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LEARNING FROM THE NEIGHBOURS
As India prepares to roll out a comprehensive ‘Digital India Act,’ it would be best advised to study its implications as experienced in other countries.
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India considers technology the biggest enabler to expanding the economy to the targeted $ 5 trillion mark. By 2026, it is hoped that the technology-driven industry will comprise 25 per cent of the GDP. However, India needs robust and effective regulations to govern the digital space to achieve these ambitious targets. The Indian government is on the threshold of introducing new rules to regulate the expanding digital ecosphere in the country.
Mr Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Government of India, told the media last month that it was proposed to replace the IT Act with a Digital India Act, which will comprise a modern framework of rules and laws acting as catalysts for innovation and protecting citizens’ rights.
As per UNCTAD data, while 156 countries (80 per cent of UN members) have enacted legislation to regulate the digital space, it is not evenly spread across the globe. Expectantly, Europe leads the adoption rate (a whopping 91 per cent), with Africa at the bottom (a dismal 72 per cent).
A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD?
The digital frontier opens new vistas for individuals to venture into; information is power, and billions on this planet can be empowered to express their views through the internet. In the past, the freedom to express was restricted to those possessing wealth and a place on the social ladder. While this harsh fact remains equally valid even today, a common citizen armed with a cheap smartphone and affordable data plan has far greater access to information and platforms to express his/ her opinion than our predecessors.
This fact is acknowledged (and perhaps feared) by authoritarian regimes. As per Amnesty International, states are increasingly trying to build ‘firewalls’ around digital communications. This has been witnessed in Egypt, Sudan and Zimbabwe, where the government shut down the internet in response to mass protests.
China has a sophisticated system in place to police its cyberspace. Governments are purchasing complex software to read private emails and messages, especially of activists and journalists, with the Israeli Pegasus being the most notorious. In fact, in 2014, Amenity International and a coalition of human rights and technology organisations, came together to create ‘Detekt’, which enabled the scanning of devices to detect surreptitiously embedded surveillance apps.
After over a decade of status quo, India is once again on the threshold of hammering out comprehensive information technology and data protection laws. All stakeholders should welcome this as it will assist in realising the country’s true potential as one of the most important data-centric economies in the world.
of the Information Act of 2000, which made sending ‘offensive information using a computer or any other electronic device’ a punishable offence.
The section also made it a crime to send information that was believed to be false. Three-year imprisonment was prescribed for social media messages that caused “annoyance” or was found “grossly offensive.”
Even emails that caused “annoyance, inconvenience or to deceive or mislead” were punishable under Section 66A. Unsurprisingly, in 2015, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India struck down Section 66 A of the IT Act 2000 in its entirety, ruling that it violated Article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution. Shockingly, some state governments continue to use provisions of Section 66A to prosecute individuals despite a recent judgement by the Apex court on an application filed by the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) asking them to refrain from such illegal activities.
Even the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill introduced in draft form in 2019 has been shelved for the time being after the Parliamentary Joint Committee recommended a staggering 81 amendments in 99 sections.
THE BANGLADESH STORY
Bangladesh is an interesting case study to analyse the implications of digital regulations since it has had such a law in place for more than two years.
In 2021, a well-known social activist Mustaq Ahmed died in a jail in Bangladesh while in detention for social media posts allegedly critical of the government. Later in the year, Shafiqu Islam Kajol faced charges for circulating ‘objectionable’ details about political leaders. Most surprising, a poor peasant who did not even possess a smartphone landed in jail for posting fake news on Facebook! Even minors have not escaped prosecution for “illegal” social media posts and have been confined in juvenile correctional centres.
All these people share one attribute- they were all facing charges under the Digital Security Act (DSA) of 2018. The Bangladesh Editor’s Council demanded the scrapping of the most controversial sections of the law in 2020, calling the DSA, “ a nightmare reality for the mass media.” But then, the COVID pandemic overtook all other events and matters faded into the background.
The DSA was the successor to the ICT Act, a much-maligned law allegedly allowing for wide-ranging suppression of dissent due to vague or absent definitions of online activities that could be labelled criminal in the eyes of the law.
However, its progeny has turned out to be the worst oppressor, with Section 21 being the most fearful. The section’s first clause states, “If any person, by means of the digital medium, makes or instigates to make any propaganda or campaign against the liberation war of Bangladesh, spirit of the liberation war, father of the nation, the national anthem or national flag, then such act of the person shall be an offence.” However, the phrases like “spirit of liberation war” have been deliberately left ambiguous, giving the law enforcement agencies the leverage to use it at will and on the bidding of their political masters.
Under the Act, anyone can be arrested, premises searched and material seized on the mere suspicion of a ‘crime’ committed on social media. It also gives the state the power to remove/ block information on the internet. Under fourteen provisions of the law, there is no bail permitting suspects to be kept in detention indefinitely by delaying their legal process on one pretext or another.
An unusual provision permits even unrelated persons, who are not aggrieved parties, to file cases under the DSA if the plaintiff ‘feels that someone else has been defamed or abused!”
Unsurprisingly, when the DSA was unveiled in 2018, the then-director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, Brad Adm, remarked, “The new Digital Security Act is a tool ripe for abuse and a clear violation of the country’s obligations under international law to protect free speech.”
CHOICES FOR INDIA
It was encouraging that when Mr Chandrasekha was announcing the proposed Digital India Act, he assured the press and citizens that their concerns would be taken into account. Mr Chandrasekhar said, “We will have new rules, regulations, and laws rolled out in the next 3-4 months, and this will be done with consideration to all the involved stakeholders and countries. Our focus is to build good legislation, rules and framework and an enabling ecosystem to ensure India’s success in the coming decade.”
