> I know artists who are vehemently against DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. and regard it as stealing, but they view Copilot and GPT-3 as merely useful tools.
> I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged by Copilot.
The fear is not unwarranted though. I can clearly see AI replacing most jobs (not just in tech) but art, crafts, music and even science. There probably will be no field untouched by AI in this decade and completely replaced by next decade.
We have multiple extinction events for humanity lined up: Climate Change, Nuclear Apocalypse and now AI.
We will have to not just work towards reducing harm to the Planet, but also work towards stopping meaningless Wars and figuring out how to deal with unemployment and economic crisis that is looming on the horizon. The only ones to suffer in the end would be the "elites" (or will they be the first depending on how quickly Civilization goes towards Anarchy?).
Can't say for sure. But definitely gloomy days ahead.
> "Actually no, you can't say we treat everyone equally, we're manually going in and exempting certain people from scrutiny, and that's entirely within our discretion."
Isn't that literally what Twitter does as well? Making exceptions for Politicians and Government Representatives? Or does HN's bias towards Twitter exempt it from any form of scrutiny?
I don't think this has too much with celebrities, but about exempting "problematic people" from being repeatedly banned by algorithmic and applied AI systems. IOW, they don't have controls over internal mechanisms of so-called algorithms, and a separate suppression system is used to reduce harm.
> Isn't that literally what Twitter does as well? Making exceptions for Politicians and Government Representatives? Or does HN's bias towards Twitter exempt it from any form of scrutiny?
What a completely bizarre comment.
No one mentioned Twitter, there is no "HN" general viewpoint, and if I had to say I'd say most comments on HN about Twitter are negative.
I'd say this could be the worst case of "Whataboutism" I've ever seen, but it is such a weird thing to use "what about" regarding.
When it comes to India, Twitter is typically at the forefront of mainstreaming propaganda and selectively applying rules. So my perspective comes from that (since this article concerns feud between Meta and The Wire which covers India). Whenever Twitter gets mentioned (atleast in HN) concerning its role in policy with regards to politicians it mostly gets a pass.
Let me put it this way: what you feel Meta is doing in the West, is what many in India (like me) feel Twitter is doing here. And the sentiment I see is mostly anti Meta and mostly pro Twitter here.
After all it is my perspective and I could be wrong (as I obviously don't have statistics to say if HN definitely has a Twitter bias or not). But I believe I have a right to express my opinion on what I feel is HN sentiment towards big tech censorship (which mostly circles around Meta but rarely around Twitter).
I haven't seen twitter getting a pass? When trump finally got the boot, the comments were along the lines of "the only thing that can't get you kicked off of twitter is to run an insurrection against the US government"
And the ban was done after Opposition Party supporting Bureaucrat (from the IPS cadre) threatened to get the account banned. Basically Twitter acted on behalf of the Opposition not the Ruling Party. You can read the full story here [1].
If Twitter is truly unbiased, it wouldn't be siding so openly with Opposition Parties in India.
Quoting the user (TrueIndology) who was banned:
`She asked me for my personal details. I refused to divulge those details. She then said "Your time is up". And boom. My account was suspended within 5 minutes. Twitter sent no mail. Gave no reason. Simply suspended my account`.
The Government of India has authority to regulate Law and pass Executive Orders to entities operating within the Country. The Opposition of India has no such powers. Yet Twitter defied the Government's Executive Orders but did not defy the Opposition Party Bureaucrat's diktat. That should tell you how openly biased Twitter is.
Anyways, being a "strong BJP supporter" is not a crime on HN I presume. Where propaganda thrives it is better to be a strong, vocal supporter. Even if all alone and in minority.
This comment made me actually read the OPIndia article and wow it's pretty bad. To quote:
> The TrueIndology account is very popular and has thousands of followers. The person behind the account is a meticulous fact-checker who corrects wrong and distorted claims often pushed as history mostly by left-liberals, and cites actual sources to debunk myths and leftist propaganda on Indian history. Though the reasons for the accoun[sic] suspension are not clear, it comes just a day after he had ‘fact-checked’ and had idulged[sic] in an online arguement[sic] with senior IPS officer D Roopa.
Spelling errors are reproduced as is.
It's surprising how closely the "left-liberals"/"leftist propaganda" rhetoric matches "Leftist Media cabal"/"Western media propaganda outlets" language of the OP.
I'll explain the context behind this because Vice (as is usual with Western media propaganda outlets) does not provide any details.
The "journalist" in question, who goes by the handle @zoo_bear, tweeted out a clip from a heated National TV debate between a ruling party spokesperson and another Islamic scholar. Some unsavory remarks were made by the Islamic scholar on the ruling party spokesperson's Religious beliefs (she is a Hindu). She retaliated in the TV debate with her own unsavory remarks on his Islamic beliefs.
Now this "journalist", instead of putting out the entire clip, decided to cut the clip to only show the spokesperson's remarks which went viral not just in India but across the World. She not only received beheading/death threats but was also forced to apologize, tender resignation from the Party and go into hiding. Then after that, 4 other Hindus (completely unconnected to this TV debate) were beheaded, by Islamic terrorists, as a "revenge" for what she said. Only later did the entire clip surface and things cooled down. But by then, the damage was done. Was any of this reported by Vice? Nope. This is the kind of propaganda that Western media outlets indulge in.
Now the Government of India wanted to take this out-of-context Tweet down (as well as suspend the "journalist"s account) as he continued to put out partial information just to keep the communal pot boiling.
India is a multi-cultural, multi-religious democracy with a billion+ people. Any riots that break out has potential to turn into communal clashes on a pan-India scale. The Government, unlike Western Governments, has extra responsibility to take care of the social fabric of the Nation apart from protecting the country from adversaries on our borders.
So the Government of India is perfectly justified in requesting take down. Twitter not taking it down is purely politically motivated. It is not like it hasn't taken down accounts/tweets at all. It has done so multiple times on behest of opposition party members.
