded political parties on paper, it is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own. Thus, the prime minister functions under no influence from any political party other than his own, that is, the BJP.

In contrast, the prime minister in the UPA regime was often influenced by compulsions of keeping the coalition partners satisfied. Indeed, whenever there has been a coalition government at the Centre, with no single party enjoying a majority, the ministers have had a greater say in the appointment of secretaries and the prime minister has been less influential in such matters.

The second big change that the current NDA government has ushered in is the accountability of top civil servants. This is largely an offshoot of the manner in which the prime minister has played a larger role in the secretaries' appointment. Yes, the secretaries are accountable to their ministers, but they are now equally answerable to the prime minister while discharging their responsibilities.

Apart from the monthly review meetings with all secretaries of central ministries, the prime minister also meets the secretaries directly to monitor how the various government programmes are doing on the ground and how the promises are being fulfilled. Such direct prime ministerial monitoring is something that bureaucrats were not used to in the previous governments at the Centre. Ministers may not feel very comfortable about this direct accountability of their secretaries to the prime minister and his office. For many bureaucrats, this additional accountability has required them to practise to perfection the art of walking a tightrope. Many secretaries have excelled in that exercise, while some have failed and paid the price.

Not surprisingly, about 80 secretaries have been reshuffled at the Centre in the last 16 months, compared to less than half that number being transferred in the same period of both the UPA regimes. Several central ministries have seen as many as three secretaries at their helm in the last 16 months. Secretaries have been summarily shifted or they have quit.

The NDA government has now plans for reviewing the performance of all senior officers when they complete 50 years and decide if they need to opt for voluntary retirement. This is yet another move that will bring about a major change in the civil service's relationship with the NDA government. Many of them would even resent the idea of being subjected to performance review at that age, giving them little opportunity to opt for an alternative profession when they are past their prime.

Why not subject us to a performance review when we turn 40, ask many civil servants. That will also be the right time for the government to assess what kind of specialisation a bureaucrat might need or for which stream - an economic ministry or a ministry focussed on internal security or the social sector - he or she may have an aptitude. They have a point. A new environment of greater accountability is all right, but how about a clearer career path for growth?

The idea of Swachh Bharat

Last week a friend’s child succumbed to dengue. Coincidentally, the teenager’s tragic demise came about on the eve of the first anniversary of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan—the clean India programme launched a year ago by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Nobody is making a case that the tragic circumstances could have been reversed, but the risk of the teenager falling prey to a vector-borne disease could have been mitigated significantly if indeed the state of our country’s environment were not so pathetic.

Littering, open drains, spitting in public, potholes that become receptacles for stagnant water are just a few examples about how we as a society have enhanced the capability of such diseases to spread with such devastating consequences.

The statistics of this neglect are staggering:

— Poor sanitation and lack of hygiene are causing one in every 10 deaths in this country; about 1,000 children die every day.

— Nearly 600 million Indians, almost twice the size of the US population, indulge in open defecation.

— Diarrhoea, a consequence of lack of sanitation and clean drinking water, is the largest killer and accounts for every twentieth death.

— Under-nutrition among children aged less than five years is almost 50%.

This is the consequence of collective neglect for the last six decades. And fixing this can’t be the responsibility of only one important stakeholder—the government. Addressing the Safaigiri event hosted by the India Today group last week, the Prime Minister said as much when he pointed out that this had to become a national project. “If viewed as a government project or as one belonging to Modi, then it (Swachh Bharat Abhiyan) is destined to fail.”

According to the Prime Minister, while personal hygiene is a way of life for most Indians, the same is not true with respect to social hygiene. In other words, while keeping one’s home and surroundings clean is a daily priority, the same is not true when it comes to using community assets—such as streets, public transport and so on. As he argued, somehow this has come to be the responsibility of the government.

The Prime Minister is spot on. You travel to the US, Europe or East Asia and one would be struck by the cleanliness around us. Yes, the concerned civic authorities are doing a good job, but it is as good as what the local people will allow it to be. If everyone in these countries behaved like us (as Arvind Adiga wrote in his compelling work, White Tiger; the occupant of an expensive car did not think twice in tossing garbage on the street), then these countries would be no better.

The point here is not to publicly decry the lack of civic sense among Indians. Instead, it is to say that the idea of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan offers a terrific opportunity to launch a social movement. Think. When was the last time one single issue bound the nation—it was the collective fight for Independence from British rule. Leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi marshalled the energies of the common people to generate this unstoppable collective energy around us. No matter what it cost—lives lost, careers ruined, families destroyed—Indians were willing to pay the price. And winning freedom took decades—similarly, one cannot overnight expect to overcome the neglect of several decades.