The fact that India’s apex court intervened to set aside the controversial Section 66A of the Information Technology Act of 2000 in 2015 added to Indian democratic values. It has also strengthened the global view that in India’s thriving democracy, a vigilant judiciary would step in whenever the fundamental rights enshrined in the Indian constitution are jeopardised.
After over a decade of status quo, India is once again on the threshold of hammering out comprehensive information technology and data protection laws. All stakeholders should welcome this as it will assist in realising the country’s true potential as one of the most important data-centric economies in the world.
The Bill should be scrutinised and debated in great detail before being finally put up for the legislature’s approval. When so much time has already been lost in promulgating such an important legislature, further delay of a few months can be condoned, especially if other countries’ experiences with similar laws are studied and best practices adopted to the Indian milieu.
SNAGS TO SOLUTIONS
With the era of technology at flank speed, AI is poised to permeate into decision-making at the political level
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With the increasing blurring of boundaries between human and machine sentience, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is inveigling its way into almost every aspect of human activity.
Humans must utilize AI for the greater good, maintaining a reasonable balance between simple and complex tasks where AI can work best with minimal human intervention. It would be prudent to form rules on AI as we develop a theoretical taxonomy of decisions and their settings. At every stage we must query their variations and parallels that would reflect on our societal norms.
HUMAN VS ALGORITHMIC DECISION MAKING
Big data enables a much higher level of intelligence and knowledge that can produce previously impractical insights. However, if AI is used both in authoritarian regimes and liberal democracies, will the aura of truth, objectivity, and accuracy generated be identical or will there be disparities?
In a study by Carnegie Mellon researchers, the decision-making process differed, with the decision output being the same for all three experimental situations. However, the ‘real legitimacy’—as in the actual quality of policies and their outcomes—and ‘perceived legitimacy’ appear to be at odds with the current debate over data-driven or algorithmic policymaking. As a result, they lead to divergent judgments of the validity of the output given.
One school of thought is that AI will likely reduce the influence of democratically elected institutions, undermining a fundamental tenet of representative democracies if some (Hybrid Decision Making) or all (Automated Decision Making) are transferred to algorithms.
No doubt, AI has a positive impact too. Beyond decision-making, data-driven applications can assist in a much more extensive range of tasks, such as foresight, agenda framing, and policy evaluation, which can help to solve input legitimacy gaps. For instance, several current apps use data from opinion polls and public conversations to forecast situations that will need political action.
With enormous information available today, politicians and their teams are overloaded with data and feedback. AI-powered tools such as machine learning can enhance the accuracy of decision-making processes compared to traditional ones.
With the power of AI, leaders could analyse data efficiently and quickly, provide in-depth analysis of significant issues that affect society and appropriately design policies to mitigate further escalation of issues.
However, using automated decision-making systems as the only decision-making process does not appear to improve citizens’ evaluations of the decision-making process or results. But, when such systems function under the supervision of democratically elected institutions (as in the hybrid situation), they are regarded as being just as legal as the current policy making procedure. This shows that involving humans in the process before introducing algorithmic decision-making is a critical prerequisite.
LEGAL HURDLES AHEAD
AI usage trends are likely to follow the so-called “Collingridge Dilemma”, which states that two competing concerns accompany every new technology. First, in the early technological state, rules are difficult to frame because it is difficult to predict the consequences of the innovation. Second, if we delay regulations until we get a measure of the new technology, it has advanced so much and become so widely used that it is difficult to bring it within the framework of rules.
Let us not face such a situation in the case of AI. The co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, well-known for popularising the idea of friendly artificial intelligence, Eliezer Yudkowsky, once said that the most significant risk to AI is that people assume they understand it too early.
The conflict between value-based and instrumental assessments of service and quality cuts to the core of public decision-making discussion. Proponents of the expanded use of AI in government operations contend that it may enhance public services by reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Researchers, decision-makers, and citizens have expressed concerns about potential adverse effects for citizens when AI is used in decision making without adequate safeguards in place for accountability, impartiality, and traceability.
According to this theory, AI based public decision-making could have several unfavourable effects, such as an increase in the digitisation gap and the introduction of systematic bias. Therefore, delivering practical benefits while avoiding issues that negatively impact public trust in government is the ultimate challenge for AI applications in decision-making.
The widely held idea in Silicon Valley that the government shouldn’t interfere with the development of new technologies is directly contradicted by other laws, such as the Data4 Policy and the proposed artificial intelligence (AI) rule of the European Union.
In the United States, legislation like Assembly Bill 13 (under debate in California) and Senate Bill 6280 (enacted in Washington State in 2020) demand that agencies or suppliers evaluate the fairness and accuracy of algorithms before allowing public agencies to use them.
Similar evaluations of the precision of high-risk AI system providers’ systems are required by the Artificial Intelligence Act, which the European Commission proposed in April. The EU General Data Protection Regulation promises EU citizens a universal “right to explanation” when they are affected by automated decision-making systems.
The approach establishes a complicated regulatory framework that de-regulates less hazardous applications of AI while carefully regulating high-risk ones. Policymakers can address the data gaps that obstruct efficient and data-driven decision-making by leveraging AI technologies.