Note that this explanation is only one of the (many) incidents outlined in the (long) Vice post. As the Vice article points out, the tweet was over 4 years old when he was arrested for it. The Indian article[1] about the arrest doesn't make any claims about the tweet going viral or being responsible for the things the OP is claiming here. Notably neither the police themselves not the complainant make these claims.
This quote summarises the overall situation reasonably well:
> A 2021 transparency report released by Twitter revealed that India was the single largest source of government takedown requests in the second half of 2020—accounting for 25 percent of the global volume. The compliance rate for these requests was 0.6 percent in India, as opposed to 30 percent globally.
> The Indian article[1] about the arrest doesn't make any claims about the tweet going viral or being responsible for the things the OP is claiming here.
Of course the Indian Authorities are going to charge him for the most heinous/offensive tweet. And they will choose the one that will stick when they prosecute him in a Court of Law. That does not mean what he did, did not lead to beheading of 4 innocent Hindus. This is well documented fact that the communal tension was result of him sharing a doctored clip that went viral.
> The Indian article[1] about the arrest doesn't make any claims about the tweet going viral or being responsible for the things the OP is claiming here
LMFAO from Indian Express of all the papers? The ones who falsely published a report that Indian Army had moved towards Delhi to do a coup on the previous Government of India? [1] and [2].
Please refer to better sources.
> A 2021 transparency report released by Twitter revealed that India was the single largest source of government takedown requests in the second half of 2020—accounting for 25 percent of the global volume
Ah yes. And we should take Twitter at its word. Twitter can also reveal exactly what those tweets were which the GoI wanted taken down. I bet at least half of them involve some fabrication (like The Wire BS that is currently being propagated) or something communal to stoke riots and unrest in India.
I have no idea who Nupur Sharma is. Instead I was referring to the mention of the arrest of @zoo_bear in the linked article.
>> the tweet was over 4 years old when he was arrested for it
> Nice deflection. This is not the tweet I was talking about.
Good for you? How exactly was I supposed to know this when the tweet I was talking about was the one mentioned in the article you were so keen to dispute?
We asked you just recently to stop posting nationalistic flamewar comments to HN. Since you've continued doing it and then some, I've banned the account.
> You don't know about Nupur Sharma, but seems to know about BJP.
I'm Australian. I know what the ruling party of India is, but I certainly don't claim any deep knowledge of Indian politics.
I just Googled Nupur Sharma and she seems to have come to prominence in July 2022[1]. I guess my knowledge of Indian politics is 3 or 4 months behind? Not sure what the relevance is.
> I see the hypocrisy in HN when it comes to how it treats Meta vs how it treats Twitter
Man HN is the most Twitter hating group I've ever interacted with. I don't think I've ever seen a thread mentioning Twitter where people _don't_ complain about Twitter's moderation
I don’t get this Whataboutery? The news story and the article is about Meta - why bring Twitter or any other media into discussion, unless you want to distract from the topic at hand.
Because I have seen this bias on HN. I feel the need to call it out. Why is it bothering you? Can't I have my opinion? Or should I be forced to conform to everyone's opinion here? I'm no sheep. I have my own independent thinking and I base my opinions on that. I am infact against Big Tech censorship as a whole. What I find amusing is that Big Tech on HN gets preferential treatment based on which side of the political aisle one is on (as the Company you support or are against depends on the Company's overarching political leaning).
Well, it is an object fact though — isn't it? Twitter is an order of magnitude smaller than Meta, and Facebook / Meta / Zuckerberg have been fined and trialled an order of magnitude more times than twitter for its deeds. Whistleblowers have presented an order of magnitude more documentation and proof for Facebook's shady practices. It is only fair that it is discussed an order of magnitude more times than Twitter.
Just because you want the two to be "equally bad" doesn't make it so, and bringing up Y when the topic is X in this case is the textbook definition of whataboutery.
> can be presented without resorting to conjecture on your part about the motivations of the owners of the publication
Why not? Are journalists different from politicians that we should not hold them accountable? We know these journalists quite well and we know what their political leanings are. This is not the first time they have done this. Won't be the last either. So calling them out is not a wrong thing.
Because, believe it or not, plenty of Indians are satisfied with the current Government in India. We have had shit Governments for more than 70 years. So don't be surprised if Indians don't support Western media narratives on Indian Government (which is mostly fabricated/fake).
I think you should speak for yourself instead of for all Indians. You believing or not believing something has little effect on facts. Bullying everyone into believing your unquestioned love for the present day government is rather disenginious.
You are mostly sharing your opinion. I am not saying that you are wrong, but stating your opinion has much less weightage than stating the facts where your claims are supported by some data/references.
How do I share "facts" on somethings that are fabrications by the Opposition?
I'll attempt it: let us take the Rafale Deal accusations that was leveled against the Government of India by the Opposition Parties. They could not substantiate it with any evidence whatsoever except to claim that Modi and his Party, along with billionaire Ambani, minted billions of dollars from a defense deal which involved Government of India and the French Government in procurement of Rafale Jets (Dassault Aviation). The Opposition mounted an offensive right before the 2019 elections and even took the case to the Supreme Court of India. There, they could not substantiate any of their claims. And they took the case to the same court 3 times with various appeals. In the end, the Supreme Court got frustrated by the repeated petitions and threw out the case [2].
The reason being that the Government of India, for the first time ever, had inked the deal with the French Government directly instead of going through middlemen (which was the case with Bofors Scandal of the 90s and Augusta Westland scandal of the 2000s). Earlier Governments used middlemen to sign deals so that the monetary exchange happened through these middlemen who would give a kickback to the politicians involved in making the deal happen.
The current Government of India decided not to go through the middlemen route and instead inked a deal directly with the French Government. This obviously did not sit well with the Opposition as it lost a big source of corruption revenue (the Opposition was gunning for Lockheed Martin's F-16 (and subsequently Hybrid F-21 jet) or Eurofighter and wanted it done through middlemen). If Government had gone through this route, there would be huge kickback (to the tune of billions of dollars) that would go straight into the pockets of greedy politicians.