But the good news is that there exists today an enabling environment to fuel a social movement around cleanliness. The Prime Minister’s backing and the bi-partisan support (West Bengal ruled by Mamata Banerjee embraced the toilet campaign and proudly acclaimed in April: Nadia district is now open defecation free, the first in the country in the last two years) guarantees political backing for the cause. And, of course, the fact that nearly two-thirds of India is less than 35 years of age should help; not only do they not carry historical baggage, they would be far more amenable to positive ideas than the preceding generation, which has lived through an era of cynicism.

In the final analysis it is clear that the first anniversary of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan should serve as a launch pad to widen the support base of this movement. And cleanliness, like in our homes, is something that will be perceptible once it becomes a movement. We should take inspiration from what former US President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

World’s ‘extremely poor’ to fall below 10% of global population: World Bank

World’s ‘extremely poor’ to fall below 10% of global population: World Bank

Extreme poverty has long been defined as living on or below $1.25 a day, but the World Bank’s adjustment now sets the poverty line at $1.90 a day

The number of people living in extreme poverty is likely to fall for the first time below 10% of the world’s population in 2015, the World Bank said on Sunday as it revised its benchmark for measuring the problem.

Extreme poverty has long been defined as living on or below $1.25 a day, but the World Bank’s adjustment now sets the poverty line at $1.90 a day.

The Bank said the change reflects new data on differences in the cost of living across countries, while preserving the real purchasing power of the previous yardstick.

Using the new benchmark, the World Bank projects that 702 million people or 9.6% of the world’s population will be living in extreme poverty in 2015, down from 902 million people or 12.8% of the global population in 2012.

The global development lender attributed the continued fall in poverty to strong economic growth rates in emerging markets, particularly India, and investments in education, health, and social safety nets.

“... these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty,” World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

However, he warned that slower global growth, volatile financial markets, conflicts, high youth unemployment and the impact of climate change were obstacles to meeting a UN target to end poverty by 2030, part of a new set of development goals adopted by 193 countries at the United Nations last month.

“But it remains within our grasp, as long as our high aspirations are matched by country-led plans that help the still millions of people living in extreme poverty,” Kim added.

According to the Bank, around half of those living in extreme poverty by 2020 will hail from hard-to-reach fragile and conflict-affected states. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for some half of the global poor.

Experts said the prospect of emerging economies losing steam could challenge promises to eradicate extreme poverty.

“If economic growth of the developing world over the last 15 years was an anomaly, was a blip, then we’re in trouble,” said Laurence Chandy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution whose research focuses on global poverty.

“If instead it’s a kind new normal then we’ve got a good chance of getting close to this goal,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The World Bank first introduced a global poverty line in 1990, setting it at $1 a day. It was adjusted last in 2008, when the group raised it to $1.25 a day.

Across the planet, the number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped by more than half since 1990, when 1.9 billion people lived under $1.25 a day, compared to 836 million in 2015, according to the United Nations.

This follows the adoption in 2000 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which included the eradication of extreme poverty.

Replacing the MDGs are the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals to combat poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030—with ending extreme poverty for all people everywhere, a key target.

First Meeting of the National Sagarmala Apex Committee ON 5TH October, 2015

First Meeting of the National Sagarmala Apex Committee ON 5TH October, 2015

The first meeting of the National Sagarmala Apex Committee (NSAC) will be held on 5th October, 2015 in New Delhi. The meeting will be chaired by Union Minister of Shipping and Road Transport & Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari. The members of the NSAC include Vice Chairman NITI Aayog, Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, Union Cabinet Ministers of Finance; Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation; Urban Development; Railways; Agriculture; Rural Development; Civil Aviation; Skill Development & Entrepreneurship; Environment, Forests & Climate Change; Commerce and Industry; Tourism. Secretary, Shipping is Member Convener.

The broad agenda of meeting includes discussions on constitution and scope of NSAC, Concept of Sagarmala and decisions of Government of India relating to Sagarmala, action taken on setting up of Sagarmala Institutional Mechanism, engagement with Maritime States & Line Ministries, progress on the elements of Sagarmala Programme, identification and implementation of projects, critical role of State Governments in project identification & implementation, role of Ministries in project identification & implementation.

The prime objective of the Sagarmala project is to promote port-led direct and indirect development and to provide infrastructure to transport goods to and from ports quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. The project aims at (i) Supporting and enabling Port-led Development through appropriate policy and institutional interventions and providing for an institutional framework for ensuring inter-agency and Ministries/Departments/States’ collaboration for integrated development, (ii) Port Infrastructure Enhancement, including modernization and setting up of new ports, and (iii) Efficient Evacuation to and from hinterland.