Assessment
We must provide political decision-makers with the correct knowledge so they can utilize it to create the most comprehensive and inclusive sets of rules for a better functioning world. However, using AI in political decision-making must strike a precise balance between the straightforward and more challenging tasks that the AI will have to complete, coupled with minimal human intervention.
It is imperative to have laws and rules about automation to build a theoretical taxonomy of decisions and their surroundings and question how their variations and parallels should be reflected in a society’s norms.
The race for AI supremacy in politics is just beginning. We must have more dialogue on data privacy and ethical codes and develop a culture of techno-democratic awareness among citizens to hold everybody accountable as consumers of political information.
LEARNING FROM NATURE
Data storage devices are changing every few years, rendering legacy systems outdated; this must change.
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Finding places and methods for storing data effectively and affordably in a world where it is abundant gets more complex every day. Archiving information in DNA molecules is one of the most novel solutions, and it may also be the best.
Data written to reels of magnetic tape using the standard long-term cold storage technique dates to the 1950s. In contrast, DNA storage may be more affordable, energy-efficient, and long-lasting. Studies have shown that correctly encapsulated DNA can withstand changes in temperature for decades and should live even longer in the controlled environment of a data centre. DNA does not require upkeep, and copies of the files it contains can be made quickly and cheaply. Even better, DNA can store incredible data in a very tiny volume. Consider this: by 2025, humans will produce 33 zettabytes of data, or 3.3 followed by 22 zeros. Thanks to DNA storage, all that data can fit comfortably inside a pingpong ball.
Technology exists for storing DNA, but scientists must overcome specific challenging technological barriers to make it practical. Scientists have created many vital techniques that make molecular storage possible. The Adaptive DNA Storage Codex (ADS Codex) converts data files from the four-letter code biology known to the binary language of zeros and ones that computers comprehend.
Because DNA’s density and endurance are greater than those of current silicon-based storage media, it has attracted much interest as a digital information storage medium. For instance, DNA has at least 1000 times the density of the smallest solid-state hard drive and 300 times the durability of the most stable magnetic tapes. The four-letter nucleotide code of DNA creates an appropriate coding space that may be used to encode any letter, digit, or other characters, like the binary digital code used by computers and other electronic devices.
DNA storage may be more affordable, energy-efficient, and long-lasting. Studies have shown that correctly encapsulated DNA can withstand changes in temperature for decades and should live even longer in the controlled environment of a data centre. DNA does not require upkeep, and copies of the files it contains can be made quickly and cheaply. Even better, DNA can store incredible data in a very tiny volume.
MOLECULAR CODE TO BINARY CODE
DNA synthesis is a relatively well-known technology that has been extensively applied in the fields of medicine, pharmacology, and the production of biofuels, to name a few. The method arranges the bases into different configurations, denoted by particular A, C, G, and T sequences. The molecule is made up of these bases wrapping in a double helix pattern around one another. These letters are arranged into series to establish a code that instructs an organism on how to form. The genome—the detailed blueprint of your body—is made up of all of the DNA molecules.
Researchers have discovered that they can define or write lengthy sequences of the letters A, C, G, and T in DNA molecules and then read those sequences back. The following conceptual step was translating a binary computer file into a molecule. Although the approach has been successfully tested, it currently takes considerable time to read and write DNA-encoded information. It takes roughly
one second to add one nucleotide to DNA. At this rate, writing an archive file could take decades, but research produces quicker techniques, such as massively parallel processes that correspond to many molecules simultaneously.
However, writing to molecular storage with DNA synthesis has far higher error rates than conventional digital systems. These problems are more difficult to fix because they come from a different source than they do in the digital age.
Binary mistakes happen when zero turns into a one or vice versa on a digital hard drive. The insertion and deletion mistakes in DNA cause issues. As an illustration, you might be writing A-C-G-T, but occasionally, when you attempt to write A, nothing happens, and the letter sequence changes to the left, or it types AAA.
DNA files are currently often recovered via PCR (polymerase chain reaction). Each DNA data file includes a sequence that binds to a particular PCR primer. That primer is introduced to the sample to locate and amplify the target sequence to extract a specific file. A disadvantage is the risk of undesired files being extracted due to crosstalk between the primer and off-target DNA sequences. Additionally, the PCR retrieval procedure uses enzymes and consumes most of the pooled DNA.
CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH
Scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University are creating an integrated DNA information storage device. This device will enable highly multiplexed programmable enzymatic DNA synthesis to scale up their method. DNA polymerases copy an existing template strand to create a new strand of DNA. However, the Wyss Institute’s method uses a template-independent DNA polymerase. It electronically regulates its activity to determine which of the four nucleotide letters to add at each stage of DNA strand synthesis. This storage system will produce a highly parallelized synthesis process that can store the constantly increasing amount of digital information in DNA when used at scale.
The Molecular Information Storage (MIST) programme from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) includes ADS Codex as a core component. With a short-term objective of writing one terabyte—a trillion bytes—and retrieving ten terabytes within 24 hours for $1,000, MIST aims to deliver more affordable, more significant, longer-lasting storage to big-data operations in the public and private sectors. With such kinds of issues, standard error correction codes are ineffective. Hence ADS Codex includes error detection codes that verify the data. The software checks to confirm that the codes match before converting the data to binary. If they don’t, the verification process eliminates or adds bases—letters—until it is successful. nology created a new retrieval method as an alternative that includes encasing each DNA file inside a tiny silica particle. Single-stranded DNA “barcodes” that correspond to the file’s contents are used to identify each capsule. The scientists encoded 20 different images into DNA fragments that were roughly 3,000 nucleotides long, or around 100 bytes, to show how this method may be used economically. (They also demonstrated that DNA files up to a gigabyte size could fit inside the capsules.) Each file was given a barcode label that matched a title, such as “cat” or “aeroplane.” When scientists want to extract an image, they take a DNA sample and add primers that match the labels they’re looking for. The primers have fluorescent or magnetic labels that make it simple to extract and recognize any matches from the sample. This enables the removal of the required file while maintaining the integrity of the remaining DNA, which can then be put back into storage. Similar to what is received from a Google picture search, their retrieval process enables Boolean logic phrases like “president 2022 AND China” to produce Xi Jinping.