Now since the Government did not take that route, there was no scope for corruption anymore as everything had to be done in black and white (with the French Government having to pay the Indian Government directly which would be received by the Treasury and not some corrupt politician or middleman).
Yet the Opposition cried that there was corruption in the deal by picking clauses out of context (for example, the offset clause in the deal) or randomly accusing the Prime Minister of actually facilitating the deal on behalf of billionaire Anil Ambani. None of these accusations withstood the scrutiny of the Supreme Court of India [1]. But in 2019, it was the biggest election issue. Turned out to be a damp squib.
Can you please name top 3 things for which you think Indians are satisfied with the current Government in India? What are few things that have changed from the last 70 years?
1. Abrogation of Article 370 and removing Special Status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir, reintegrating it with India. This has been the bone of contention that has caused weakness in the Northern borders of India with Pakistan. Multiple Wars have been fought and lots of terror attacks took place on Indian soil which was used by Pakistani terrorists passing through this State specifically. This was literally a 70 year old issue which was left unsettled by the first Prime Minister of India: Jawaharlal Nehru. Many considered it impossible to Abrogate the Article (which included eminent lawyers). Securing borders is primary importance for Indians and it was only done after 70 years.
2. Implementing GST (Goods and Service Tax). Before we had 12 different taxes that we had to pay (including VAT). All of it was subsumed into 1 tax code bringing India on par with Democracies across the World which had 1 indirect taxation methodology. GST was delayed by 2 decades due to successive weak coalition Governments. This caused India to lag behind majorly. Sure there were multiple technical bottlenecks (with the system crashing multiple times when it was launched) but that has now largely been resolved and simplified.
3. Citizenship Amendment Act. This was passed to ensure that Refugees (from minority religions) who fled Religious persecution in neighboring Islamic Nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh were given fast-track Citizenship. Most of these refugees had landed in India in the 1970s after the Indo-Pakistan War (which involved US and the West supporting theocratic State of Pakistan while Soviet Union supported India). India won the War, breaking Pakistan into two parts, with one part liberated as Bangladesh. Before the War started, there was major Religious persecution of minorities in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which resulted in genocide [1]. Estimated 2,000,000 people escaped persecution and landed in India seeking India's intervention. India did liberate Bangladesh but did not decide on the future of Refugees for the next 40+ years. Those Refugees were finally granted Citizenship on a fast track basis.
4. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act. This Act (also called Triple Talaq Bill) was passed by the Indian Parliament to make "instant divorce/Talaq" a punishable offense thereby restoring the dignity of minority Muslim women (who used to be earlier divorced by their husbands over SMS/WhatsApp by just writing Talaq, Talaq, Talaq 3 times — called Talaq-e-Biddat).
5. Economy flourished: India's GDP shot up from being 10th largest in 2014 (when Modi came to power) to now 5th largest economy. Share in Global GDP rose from 2.6% to 3.2%. FDI inflows shot up from 2.1% to 6.7%. In combating Climate Change crisis, rose from 31st to 10th. Ease of doing business shot up from 142nd to 63rd place. People started noticing real change on the ground. Highways being built at record pace. Electrification close to 99% all over India.
6. Settling the Ayodhya Dispute, which happens to be the most important issue for Hindus.
7. Unified Payments Interface. One of the best technological implementations I have seen and is quite shocking that it was a Government initiative no less. I can transfer cash to anyone instantly by just knowing their UPI ID (which is similar to email ID). No need to share bank details. No need for waiting for a day or two for transfers to happen. No need to use credit/debit cards. Chances of fraud minimized big time.
8. Reducing/eliminating big scale corruption on National/Federal/Central level. India was rocked by multi-billion dollar corruption scandals for 70+ years. This is now thankfully a thing of the past. Corruption still exists in some pockets (and in some States as well) but it is largely reduced.
There are a lot more. But I have only listed a few which I am happy with. A mix of social + economic issues that were resolved.
There are other issues where the Government underperformed IMHO:
1. Passing the landmark Farm Act and then backtracking on it due to pressure from rich farmers and Khalistani Terror groups operating out of Canada. This set back India's farming sector by 2 decades. This reform was much awaited and would have propelled India's farm sector to great heights. But politics and propaganda won over common sense reforms. The only time I was extremely upset with the current Government.
2. Not tackling home grown terror organizations with an iron fist due to fear of being perceived as a "fascist party" by International Media and International Organizations. Lots of Islamic terror organizations were floated that worked without any fear (with many openly tying with ISIS, Al Qaeda etc) because the current Government chose not to act against them. Even when majority of the supporters pushed the Government to ban such organizations it seemed shaky and did not wish to act decisively. It ultimately had to once these organizations started talking about breaking India (by staging a "protest" — read it as riots and communal violence — in the "Chicken neck" region and cut off entire North-Eastern India from rest of the mainland) and the Anti-CAA riots broke out which resulted in communal clashes. Then the Government had to intervene and ban these Organizations. I wish it had done sooner. Innocent people would not have suffered.
3. Demonetization, as a concept, was a disaster. Though it propelled India as a whole to move towards online banking (see the point on UPI above), the core objective for bringing in Demonetization: reduction/elimination of black money, was not met.
4. Hasty implementation of Aadhaar without consultation with Privacy Experts and Tech professionals. In fact, this Government performed poorly when it came to Privacy issues and surveillance. It is trying to emulate both US and China in this aspect. Which I do not agree with or support.
5. Buying out elected representatives from Opposition Parties to form Government. This is one thing I hate about the current dispensation. Though this is not new and has been going on since India got Independence and became a Democracy, I expected this Government to not indulge in horse trading. As those coming into the Party do not necessarily have the same ideological inclinations, commitments or dedication as a ground-level Party worker. This party level corruption needs to end.
6. No strong Opposition. Currently, the Indian Opposition Parties are divided, with no strong leaders heading them. They are directionless and visionless. The oldest Party of India (the Indian National Congress) is headed by a buffoon who spends most of his time in Italy and only occasionally visits India when there is some contentious issue and then goes back to Italy to party. There is no serious contender to Modi right now. All the good leaders are gravitating to one party. And this is a bad thing IMHO. India definitely needs a strong Opposition to have the right checks and balance. But definitely not the jokers we have in the Opposition now.