IAS 2015 MAINS ESSAY TEST 2

FRBM without its teeth

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Bill, 2000, took three years to get passed by Parliament and become the FRBM Act, 2003. In the process, some claim that its teeth were removed. The explicit annual targets, as a proportion of GDP, for reduction of fiscal (0.3 per cent) and revenue deficits (0.5 per cent) were eliminated from the legislation. The Act simply stated that the Centre will take appropriate measures to eliminate revenue deficit by March 31, 2008. Annual numerical targets were left to the government to formulate in the FRBM Rules under the delegated authority of the FRBM Act.

Without an autonomous Fiscal Management Review Committee and beyond the jurisdiction of civil courts, the FRBM Act, many claim, became like the Constitution's Directive Principles of State Policy.

The NDA government that got the FRBM Act passed did not last to promulgate the Rules. Under the first UPA government, the FRBM Rules came into force from July 5, 2004. While notifying the Rules on July 2, 2004, an amendment to the Act was passed for a one-year postponement of the target year for eliminating the revenue deficit to 2008-09. Before the ink on the FRBM Act was dry, the Finance Minister, in his Budget Speech for 2005-06, pressed the pause button vis-à-vis the FRBM Act because of the drastically changed pattern of devolution and funding recommended by the 12th Finance Commission. In March 2005, former Chief Economic Advisor Shankar Acharya published an article in this newspaper entitled "Farewell fiscal responsibility?"

What followed indeed looks like a farewell to fiscal responsibility. The FRBM path of fiscal correction was halted from 2008-09 because of unanticipated changes in the prices of fuel and fertiliser. Outlays on major subsidies shot up from Rs 67,498 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 1,23,581 crore in 2008-09. Off-budget bonds issued to the petroleum and fertiliser companies amounted to a further Rs 95,942 crore or 1.8 per cent of GDP in 2008-09. On August 28, 2008, the central government asked the 13th Finance Commission to lay down a revised road map for fiscal consolidation.

With elections for the 15th Lok Sabha scheduled for April-May, 2009, an Interim Budget for 2009-10 followed on February 16, 2009. A new Finance Minister, in office for only three weeks, called the economic circumstances extraordinary and announced extraordinary measures. The FRBM targets were relaxed to boost demand and counter the impact of the global financial meltdown.

Post-election, the Budget for 2009-10 presented on July 6, 2009, included a fiscal stimulus package. Between 2008-09 and 2009-10, as a proportion of GDP, the fiscal deficit shot up from 6.0 per cent to 6.5 per cent, with an even bigger increase in revenue deficit from 4.5 per cent to 5.2 per cent. Of course, the medium-term commitment to fiscal consolidation and a return to the FRBM targets at the earliest were reiterated.

In the context of FRBM, the 13th Finance Commission, in its report submitted on December 29, 2009, argued against disturbing the existing classification of revenue and capital expenditure in an ad hoc manner. Yet, in what was described as the "Godzilla of all fudges played out in this country in the guise of fiscal consolidation", Budget 2011-12 quietly introduced the concept of "effective revenue deficit." It is the revenue deficit adjusted for grants to states for asset creation. The Budget of 2012-13 went farther. Through the Finance Act, known for its missile-like efficiency for getting passed without elaborate discussion or amendments, it changed the FRBM Act itself. The Centre's commitment to eliminate its revenue deficit was dumped for the elimination of the tenuous concept of "effective revenue deficit". The amended FRBM Rules of May 7, 2013, stretched the time for its elimination by six years to March 31, 2015, and for bringing the fiscal deficit down to three per cent of GDP by eight years to March 31, 2017.

In 2014-15, as a proportion of GDP, the revised estimate of revenue deficit of the central government was far above zero at 2.9 per cent, and fiscal deficit 1.1 percentage points above the three per cent mark to be achieved by March 2017. So, has the FRBM Act been an exercise in futility?

Undoubtedly, even the toothless FRBM Act has been beneficial. Fiscal consolidation is like quitting smoking. Not easy. Politicians and policy makers want fiscal consolidation; but only in the medium term, not the current year. Most smokers recognise smoking as injurious to health, and want to quit, but, not now and here. There are short-term costs. Taxes are painful, and cutting expenditure hurts some constituency. Quitting smoking leads to withdrawal symptoms, frayed tempers and mood swings. Finally, not consolidating this year, like continuing smoking for another day, does not have immediate disastrous consequences.

In the move from discretion to rules in the fiscal arena, like in quitting smoking, there are many failed attempts before success. The US experience with debt ceilings from the First World War days and Gramm Rudman Hollings Act (1985), and EU experience with the Stability and Growth Pact since 1997 are cases in point.

Legislature consisting of the elected representatives of the people will, and should, have the power to formulate laws and change them at their discretion. The durability and success of fiscal rules ultimately depend on popular support for such rules. Pursuit of a virtuous rule, even when diluted, leads to mobilisation of popular support. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were only lonely voices of economists such as B R Shenoy against fiscal profligacy. With the FRBM Act, there is now a larger constituency against fiscal excesses.