Assessment
The urgent need for low-cost, vast storage solutions for pre-existing DNA and RNA samples from human genetic sequencing and other areas of genomics exists now, even if it may be some time before DNA is a suitable data storage medium.
There is enormous potential for technologies like DNA reading apparatuses that outperform the greatest DNA sequencers currently available, random access retrieval techniques that scan DNA sequences using innovative molecular mechanisms, and software designed explicitly with DNA storage apparatuses.
DNA data storage will integrate into a larger ecosystem of new computing technology as these technologies advance and are built on the fusion of bioengineering and the semiconductor industry.
THE HUMAN FACE OF POLICY BLUNDERS
Wrong decisions at the highest level have cost nations dearly, with consequences faced by their citizens.
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This is the information age where every citizen is privy to the decisions made by his political masters, enabling stringent questioning and even criticism at every level down to the man on the street. Such openness has, in many democracies, led to the fall of governments. Look at Prime Minister Liz Truss’s poor judgement on her taxation policies to spur economic growth, which saw her exit from 10 Downing Street after only 45 days, a record for the shortest tenure as the Prime Minister of UK!
MINEFIELD OF POLITICAL DECISION MAKING
Political errors have made headlines globally as they often have far-reaching implications. A potent reminder of this is the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a decision for which the Bush administration was put through the wringer! The decision was flawed on many accounts as it resulted in a prolonged conflict, countless lives lost on both sides and resulted in insurgencies that destabilised the entire Middle East. In the end, Iran emerged with greater regional influence and inimical to American interests.
China’s “zero-COVID” policy has severely disturbed supply chains across the world. Driven personally by President Xi Jinping, the draconian “zero-COVID” diktat has isolated major manufacturing/ business hubs for weeks, strangling supply chains and seriously damaging China’s reputation as a reliable trading partner. Refusing to acknowledge the failure of Chinese Covid vaccines and their inability to create an effective mRNA vaccine, China stubbornly refrained from obtaining more effective vaccines from the West or even India (whose vaccination programme has exceeded all expectations).
Ukraine could be another ‘Afghanistan’ for Mr Putin, who had ample time in power to learn from the pitfalls of an aggressive military operation in another sovereign nation. As the West has rallied behind a stubbornly stoic Ukraine and piled it with the pick of their latest arsenal backed by billions of dollars in financial aid, the Russian offensive has petered out and seems to have run out of steam and manpower. Having cruelly exposed the huge deficiencies in his conventional military capability, President Putin must repeatedly threaten with his nuclear deterrent to keep NATO at bay.
So, what drives leaders to err so greatly in their decision-making, especially when these involve critical national issues? Analysts blame vanity, wishful thinking, domestic political compulsions, lack of certainty about certain diffused domains and even delusion or megalomania. However, without doubt, the biggest culprit is usually a closed-loop consultative system that feeds off a small coterie of advisors
Analysts blame vanity, wishful thinking, domestic political compulsions, lack of certainty about certain diffused domains and even delusion or megalomania. However, without doubt, the biggest culprit is usually a closed-loop consultative system that feeds off a small coterie of advisors who seldom disagree with their leader out of fear or favour.
who seldom disagree with their leader out of fear or favour. As Walter Lippmann, the famous American writer, reporter and political commentator credited with coining the concept of the Cold War, once quipped, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
The Iraq war has been cited as a prominent example where dissenting voices were ignored or denigrated both within and outside the government. As a well-funded public relations campaign gathered pace, it swept along the public, venerable think tanks, the fourth estate and even Congress! The outcome is too well known to be repeated here.
It is tough to ascertain Putin’s decision-making process because so little is known about him or his governance style. It seems that COVID-19 resulted in increasing isolation for Putin, relying on a shrinking circle of like-minded advisors. It is believed that his limited military successes in Syria, Georgia, and Crimea (against insignificant opposition) bolstered his misplaced sense of invincibility in the military rejuvenated by him and reinforced his belief in Russia’s economic dominance. Bureaucratic hurdles and fear of punishment have closed the exchange of information within the Russian military. This is layered with Putin’s inability to react in time to battlefield realities. His exaggeration of what the Russian military could achieve has been exposed many times over, but he doesn’t seem to make any effort to amend his error.
AN ECONOMIC COST
Economics has also gone awry in more ways than one due to policy bungling. The example of British Prime Minister Liz Truss was cited earlier in this article. Truss and Kwarteng rolled out a trickle-down economic program which did not conform to the realities of Britain’s current economic situation. They did not take the mainstream economic institutions along and failed to publish budget scores with their plan for tax cuts for the wealthy and big new spending proposals. It was a disaster waiting to take place, and it did.