Thanks a lot for sharing detailed answer, and I appreciate you for even including few points that you don't like about the Indian Government.
If you allow, I would also like to share my opinion (and some facts backed with references) on the points that you shared.
1. Abrogation of Article 370: Honestly I like that government made a strong decision and completed a long pending issue but I don't see how it can improve peace in the region or how it can stop the attacks or how it impacts life of any common citizen.
2. Implementing GST (Goods and Service Tax): Again I like that government made a strong decision and completed a long pending issue. However, I see the GST has also caused tax rate to be increased a lot on most of the items. There are many different tax rates and businesses has to file a lot more reports on monthly/yearly basis. For example VAT on software products used to be 5% but now GST on software products is 18%. Similarly now people have to pay GST on many essentials and food items. [1]
3. Citizenship Amendment Act: The way I see it, it's done only to act against muslims of India. They excluded only muslims from the list and included all other religions. There are conflicting statements from the ministers of Indian Government where Home Minister of India even seems to be indirectly threatening Muslims [2] [3]
4. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act: I think this is also done only to act against muslims of India. I absolutely do not support Triple Talaq and I like that they ended it but I don't think the intension is to protect women rights. Even current PM Modi has left his own wife without giving her a divorce. [4]
5. Economy flourished: Agree with you that India's GDP and Ease of doing business is growing. But I don't know what are real changes that people started noticing on the ground. Highways are being built at record pace but they are charging Toll for most of the highways and those highways are built and operated by private companies.
6. Settling the Ayodhya Dispute: Is it done by Supreme Court or Government? Are you implying that Supreme Court is not independent and Government has a hand in Supreme Court decisions?
7. Unified Payments Interface: Agree, this is a very good initiative and I heard good things about it.
8. Reducing/eliminating big scale corruption on National/Federal/Central level: I think there is still a big time corruption, but now government controls the narrative and mainstream media and probably judiciary too (See my comment on previous point). Just a high level list of potential scam happened under BJP/Modi government. Whenever opposition raises these issues, mainstream media actually blames opposition parties instead of calling for investigation into the allegation:
8.1 Rafale Scam: The supreme court of India headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi gave clean chit to government without requiring any investigation. Government recommended the same judge for Rajya Sabha right after his retirement from the court. I cant say how its morally/ethically right for a judge to accept post-retirement benefit from government and how you can guarantee that the decisions from that judge were unbiased. [6] [7]
8.2 PM CARES Fund: The Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) was created on 27 March 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The total amount of funds donated and the names of donors have not been publicly disclosed, and the fund is privately audited. The Government of India had initially claimed that the fund is a private fund, and denied that the PM CARES Fund is a public fund for the purposes of transparency laws such as the Right to Information Act 2005, even though the Fund uses government infrastructure and the national emblem of the Government of India. In December 2020, the Government of India reversed its stance and admitted that the PM CARES Fund was a public fund, but still refused to disclose information regarding it under the Right to Information Act 2005. [8] [9]
8.3 Electoral bonds and FCRA amendments: While the common man has to declare every cent of their income, political parties are allowed to take huge sum of money without disclosing any details. The Delhi high court had in 2014 indicted both Congress and BJP for receiving foreign funds in violation of the existing FCRA Act, and the RPA Act that specifically prohibits parties from accepting contributions from a foreign source. The court asked the government and EC to act against the two political parties. In response, the BJP government has amended the FCRA Act itself, and exempted from scrutiny all foreign funding to parties retrospectively from 1976! Furthermore, the amended Companies Act now allows any foreign company registered in India to make contributions through bonds to political parties, overruling legitimate doubts about who or where its real owners are, or what its source of funding is. [10]
>> The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians, and arrived in India before the end of December 2014. [1]
Government of India amended a bill to allow Indian citizenship. They added a list of religions but somehow excluded only Muslims from that list.
> Government of India amended a bill to allow Indian citizenship. They added a list of religions but somehow excluded only Muslims from that list.
Because Muslims obviously are not traveling to India fearing religious persecution in ISLAMIC countries. That is... a big oxymoron.
The fast-tracking of Citizenship was for "persecuted religious minorities".
Muslims are welcome to come through Regular routes just like every other Citizen of the World (which also includes Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians from other countries not part of the 3 countries mentioned in the Act for instance). There are many Hindus who fled Sri Lanka and taken refugee status in India but haven't been brought under CAA as their status is still unclear (i.e. if they want to go back to Sri Lanka or not as the persecution was not of religious nature). The CAA was enacted specifically for minority religious persecution. How can you link that with regular Immigration which continues unabated? These refugees are languishing without Citizenship for 40+ years. Have some sympathy for them.
It is exactly the same as Jews fleeing persecution. Did US not fast-track citizenship for such Jews? Precedent has already been set by the United States. Now will you condemn USA for the same? [1]
Let me quote from the Lautenberg Amendment and the discussion prior to that:
"C. Special Category Aliens
Since 1989, legislators have pushed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for increased admissions of specific religious and ethnic groups, in particular Soviet
Jews and Evangelicals, Czechs, and Poles. In doing so, they have created special preference categories for specific aliens. 34 In May of 1989, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (DNJ) proposed that Congress create a "rebuttable presumption of refugee status for Soviet Jews, Evangelical Christians and certain Southeast Asian nationals."
`The Lautenberg Amendment required the Executive branch to establish:
one or more categories of aliens who are or were nationals and residents of the
Soviet Union and who share common characteristics that identify them as targets
of persecution in the Soviet Union on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion .... [One such category
shall include] aliens who are ... nationals ... of the Soviet Union and who are
Jews or Evangelical Christians.`
`President Bush signed the Lautenberg Amendment on November 21, 1989.41 The
Amendment allows for a reduced admission standard for the particular groups and requires the eligible aliens to assert a fear of persecution and show a "credible basis for
concern about the possibility of such persecution. 42`
> names of donors have not been publicly disclosed
Why should names of donors be disclosed? It is a donation for a charitable cause. Charity is typically done anonymously unless the donor explicitly requests to be named.
