More on Rafale CAG Report: Between the Lines

IN these columns of the previous issue, the main points of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Accounts (CAG) on the Rafale deal were discussed. It was noted that all price figures had been redacted, rendering the reader incapable of informed assessment.

The Discontents of the Data Universe

IN 2011, in Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) hailed the birth of a new “asset class” – data. Going into raptures, they proclaimed data as the new oil. The WEF love for data has only grown with time. In 2019 it has declared that data is not merely oil, it is “super oil”: unlike the universe of oil, which is bound to the physical world and therefore finite, super oil or the data universe, is unbounded and growing exponentially. As long as machines can produce and consume ever larger amounts of data, the immaterial world of money and data can expand infinitely.

CAG Report: A Poor Defence of the Rafale Deal

THE long awaited CAG Report on the Rafale and 10 other defence acquisitions begins with two wrong notes. One is the acceptance of the government’s demand to redact the price details of the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) or the Rafale deal; then its disclosure in the preface that the total cost of the 11 defence acquisitions is Rs 95,000 crore, effectively giving away the Rafale deal price. A simple two minute calculation (see table 1) reveals that the price of the Rafale deal or the BXX in the CAG’s table of prices was Rs 60,576.54 crore. A case of carelessness in redaction?

Trump’s Nuclear Doctrine: I Have the Biggest Stick, Submit or be Nuked

THE US decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) on February 1, follows closely the start of its production of low yield nuclear warheads and plans to deploy them.

The Strange Spectacle of WTO Negotiations being Launched in WEF, Davos

THE US, European Union (EU) and its allies are part of a 76-country “WTO initiative” on “trade related aspects of e-commerce”. Strangely enough, this initiative was launched in the World Economic Forum at Davos, and not in any WTO fora. This “initiative” was discussed a number of times in WTO including the last ministerial in Buenos Aires in 2017, where also it was rejected. The developing countries including India had argued that without any agreement on Doha development agenda, WTO could not take up other issues.

Remembering the Republic, Planning and Science in the Times of Unreason

INDIA became a republic on January 26, 1950, when the constitution, steered by Babasaheb Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly, came into effect. It is the constitution that guarantees that all sections of people – irrespective of race, religion or caste – have full rights to the nation, including the right to a decent standard of living. It is this vision of democracy and a secular republic that is under threat today.This week is also important as January 23 is celebrated as the birthday of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Raksha Mantri on HAL & Rafale: Misdirection and Alternative Facts

RAKSHA Mantri Nirmala Sitharaman’s long and tortured statements in the Lok Sabha on January 4 and 7, 2019 during the debate on the Rafale scandal followed the by now well-established pattern of the government’s, and her own, responses to the storm of criticism and charges against the Modi government. These charges were made by a wide range of defence experts, other commentators, eminent concerned citizens and opposition political parties.

Science Will Survive the Modi Regime, Will Science Institutions?

THIS year also, the Indian Science Congress held in Jalandhar, covered itself with shame; as it has been doing for the last few years. Venkataramanan Ramakrishnan, the Nobel Prize winning scientist, had called it a circus for discussing in Mumbai session of the science congress the irrational: ancient India had aircrafts, genetic engineering, etc.

Lynching as a Public Spectacle

THE rise of hate crimes in India – cow-related violence and lynchings – has been coupled with extensive use of social media. While fake news and fake videos have often helped spark communal violence, they have also been “celebratory” in nature: participants bragging about being a part of the mob involved in the lynchings and the violence.For a number of commentators, it is the tool – social media and therefore technology – that is the root of the disease of communal violence and mob lynching, not the political forces behind the violence.

The BJP’s New Surveillance Regime

THE notification issued by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) arming10 government agencies under the Section 69 of the IT Act to break into all our communications and computers, has been followed by ministry of information technology modifying its rules. Taken together, these proposed modifications identify how the breaking of our communications will be done. The target in the first instance are the service providers – the telecom and digital service providers such as WhatsApp (owned by Facebook), Telegram, etc, and the equipment vendors.

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