The Bank of England was forced to intervene to avert the collapse of the bond market, which undercut the Truss – Kwarteng initiative. This everted a revolt within the ruling Conservative Party supported by polls showing a dramatic surge of support for Labour. Truss backed down, and Kwarteng’s head was the first to roll. The home secretary resigned soon after over a rift over immigration policy, followed in quick succession by the Prime Minister herself. A repeated charge levelled on Liz Truss has, in fact, been her draconian style of governance which did not allow room for deliberation on the economic policy before rollout.
Assessment
It is difficult to suggest solutions to political and economic blunders as they are very case-specific. However, a clear lesson that can be extracted is that good decision-making is based on inclusive consultations encouraging contrasting and even dissenting views.
Both democratic and authoritarian forms of governments are equally susceptible to policy blunders if they allow their leaders to take a call without a 360 degree assessment of the outcome of their decision. At top political levels, while it is good to have decisive leaders, it is even better to have decisive leaders who make a well-thought-out plan with a beyond-the-curve perspective. This reduces the risk of the decision going awry and caters for corrective action to bring things back on track when faced with challenges.
Political systems that encourage the free flow of information and are open to new ideas are more likely to identify when a blunder has been made and are better equipped to formulate an alternative solution.
SETTING A NEW RECORD!
With a mere 45 days in office, Ms Elizabeth Truss has the dubious distinction of being the UK’s shortest termed premier!
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Political volatility is not generally associated with the UK, but this tumultuous year might be an exception. With the demise of Queen Elizabeth II and the resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the nation has experienced a chain of events that has left its friends and foes alike gaping.
A CHOICE GONE WRONG?
Liz Truss is no novice to the UK’s political minefield or governance. She performed creditably as Boris Johnson’s Secretary of Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and earlier as the Minister for Women and Equalities in 2019.
Her ministerial portfolios include Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Education and Childcare (2014-16), the Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (2016-17) and the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. A trained management accountant with ten years of experience working as a commercial manager and economics director in the energy and telecom industries, she has proved her competence as she climbed the ladder in the executive. So, what went wrong?
Truss won the Tory elections at a precarious time. On the one hand, the UK has been experiencing long-term economic stagnation, while on the other, the war in Ukraine has resulted in double-digit inflation.
The hasty Brexit did not help matters either. Truss’ downfall was primarily because of her inability to portray her vision to her stakeholders. However, the consequence of her actions left her with no option but to go. Truss won the Tory elections at a precarious time. On the one hand, the UK has been experiencing long-term economic stagnation, while on the other, the war in Ukraine has resulted in double-digit inflation. The hasty Brexit did not help matters either help matters either. Truss’ downfall was primarily because of her inability to portray her vision to her stakeholders.
MONEY MATTERS
To begin with, the mini-budget was the root of all causes. After assuming office on September 6, 2022, Liz Truss wanted to boost the economy through extensive tax cuts and secure energy prices against escalating inflation.
Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng announced two policies to attain her vision for a low-tax, small-government state; the first was to eliminate the 45 per cent top income tax rate for individuals with incomes of £1,50,000 or more. The second step was to abandon a proposed company tax rise from 19 per cent to 25 per cent beginning in April of next year. The combined effect of the two policies was an unfunded tax decrease of £45 billion.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, also her main rival, warned her repeatedly of this “fantasy island economics” of reducing revenue sources while failing to cover the significant budgetary hole that this would cause appropriately. Irrespective of that, Mr Kwasi Kwarteng presented the mini-budget on September 23, 2022. This budget was set to spiral the government’s borrowings. This was the worst thing that could have happened to the UK, especially
This spike in government borrowings implied that it would be unable to repay the debts. Panicked, the investors began trading gilts (government bonds), liquidating all attainable UK assets. Consequently, the pound sank to historic lows versus the dollar, aggravating inflation by raising the price of imports.
This further created a crisis in pension funds and mortgage rates and impacted people with home loans as their go-to options were either to refinance or lose their homes. And all of this occurred during the ongoing energy crisis in the UK, causing a rise in living costs and worry about how they will stay warm this winter due to high energy prices.
Finding herself trapped in her own hastily knit web, Truss tried to undo the damage, but it was too late. She started by reducing the tax on the super-rich. But the next step was a big blow to everyone - firing her chancellor, Mr Kwarteng, who was just voicing Truss’ economic plans.
And to top it all, she appointed Jeremy Hunt as the chancellor, who was incidentally a leading supporter of Ms Truss’s rival for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Rishi Sunak. As soon as he assumed charge, he dismantled what was left of Truss’ plan. It was soon evident that Hunt held power while in government. It was only a matter of time before Truss went.
There was no definite front-runner to succeed Truss. The only choices were Rishi Suna, who finished as the final runner-up to Truss in the previous Conservative leadership election. There were rumours that Boris Johnson would also throw in his hat in the ring. Of course Penny Mordaunt, the former defence secretary, was very much in the contest. Ultimately, Rishi Sunak made the cut and it will be his lot to rescue the UK from the mess.
Assessment
The inability of the Conservative Party to find a suitable candidate to govern the country shows a lack of talent within the party. Due to its lacklustre ratings, it will avoid going into general elections now. The Labour Party, meanwhile, will try to force the government to go for general elections due to its popularity. We can expect more political fireworks to erupt at Westminster.
Truss was an economic disaster for the UK by any standards. Not that the next incumbent will be able to mend matters overnight, but he may have more realistic policies in place, even if they are politically a bitter pill to swallow.
Many in the UK may be rueing the decision to implement BREXIT at the most inopportune moment amidst the pandemic and downturn in the global economy.