> fund is privately audited
I don't see anything wrong with that. It is the same as the erstwhile Prime Minister's National Relief Fund which ran for 70 years and introduced by the Congress Party.
> The Government of India had initially claimed that the fund is a private fund, and denied that the PM CARES Fund is a public fund for the purposes of transparency laws such as the Right to Information Act 2005, even though the Fund uses government infrastructure and the national emblem of the Government of India
This is fake news spread by NDTV. The Government did not say anywhere that it was a private fund. This was deliberate misinterpretation of Clause 5.3 of the Trust Deed [1] by NDTV. It was registered as a "Public Charitable Trust" [2]
Yes it does not come under RTI just like the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund which was setup by the Congress Party but was not even registered.
The Fund using Government infrastructure or National Emblem of GoI has no bearing on it to being included under RTI. Even the earlier Prime Minister's National Relief Fund, which was unregistered entity, carried the National Emblem and used Government infrastructure and was not under RTI. So why was no issue raised on that? The PM CARES Fund is not an institution that is established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. And the funds are not used for day-to-day functioning of the Government of India. Hence, it cannot come under RTI. Now would it be good if the Government brought it under RTI? Yes, it would be good as it would quell all doubts regarding the fund. Can it be forced to bring it under RTI? No it cannot be. There is already precedent set by Prime Minister's National Relief Fund which functioned for 70 years as an unregistered entity with no audits being carried out by the CAG. At least the PM CARES fund is registered and goes through scrutiny by independent auditors from a panel suggested by the CAG. I would definitely vote for more transparency in the fund, but I wouldn't be shocked/surprised if this petition was struck down by the Courts.
---------------------------
> 8.1 Rafale Scam: The supreme court of India headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi gave clean chit to government without requiring any investigation. Government recommended the same judge for Rajya Sabha right after his retirement from the court. I cant say how its morally/ethically right for a judge to accept post-retirement benefit from government and how you can guarantee that the decisions from that judge were unbiased. [6] [7]
Yes you can question the ethics/morality of this. But this is not the first time such a thing has been done. CJIs/Judges taking up jobs in the Government (or even joining Political Parties) post-retirement is not new. And in my opinion it should be avoided to safeguard sanctity of institutions s/he was part of. But you cannot restrict a private citizen from exercising his fundamental rights. The Judge, after retirement, is a private citizen who has all the Rights to do as he pleases. Even if that means joining a Political Party.
However, this cannot be the basis for questioning a judgement based on facts. You are not just insinuating that the CJI acted with bias but also the other 2 Justices of the Supreme Court of India to not have exercised their independent judgement but were coerced by the Government of India. Don't forget that it wasn't Ranjan Gogoi alone but 2 other Justices who sat on the bench. It was decided by all 3 of them. It was unanimous verdict. Not a tie breaker where the CJI had to involve.
The Chief Justice of India or any Court of Law is not duty bound to conduct/direct conducting of investigations in an "alleged" scam without prima facie evidence. In fact, it is the duty of the petitioner to produce evidence "after" conducting investigations "prior" to submitting the petition. Is it the job of the Court to order investigative agencies to investigate random petitions, with no prima facie evidence, filed by petitioners? Can I make a wild accusation against the Government of India, move a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court and expect the Court to direct investigative agencies to investigate the Government just to satisfy my wishes? Then I can easily get 1000s of petitions filed with frivolous accusations and turn the Court and the Government into a circus show. You are expecting too much from the Court. The Court only orders investigations if it finds prima-facie evidence that there is some malpractice or illegality. It could not find any in this case.
Splitting into multiple comments as Hacker News is complaining that it is too long. I'll answer in the order of the most contentious issue you raised first. I will tackle the easy ones in the end.
Responding to 8.3:
> In response, the BJP government has amended the FCRA Act itself, and exempted from scrutiny all foreign funding to parties retrospectively from 1976
This is partly true and some of the wording is incorrect (and facts are misinterpreted). Firstly, the article is written by Pavan K Varma who is a Politician from an Opposition Party (and was recently removed from the party). Not saying that it somehow invalidates his points. Just that there can be vested interests in this as it is his opinion.
The fact is that the Congress Government had already implemented this in 2010 (in a previous amendment to the act). The current BJP Government shifted the year from 2010 further back to 1976. Even if the current BJP Government hadn't amended it, it wouldn't have any issues itself as the case concerned those Governments pre-2014 as per the Court order (and would have scrutinized the previous BJP Government of the 90s headed by different individuals, all of whom are not even in power today). The current BJP Government probably did it to not want to waste Government resources and time on checking every single donation received from 1976 onwards for all parties. This is just my guess. An explanation of this in the Supreme Court will definitely be provided by the Government. We can only wait for that explanation. But even then, I'll try to answer with my limited understanding of the matter.
Pavan K Varma seems to have misunderstood the amendment. The amendment declared what is considered a "foreign source". The technicality is that of having received "foreign contributions" and it being violation of FCRA act. That part I agree with. What I disagree with is that it can now no longer be "scrutinized". That is patently false. It can be scrutinized but cannot be called "illegal". Now is this ethical/correct thing to do? Absolutely not. I suspect all the Political parties arrived at an understanding to not allow skeletons of the past to tumble out in public domain and collectively agreed to allow this amendment to pass. It is not mere coincidence that the Government passed this Amendment without discussion amidst din in the Parliament orchestrated by the Opposition benches. It did so fully in collusion with Opposition parties as well (as they knew what was in the amendment and did not want to discuss it in public domain). This should not have been done this way. It would have been better if there was a discussion held, the political parties accepted their faults of the past and declared to the Nation that they'll rectify it going forward. But it wasn't done because the Opposition has its own skeletons to hide and hence is weak. The ruling dispensation has its own skeletons to hide but is not willing to go through them as it has power and can do whatever it likes. Which is why I stressed on having a strong opposition in my final point in my previous reply. This sort of constructive opposition is needed so that the Government is put in the dock and truth comes out. But we have such a weak opposition (primarily cos it has its own horrid past) that it targets the Government only on those points where it knows it is bound to lose.