WILLIAM JOHN EMMOTT is an English journalist, author, and consultant, best known as the editorin-chief of The Economist newspaper from 1993 to 2006.
ON REVOLVING DOOR BRITAIN
“Ahi serva Britannia, di dolore ostello, nave senza nocchiere in gran tempesta, non donna di province ma bordello!” Is it fair to say that Dante’s words should now be applied to my native country, Great Britain? Well, with the resignation of Liz Truss as prime minister, the country now knows that by the end of next week, when the Conservatives say they will choose her successor, Britain will during 2022 alone have seen three prime ministers, perhaps five chancellors of the exchequer and, sadly, two monarchs.
NAVE SENZA NOCHHIERE AFTER BREXIT
I will leave to one side the question of whether we should include the bordello, although the notoriously drunken parties in Number Ten Downing Street during Boris Johnson’s tenure might well have caused Dante to consider that word. But we can be sure that in political terms, Britain has been a “nave senza nocchiere” (without a helmsman) ever since the Brexit referendum on that fateful June day, just over six years ago.
Britain’s current political turmoil can clearly be traced back to that decision. This is not, at least not directly, due to the economic consequences of Brexit, which have not yet truly become clear to most of the British public, thanks to the much more dramatic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and now the war in Ukraine.
The connection to the Brexit vote is that the decision to leave the European Union was made without any agreed, or even publicly debated, plan about what to do next. It was a strictly negative decision, not one made with any alternative strategy in mind.
INSTABILITY OF THE POLITICAL MIND
The result is that in the succeeding years, British political life, especially political life in the Conservative Party, has been a mixture of Stalin-like purges of the disloyal and the dissident, long periods of policy paralysis that can be likened to a political nervous breakdown, and a search for simple solutions and slogans.
Britain’s current instability is an instability of the political mind, not one of feuding personalities as has often been the case in Italy. Going through changes of government, as Italy often does, is quite different from going through frequent changes of mind and strategic direction.Boris Johnson, during his three years as prime minister from 2019 until July 2022, was a ruthless user of purges but also a walking display of confusion and incoherence. Was he in favour of cutting taxes and exploiting Brexit through deregulation so as to turn Britain into what came to be called a “Singapore on Thames”? Or in favour of intervening with industrial support in ways membership of the EU made difficult while spending generously on public pensions and dealing with regional inequality?
The answer was that he was in favour of all of this and more, without wishing to confront the trade-offs and contradictions that this involved.
Most of all, however, he was in favour of finding simple, easy-to-understand slogans.So the Brexit referendum was won with “Take Back Control”, and Johnson then triumphed in the 2019 general election by shouting, “Get Brexit Done”.
Except that neither he nor any of his ministers knew how they wanted to use that regained “control” and that even now, in 2022, Brexit remains incomplete. Britain is still arguing with the European Union over the status of its region of Northern Ireland and over the implications of Johnson’s own agreement that Northern Ireland would stay part of the EU single market for goods.
A RECORD OF SORTS!
Now that she has resigned, Liz Truss at least can boast that she has a place in the political history books: having survived in office for just 45 days, she now holds the record as Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister ever.
And 10 of those days consisted of the official mourning period for Queen Elizabeth.More profoundly, what her ill-fated period in office showed was how the ruling Brexit class has reacted to the lack of a coherent or agreed strategy by searching for an ideological substitute. To critics like me, the Truss episode can be likened to a group of religious zealots, the Tory Taliban, who talk only to each other and come to believe only their chosen scriptures.
It has still been a surprise. Truss had done six ministerial jobs in her ten years in Parliament, so she should have had some understanding of the process, institutional requirements, and the value of expert advice. Instead, she acted as if she thought she was a Silicon Valley start-up which worships the idea of “moving fast and breaking things”.
What comes next? Britain’s hope must be for a general election so as to have a more open debate about our national direction and to elect a government with some sort of coherent idea of what it wants to do. Until we get there, however, we can expect more instability and more factional battles inside the Conservative Party.If you want proof, just look at the fact that some Tory MPs are seriously proposing Boris Johnson as a potential candidate to replace Truss, barely four months since half his government resigned in protest at his scandals and incompetence. Hopefully, they will see the bordello in time and change their minds. Ahi serva Britannica…
A RETURNING PROBLEM
Guatemalan refugees find themselves caught between the devil and the deep blue sea on being returned to a country that cannot sustain them.
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Guatemala is symptomatic of the rest of Central America, with the majority of its population concentrated in impoverished rural areas dominated by the indigenous people, the descendants of a once proud Mayan race. What is being experienced by Guatemalans could be taken as a template for other developing countries of Central America.
The country has experienced a tumultuous past dominated by dictatorial rule and genocidal massacres of the Maya population by the military. These unsettling conditions have led to locals fleeing to Mexico on their way to the United States.
Even today, violence, impunity, corruption, poverty, lack of security and services, uneven development, drought, and hurricanes dominate the chequered landscape of Guatemala.
Guatemala remains one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, and the pandemic has only served as a multiplier of the country’s concerns. Migration is the only economic alternative for most to sustain their families back home through remittances. In 2021, remittances amounted to nearly $135 billion, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.
The social structures are dominated by a complex criminal ecosystem, including gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Eighteenth Street Gang (M-18). U.S. interventions during the Cold War have been criticised for further destabilising the region. Climate change is another strain on the region, pushing more people to migrate. Government policies over the past decade have failed to address factors that push people to migrate due to inadequate funding, lack of political will, and little continuity with subsequent governments.
BACK TO SQUARE ONE!
Illegal migrations from Guatemala have increased over the past two years, with the majority bouncing back en route. On their return, they find that their economic and social conditions have further deteriorated, if that was possible, considering that these were a little better initially.
There is a great deal of talk of money being invested by more affluent countries in developing economies from where the bulk of illegal migration originates. This is aimed at improving local economies to discourage such exoduses. But on the ground, truly little is being done by their parent country to help them reintegrate into society once they return. The National Council of Attention to Migrants of Guatemala is the stated authority which is supposed to respond to migrants’ needs. The organisation has been accused of corruption by migrants, rights advocates, and government regulators. The agency needs reform, including expanding its budget, but in 2021, it used less than one-third of its budget! The state’s absence is symptomatic of a broader breakdown of social services in the country.
Government policies over the past decade have failed to address factors that push people to migrate due to inadequate funding, lack of political will, and little continuity with subsequent governments. It now seems more of an effort on the part of civil society rather than politicians, who work to promote laws that could address these issues.Even the few existing programmes don’t seem to impact significantly.
There are a few job placement programmes run by the Guatemalan Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Social Development. These direct a small minority of deportees with specific skills, such as speaking English, to jobs at private companies. These programmes are extremely limited in scale and do not address the vast majority of non-English speaking population and those from an indigenous background.
Nongovernmental organisations, such as Pop No’j and El Refugio de la Niñez, have stepped up to support deportees in rural areas. These organisations offer a more comprehensive approach covering mental health needs and support for minors to help reintegrate them and get them back in school. These efforts remain limited in scale due to a lack of substantial funding despite support from USAID and UNICEF.
The government sees foreign remittances as the backbone of its finances and is hesitant to discourage migration, even illegal ones. It has been estimated that remittances account for an estimated 18.4 per cent of the country’s GDP. More than $15 billion was sent back home to families in 2021 and is expected to increase in 2022.
THE TURBULENT NORTHERN TRIANGLE
The northern triangle comprises regions of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. It is estimated that more than two million people have left the area since 2014. Governments of these countries have tried to address issues of poverty, violence, and corruption, but they have met with little success.
Since the U.S. is the ‘dream destination’ for most migrants, successive U.S. Administrations have tried to tackle the challenge posed by these mass migrations with limited success. Policy responses have included changes to foreign aid and immigration policies. The U.S.-backed Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity (A4P) aims to reduce regional economic instability. It addresses the drivers of illegal migration and commits to increasing production, strengthening institutions, expanding opportunities, and improving public safety. The Biden administration has recently proposed a $4 billion plan to address migration’s root causes in Central America. Analysts have criticised U.S. policies for being reactive primarily to the upturns in migration to the U.S.-Mexico border.
On the part of Latin America, successive governments have tried various development-centric, toughon-crime interventions to tackle the region’s enduring problems, but these have yielded limited gains.
The informal sector, which kept the regional economy going, was paralysed due to lockdowns during the pandemic. In the heightened insecurity of the pandemic, institutional weaknesses further impeded the delivery of aid and public services. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the region is estimated to have suffered economic contractions between 1.5 per cent and 8.6 per cent in 2020.
Amidst the barrage of problems afflicting the region, corruption remains one of the biggest drags on the region’s economy. Guatemala has partnered with the United Nations to create an International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The body is an independent investigatory body that helped convict more than four hundred people, including a sitting president, and significantly reduced Guatemala’s homicide rate.
Other countries soon followed suit. El Salvador announced an anti-corruption panel in 2019, backed by the Organization of American States (OAS). Honduras also jumped on the bandwagon with an anti-corruption committee as part of the OAS, known as the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH). However, early enthusiasm waned fairly quickly, and all three countries have since not made much progress.
Another sweeping problem across the region has been violence. In the early 2000s, governments in the Northern Triangle region implemented a series of controversial anti-crime policies. These new laws significantly expanded police powers and enacted harsher punishments for gang members. While the move was greeted with enthusiasm among the crime-weary population, the policies failed to reduce crime and may have even led to an increase in gang membership. Human rights groups and the U.S. State Department have raised concerns about the harsh nature of these policies, poor conditions in overcrowded jails and violence meted out by the police against civilians.
While COVID-19 restrictions temporarily curtailed revenue for criminal groups, these groups quickly adapted to the crisis and found newer ways of exploiting the situation. The countries comprising the Northern Triangle have not been able to make significant progress in checking migration. Aside from policies to tackle drivers for migration, Guatemala has tried to halt migrants on the move physically. In 2021, Guatemalan authorities used force to break up a so-called caravan of migrants bound for the United States.
Assessment
There are no quick fixes to stem the tide of migrants from the Northern Triangle. The causative factors are endemic to the political and socio-economic fabric of the region and require a multi-pronged approach and a total overhaul of its governance.
Theoretically, professional degrees/ education, employment opportunities, a better social safety net and living conditions that are safe, healthy, and pleasant can stop illegal migration. Sadly, the Northern Triangle is empty of all these preconditions, making departing a natural outcome. Once climate change takes a total impact on the planet, there will be many more like Guatemala.
A NAIL-BITING FINISH
From near total political oblivion, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva crawled back into the Palácio do Planalto in an election tainted by untruth and manipulated polls.
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Brazil’s right wing and left wing fought a battle royale culminating on the last day of October when the new incumbent was voted back to power with a razor-thin majority. Tensions have risen in this most influential South American nation as the presidential elections went into an unprecedented second round of voting. The final tally was- Lula at 50.9 percent against Jair Bolsonaro’s 49.1 percent.