Anyways, this is where the Supreme Court comes in and now that the matter is before the Court, the Court will definitely take a call.
Now is it possible for Government to retrospectively fix this illegality? Yes it is possible. It has all the legislative powers to do this. Can Court strike down this amendment? Not possible at all as Judiciary cannot overstretch to that extent. It can only interpret the Law not amend it. It can strike down a Law if it has specific proof of the Law being used for malicious intent. I don't see that happening. As the Government can easily explain it away by saying that the Law was enacted without keeping in mind "so and so [insert excuse here]" and hence needed to be Amended. In fact, this sort of stuff happens quite regularly even for regular citizens like you and me, where stringent penalties (both civil and criminal) are sometimes retrospectively amended as the Law was enacted wrongly to begin with (happened in GST amendments so many times I lost count). In my case specifically (since I am an exporter and this applies to all exporters), the Government, through RBI, decided to push the date for regularization of Bank Realization Certificates indefinitely (even though it is against FEMA regulations) to facilitate exports which were badly affected during COVID crisis. This was done through an order by RBI. Another one is forgiving/waiving of farmer loans. It is literally making something illegal legal. Another good example is retrospectively amending the imposition of a minimum alternative tax on foreign companies so that FDI inflows are not affected. Not all retrospective amendments are "bad" per se. Sometimes the Law is just too strict to be able to do anything meaningful with the Law requiring such retrospective amendments as such Laws were enacted at a time where such issues were not envisioned to occur. The only time retrospective amendment was negatively scrutinized was during the Vodafone case where Vodafone dragged Indian Government to the International Court of Arbitration, Hague with the Indian Government losing the case.
> While the common man has to declare every cent of their income, political parties are allowed to take huge sum of money without disclosing any details
This is wrong. Political parties are 100% exempt from paying taxes on donations. However, they are not given relief from disclosing details of the donations. In fact, the Political parties are duty bound to declare every single paisa they get. Any political party as per Section 13A is required to furnish return of income under Section 139(4B) if its income exceeds maximum amount not chargeable to tax (limit is computed before taking into consideration Section 13A exemption). Tax slab applicable for political parties is same as the one applicable to normal resident individual. It is the responsibility of CEO of the political party to file the return of income and also to sign and verify the same.
The bone of contention really is that Electoral Bonds introduces anonymous electronic donations. But that was the case before as well. Except it was in hard cash and not electronic cash. And hard cash = black money. Electoral Bonds on the other hand can only be purchased through check or demand draft with full KYC. So even though the payee is not necessary to be declared (as donors would like to protect their affiliation), the amount itself is not black money at the very least as it has to now only be paid through Cheque/Demand Draft and not Cash. Now the question is, should the payee details be declared? What if I donated to Congress today and some despot/tyrant takes over India tomorrow and gets a list of all donors who donated to Congress so as to kill them? Do I want my political affiliation to be declared publicly? This is a question of privacy of an individual/corporate entity and not of legality. What if me donating to BJP leads to some mob deciding to cancel me for my political affiliation? Isn't that what happened in US where US Companies were forced to shut down their donations to a certain political party by the mob because it did not align with mob interests else be cancelled for supporting such party? This directly affects my Freedom of Expression. If my voting preference must be kept private and anonymous, why should my Electoral donations be forced to be made public? Wouldn't that reveal my voting preference? How ethical is that?
> 6. Settling the Ayodhya Dispute: Is it done by Supreme Court or Government? Are you implying that Supreme Court is not independent and Government has a hand in Supreme Court decisions?
The Supreme Court only resolved the title issue. The Government on the other hand went out of the way to provide Muslim Party huge land to build a Mosque. Which was welcomed by Muslim Organizations except for Asaduddin Owaisi and few terror organizations like PFI/SDPI. There was no need for the Government to give land to Muslim Organizations to build a Mosque when the title dispute was between private parties. So yes, I applaud the Government for doing what it did.
> 5. Economy flourished: Agree with you that India's GDP and Ease of doing business is growing. But I don't know what are real changes that people started noticing on the ground. Highways are being built at record pace but they are charging Toll for most of the highways and those highways are built and operated by private companies.
Why shouldn't Toll be charged? I don't see any problem in this as the roads require continuous maintenance too. I don't see anything wrong in Public-Private Participation. Why shouldn't highways be built by private companies? The tender is issued by the Government of India. Paid for by the citizen's taxes. Which goes to the Private companies which employs millions of Indians. So the taxes I pay are indirectly coming back to me in various forms and infrastructure is being built simultaneously. I don't see what exactly is wrong here. Do you want the Government to build highways? I want minimum Governance. I don't want Government to involve in areas where private sector would do a much better job. I rather the Government outsource it to private sector which can do it quickly and efficiently than try to do everything and not succeed in anything. Most public sector companies directly controlled/managed by the Government is always loss making (with exception of ISRO). Look at what happened to Air India. I prefer if Government sells public sector companies to private enterprises and only focus on legislation, security and governance and not involve in building companies. The Government's role is not to build Companies.
> 4. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act: I think this is also done only to act against muslims of India. I absolutely do not support Triple Talaq and I like that they ended it but I don't think the intension is to protect women rights. Even current PM Modi has left his own wife without giving her a divorce. [4]
Modi leaving his own wife was not to get into relations with another woman. Nor was it to not provide alimony. Modi left his wife as he was forced into the engagement when he was a child (teenager) against his wishes (as it was tradition/custom during those days to do child marriage — a custom which he refused to follow and accept). He wanted to live the life of an ascetic so he ran away from home and reached the Himalayas to study under a Sage and become a monk. The Sage instead refused to teach and induct him into the Sanyasi order and told him to enter politics as that is where his destiny lies.
Modi and his wife have an understanding between them. If his wife was upset, she could have moved the court anytime. She hasn't. In fact she supports him by attending all his rallies in Gujarat.
I, for one, applaud Modi for not consummating his child marriage (he was engaged at tender age of 13 years). This is a very difficult thing to do. Especially in that sort of orthodox society and during those times (this is 1960s rural India). This is nothing but progressive thought.
Comparing this to instant triple-talaq is an insult IMHO. Triple-talaq is a disrespect to the woman involved. It is not done out of agreement but pure misuse of Islamic Sharia Law.
> 3. Citizenship Amendment Act: The way I see it, it's done only to act against muslims of India. They excluded only muslims from the list and included all other religions. There are conflicting statements from the ministers of Indian Government where Home Minister of India even seems to be indirectly threatening Muslims [2] [3]
No. This sort of Act was implemented by the United States too. When it gave fast-track citizenship to Jewish migrants fleeing Nazi Germany. They fled fearing persecution and rightly so. They were granted fast-track Citizenship rightly so. So why then should Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis fleeing Islamic Nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh fearing Religious Persecution not be granted fast-track Citizenship? Did the Government of India bar regular Citizenship to Muslims from neighboring countries? No it did not. Even now Muslims from neighboring countries are taking citizenship through normal route.
The articles you linked don't say anything about "threatening Muslims". [2] is about not linking NRC with CAA. NRC is different Bill altogether that hasn't even been drafted, let alone passed in the parliament. NRC is register of Citizens just like every Democratic Country keeps a register of its Citizens to differentiate between legal citizens and illegal aliens so as to provide Government subsidies and services only to legal citizens. The NRC on a State level is only implemented in Assam till now. Assam because of mass illegal migration that has been going on from Bangladesh to India. In neither of the links you provided has the Government threatened Muslims. Illegal aliens will be deported however. This is not a new issue but a long standing demand of majority of Indians from the past 4 decades (ever since the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971). You can check any opinion poll that was conducted regarding this issue and you will get at least 95% of the poll responding with a yes to introducing NRC. However, CAA has no connection to NRC whatsoever.
> 2. Implementing GST (Goods and Service Tax): Again I like that government made a strong decision and completed a long pending issue. However, I see the GST has also caused tax rate to be increased a lot on most of the items. There are many different tax rates and businesses has to file a lot more reports on monthly/yearly basis. For example VAT on software products used to be 5% but now GST on software products is 18%. Similarly now people have to pay GST on many essentials and food items. [1]
That is again wrong. The earlier VAT and Service Tax regime had a tax-on-tax issue which doesn't exist in GST. Only VAT had input tax credits which could be redeemed. Service Tax did not. The rest 10 other taxes also did not have input tax credits facility. This facility was only provided under GST. Thereby the net product value actually dropped. The compounding tax issue is something that can only be explained by an example.
In earlier regime, if I had a 10$ raw product (say I manufacture plastic pellets), the 12 taxes together would have been say 5%. That would be 10.5$ in total. Now if I purchase the raw material to create plastic bottles. The cost of manufacturing plastic bottles is 10$. Now the total cost would be 10+10.5 = 20.5$. Adding 5% tax on that, it would be: 21.0125$. Which is what the end consumer would pay. You would have paid a total tax of 1.0125$.
Now let us take case of GST. It would be 10$ + 18% = 11.8$. However, that extra 1.8$ would come back to me as Input Tax Credits. So effectively I have purchased only for 10$. Now I manufacture the product for 10$. The total cost of the product would then be: 10$ + (10$ + 18% * 10$) = 21.8$ (notice that there is no compounding of tax like in previous regime). In this case, my output tax liability would still be 1.8$ only. However, I pay 0$ in tax as I have 1.8$ as credits from my previous purchase which I can utilize to reduce my output tax liability. So the total cost of the product would then be: 21.8$ with me effectively paying 0 tax as a seller. This is a brilliant taxation scheme. In fact, you can not just club in raw material purchases but also any business expenses and bring your tax liability to negative and request a refund from the Tax department. It is called as "cascading tax effect" which GST removes completely. I think you haven't understood how important GST is and you aren't taking advantage of what GST provides if you are only taxing your software product but not claiming Input Tax Credits for your business expenses. Read more about "cascading tax effect" here [4]
> 1. Abrogation of Article 370: Honestly I like that government made a strong decision and completed a long pending issue but I don't see how it can improve peace in the region or how it can stop the attacks or how it impacts life of any common citizen.
That will happen in due course. Already seeing major improvements in Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. Don't forget that the State is not just Kashmir. It also includes Jammu and Ladakh which actually form the major part of the State. However since Ladakh was bifurcated into its own Union Territory, it now gets special attention as it was the most neglected region before the Abrogation happened. And it will take time to bring everything back to normalcy. The spate of Terror attacks has definitely reduced a lot but now there is targeted killings of Kashmiri Hindus. That will also die down slowly as the Indian Army eliminates Terror groups and Terror sympathizers.
Being the vaccine manufacturing hub of the world since a few decades, if India did not manufacture its own vaccines it would be a shock. I don’t think that’s something unusual – if anything failure to scale up vaccine manufacturing that led to a deadly second wave is to be considered an abject failure.
Wow. What was the government action that they didn't get credit for? Do you have any reference to support your claim?
During peak time of corona, PM Modi was doing in-person election rallies during the day with thousands of crowds and giving a speech in evening to ask people to avoid gatherings.
This is a news article from April 19, 2021. [1]
>> Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces growing criticism across the political spectrum for holding large election rallies as the country’s health system reels from a deadly wave of Covid-19 cases, forcing citizens to beg for oxygen and hospital beds on Twitter.
>> Modi avoided wearing a mask at a campaign rally on Saturday, saying “I’ve never seen such huge crowds” at an event in West Bengal.
>> That night he said “India had defeated Covid last year and India can do it again” following a virtual meeting with health officials who spoke of critical shortages of drugs, vaccines and other supplies in a nation that has seen a string of new daily records in the past two weeks.
>> Modi was doing political rallies with large number of crowds when coron was at its peak in India.