To date, Mr Bolsonaro has failed to concede defeat and his son ominously tweeted, “Papa, we are with you whatever is coming next!” The drama in Brasilia is far from over yet!
The future of one of the world’s largest democracies is at stake as two opposite political, social, and economic approaches battle it out. There are many larger questions; including will the new President reconcile economic development and environmental preservation? And how are Brazil’s international relations going to change after this election? In the runup to the second round of voting, Mr Bolsonaro had made it clear that he would not accept a possible defeat as “nothing abnormal” occurs during the vote. Sounds familiar...? Making comparisons almost a year back, the New York Times had predicted, “The Trump name is a rallying cry for Brazil’s new right and his efforts to undermine the U.S. electoral system appear to have inspired and emboldened Mr Bolsonaro and his supporters.”
Lula’s campaign had tried to convince Brazilians that they were better off when he was President, and that Mr Bolsonaro was a threat to democracy. Mr Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has tried to cast Lula as a radical socialist and himself as Brazil’s saviour. Branding Lula a thief for his corruption charges conviction, Bolsonaro never tired of demanding that his opponent’s rightful place is in federal prison. Brazil has the largest African-origin population outside Africa, which remains marginalised and shut off from politics. Lula’s earlier tenure saw them being offered university education as part of his affirmative drive, which may have influenced them to vote en masse for him.
POLLSTERS IN THE CROSS HAIRS
The elections have thrown up some surprises. President Jair Bolsonaro did better than most expected, and the polls significantly underestimated his support and other conservative candidates across the country.
The results have emboldened Bolsonaro’s supporters to attempt bringing forth legislation that makes it a crime to incorrectly forecast an election. They accuse the leftist political establishment of sabotaging the electoral process by manipulating public opinion in collaboration with pollsters. Efforts have been on to fast-track legislation criminalising polls that prove to fall outside a defined margin of error. Ricardo Barros, a conservative congressman, claims that such legislation would force polling companies to be more careful with their findings. “If you’re not sure of the outcome, then place a margin of error of 10 per cent,” he said. “It loses credibility, but it doesn’t misinform voters. The problem is that today it’s always presented as absolute truth.” The bill’s final shape and fate are unclear now that Mr Lula is in power.
Polling firms have blamed a variety of factors for their inaccurate forecasts, including outdated census data and last-minute voter swings. Many conservative voters were
unwilling to answer surveys that did not help assess poll results. Under public pressure, the Justice Department ordered the Federal Police to investigate the conduct of election polls before the first round. In addition, Brazil’s federal antitrust agency has initiated its inquiry into some of the nation’s top polling institutions for possible collusion.
However, Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice and Brazil’s elections chief, quickly ordered both investigations to be halted because they appeared to be politically motivated and doing the President’s political bidding. He has initiated an investigation by Brazil’s election agency to examine if Mr Bolsonaro was trying to use his power over federal agencies inappropriately.
Clearly, the Judiciary and the Executive were at loggerheads as the Supreme Court took upon itself the mantle of restricting the President’s powers over the last tumultuous year. This is new to Brazilian politics and could damage the reputation of an independent judiciary. Brazil is not the only country where polls have failed to provide an accurate picture of the electorate, particularly the strength of conservative support. In the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, polling companies botched up their predictions by claiming that Ms Clinton would win with ease and invoking accusations of a manipulative polling establishment from the conservative lobby.
DISINFORMATION AS A POLITICAL WEAPON
Like an increasing number of democracies worldwide, Brazil too is witnessing a widening divide between the right and the left in which fake news and disinformation is a principal weapon. Electoral campaigns globally are now being fought on a wave of disinformation and mistrust. The question remains how significant such falsehood plays in influencing the voters. Undoubtedly, the flood of fake news has given rise to hardening partisan views and, in some cases, even political violence.
Disinformation must be viewed in the larger context of the ‘trust deficit’ that most politicians face from the public. Opposing parties try their utmost to fan this distrust and suspicion through misinformation/ selectively
This has occurred alongside a shift in media consumption wherein local journalism has been overtaken by prominent social media platforms. A deluge of ‘news’ often one-sided, emotive communication, is disseminated by content creators who could be on the payroll of a particular political interest group.
Distorted news gets filtered and reinforced by actors who try to build a story based on people’s pre-existing beliefs. Incorrect information is harnessed through people’s resentments and doubts to build and drive wedges within a community. Economic disparities deepen the distrust in established systems and institutions. In the case of Brazil, the pandemic, widespread corruption, a rise in violent crime and rampant inequality has played a part. Brazil has worked hard to minimize falsehoods in the recent past. Several professional fact-checkers, and the electoral courts have partnered with social media companies to share verified information through Facebook and WhatsApp.
Assessment
Distrust and false claims of electoral fraud appear to have impacted Brazil, with the deeply polarising campaign further vitiating the election climate. The way forward requires investment in building trust with communities through two-way communication by political parties and grassroots organisations with voters to fill in information gaps. The Presidentelect has promised to ‘bridge the divide’ in his first response to his victory, and how far he is prepared to go on this account is something the world will wait and watch.
Fighting election by planting fake narratives is a phenomenon that has risen through social media. This has global implications and must be countered through collaboration. This would need a concerted effort in communication by grassroots organisations, political organisations, and political parties with voters by filling information voids with factual contextualised messaging people can identify with.