In Feb Modi hosted Donald Trump with a gathering of 100,000+ Indians. [4]
>> AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - (Feb 2020) Donald Trump was cheered by more than 100,000 Indians at the opening of the world’s largest cricket stadium on Monday, promising “an incredible trade deal” and “the most feared military equipment on the planet” at his biggest rally abroad.
> Who gets to make the call that these risks are okay and are not as bad as the negative impact(s) we may face from climate change? Who decides that it is an acceptable trade-off to wipe out entire species and ecosystems and potentially some percent of the human population?
Well you have your answer already: the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. If anything, it was a grand scale experiment to see how well human beings can listen to and obey Orders. How well human beings can adhere to lockdowns and mask mandates and how well they will work. How well the Government and so called "Experts" will handle the grave situation. To weigh pros and cons of dying due to the virus vs dying due to starvation and poverty.
The result is that everyone fucked up. Big time. We are extremely lucky that the virus had a low fatality rate and was not like the black plague which wiped out 60% of Europe's population.
None of these "Executive Orders" were through Consensus or Vote. We were forced to "trust" the Government and the "Experts" to do the right thing. And how many of us know anything about viruses or developing vaccines to make any sort of reasonable judgement anyways? A tiny percentage of the entire populace. We had no choice really.
Irrespective of how bad they fucked up — from flip-flopping on mask mandates to imposing extremely harsh lockdowns that caused economic distress and induced the recession we are in now — not to discount the crazy Wars going on in the World especially after a devastating pandemic. We have proven ourselves to be the most inept "superficially intelligent" species which is due for another genetic evolution — the last one being the Neanderthal extinction some 40,000 years ago [1].
We let the elites and experts take decisions on our behalf and we saw how it fucked everything up. This is going to be no different. When push comes to shove, some old buffoons, holding desperately on to power, in their 70s, 80s or 90s, with little to no cognitive abilities, will be deciding the fate of approximately 8 billion people. To support these buffoons will be those greedy good-for-nothing companies that will be looking at how best to profit from the situation... all while being on the verge of extinction.
We are royally screwed. There is no denying that. If some highly evolved super-intelligent species of the future writes a history on Homo Sapiens, it would definitely be that we were the only species to have "fought amongst each other, stuttering and stammering our way to extinction, taking with us a perfectly habitable planet".
Humans are pretty good at following economic orders however. Almost perfect at that, given some time of weeks or months. Economic actors respond to prices in the economy in a very predictable pattern.
One very good example, of following economic orders, is the shortage of masks, at the start of the covihoax. Less masks available, orders the price to go up, because more people are bidding up masks which are of short supply. One billion masks, roughly every week, only for the US, is an extraordinary amount, which would cause the price to go ballistic, 10x, 100x or maybe even 1000x. Masks are useless of course after just one use, so everyone who follows the science and wants to be safe, is obliged to buy a mask almost everyday. We didn't see anywhere mask prices to follow this pattern, so what happened? Maybe hundreds of millions of people were lying with their mouth, but not with their money, is one explanation that comes to mind.
One other good example is the submerging of coastal lines to the sea. Here in Greece, i think we have the biggest coastline of every other nation in the world. Someone would expect coastline house prices to drop a lot, 10x easily. 2050 or something for the house to be submerged into the water, is a very short period of time, considering how long a good house can last. New housing located at coast lines, should drop almost to zero. Did we see any of these scenarios happen? Of course not! How come prices of the soon to be submerged houses are high as ever? Maybe one possibility is that billions of people lie only with their mouths, not with their sacred and hard earned money!
"It is the year 8000. Humanity has
joined a vast universal republic along
with tens of thousands of alien worlds.
All worlds agree on one thing: the
search for intelligent life still continues."
The thing about a plan like this, though, is it doesn't require cooperation from the public. Getting everyone to stay home, wear masks, socially distance, and get vaccines is indeed a pretty hard problem.
But decreeing that a few hundreds or thousands of scientists and engineers are going to make a possibly-catastrophic change to our biosphere doesn't require getting regular citizens to do anything.
Having said that, I do expect public opinion to play a role in deciding what (if anything) gets done. Whether or not it'll be enough to stop something catastrophic from happening... probably not?
Yes Indian state recognizes all castes. That is the core problem. For the system to be dismantled you need the Indian state to stop recognizing castes and implement US style Affirmative Action and only provide Reservation opportunities to those from low income groups.
But the first ones to fight against this reform would be the "lower caste" strata of the population. Who would give up freebies, Government jobs as well as an education in Prestigious Universities where you can guaranteed to get it based on your birth caste and not on merit? No one would. If I am born in any of the "lower caste" groups I can easily get a Government job, free/subsidized education in any Prestigious University irrespective of my scores/performance. Now there is talk of reservation/quotas in land distribution as well (comments by a politician in a recent speech to his base). Idea is that if you want to purchase land some section of the land is reserved if you belong to a particular caste (and will probably be available for lower than market rate as well). However ridiculous it might sound.
Affirmative Action in US doesn't have a quota system or reservation. It instead focuses on equal opportunity (no denial of opportunity to anyone based on their race/creed/color/sex/religion etc). This is different from India's Caste based reservation system where you are guaranteed of a job/education if you belong to lower caste. Doesn't matter if you are merited or not. Doesn't matter if you are rich or not. Even seats in the Parliament of India have reservations/quotas for lower castes.
It is ridiculous to talk about dismantling caste system while in the same breath prop up structures that actively promotes this same caste system on the Government level. And the Politicians do not want to dismantle said system because it helps with their vote bank.
> Most Indians do not interact with people outside their groups as most things are written in the languages they use
What? At this point I think you are troll account. You have already made wild and ridiculous statements like caste system being a form of "systemic slavery" in India. Now you are saying that only a "small percentage" of Indians speak English? Are you serious mate? English is the official language of India for literally everything. From giving exams to Government communications.
> Only a small percentage of Indians speak English and most statistics on it are heavily inflated
Where is the data for this?
> It's not Singapore or even close to it in English proficency trying to claim it is, is a lie.
