Analysis of The Hindu Editorial – December 18, 2024

Analysis of The Hindu Editorial 1 : The legal gaps in India’s unregulated AI surveillance

Context

India’s rapid adoption of AI-powered surveillance technologies, including facial recognition and data collection systems, highlights a troubling gap in legal safeguards. While these advancements promise improved governance and policing, they raise serious concerns about privacy, constitutional rights, and potential misuse. The absence of robust regulations leaves citizens vulnerable to overreach.

Introduction

In 2019, India made headlines with its ambitious plan to develop the world’s largest facial recognition system for law enforcement. Fast forward to today, AI-powered surveillance is already in play, with systems installed at railway stations, Delhi Police gearing up for AI-driven crime patrols, and even plans for 50 AI-powered satellites to amplify surveillance capabilities.

While technological advancements in policing are impressive, they raise profound concerns about legality, constitutionality, and the encroachment of citizens’ rights. This article delves into the gaps in India’s legal frameworks governing AI surveillance, exploring its implications for privacy, constitutional principles, and the need for balanced regulation.

Telangana Police Data Breach: A Wake-Up Call

The Telangana Police data breach in 2023 revealed alarming insights into the practices of Indian law enforcement. Hyderabad police had access to massive social welfare databases, such as the Samagra Vedika, sparking concerns over transparency and the extent of data being collected.

What Does This Mean for Privacy?

• The breach highlights the potential misuse of sensitive personal data without accountability.
• Citizens are left unaware of how their data is accessed or used, leading to a lack of trust in public institutions.

This incident underlines the pressing need for stringent data protection measures to ensure transparency and prevent breaches that could jeopardize citizens’ privacy.

Lack of Proportional Safeguards

India’s surveillance infrastructure is rapidly expanding, but legal safeguards remain inadequate. The 2017 K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India judgment recognized privacy as a fundamental right, extending it to informational privacy. Despite this, AI surveillance systems often bypass these principles.

Key Challenges

1. Ubiquitous Dataveillance: AI-powered systems enable constant monitoring, creating an environment where individual freedoms are undermined.
2. Absence of Legal Boundaries: Current surveillance practices lack proportional safeguards, allowing overreach.
3. Constitutional Contradictions: The government’s drive for data-driven governance often conflicts with Article 21, which guarantees the right to privacy.

Without proportional checks, India risks fostering a surveillance state that contradicts its democratic values.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA): A Double-Edged Sword

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) of 2023 aimed to bring structure to India’s data privacy landscape but has drawn criticism for its broad exemptions that favor state surveillance.

Exemptions That Raise Red Flags

• Section 7(g): Allows data processing without consent for medical emergencies during epidemics.
• Section 7(i): Exempts the government from consent requirements for employment-related data.
• Section 15(c): Mandates citizens to provide accurate information, penalizing errors such as outdated addresses.

These provisions disproportionately empower the government while leaving citizens vulnerable to misuse. The lack of independent oversight further intensifies concerns, especially with AI’s ability to process massive data sets.

India’s Unregulated AI Deployment in Policing

Unlike countries like the EU that have clear AI regulatory frameworks, India has plunged into AI-driven policing with little public debate or transparency. Facial recognition and surveillance technologies are being implemented in cities like Delhi and Hyderabad without public guidelines on data collection, processing, or storage.

Global Lessons: What Can India Learn?

1. The EU’s Risk-Based Approach: The Artificial Intelligence Act classifies AI activities into risk categories, prohibiting those that pose unacceptable risks.
2. Transparency Mandates: Real-time biometric identification is strictly regulated in the EU, with exceptions only for critical cases like tracking serious crimes.

India’s unregulated use of AI not only lacks these safeguards but also risks setting a dangerous precedent of unchecked state power.

Constitutional Concerns in AI Surveillance

AI surveillance in India raises fundamental constitutional questions, particularly concerning the right to privacy and proportionality.

Stretching Constitutional Limits

• The Puttaswamy judgment requires that any invasion of privacy be lawful, necessary, and proportionate. However, India’s AI surveillance practices often bypass these principles.
• With AI, the line between lawful surveillance and overreach becomes blurred, risking infringements on civil liberties.

India must ensure that AI technologies do not undermine the very constitutional rights they are supposed to uphold.

The Need for a Comprehensive Regulatory Framework

India is at a crossroads where balancing technological advancements with constitutional rights is critical.

What Should the Framework Include?

• Public Disclosure: Clearly state what data is collected, its purpose, and retention periods.
• Specific Exemptions: Limit exemptions for data processing, ensuring judicial oversight.
• Transparency in Consent Gathering: AI systems must obtain informed and voluntary consent, with mechanisms for citizens to withdraw it.
• Adopt a Risk-Based Approach: Classify AI activities by risk level, mirroring the EU’s strategy.

By embedding privacy safeguards into AI infrastructure, India can prevent the need for costly retrofitting and mitigate potential abuses.

Comparative Legislation on AI: India vs. the World

Several countries have made significant strides in regulating AI, offering valuable lessons for India.

The EU’s Approach

• Risk Categorization: Activities posing high risks to civil liberties are either restricted or subject to strict oversight.
• Prohibition of Unacceptable Risks: Real-time biometric surveillance is banned unless for exceptional circumstances.

The U.S. Example

• The U.S. faces challenges under Section 702 of FISA, where surveillance laws sometimes overstep, but it offers robust checks like judicial oversight and transparency.

India must take cues from these examples to build a balanced regulatory ecosystem that protects citizens’ rights without stifling innovation.

Balancing AI and Constitutional Rights

AI-powered surveillance is undoubtedly transformative, but without safeguards, it poses serious threats to democracy.

Key Recommendations

• Incorporate Privacy Measures: Ensure privacy safeguards are part of AI infrastructure design.
• Pre-Deployment Assessments: Conduct risk assessments before rolling out surveillance technologies.
• Judicial Oversight: Establish independent bodies to oversee AI applications and prevent misuse.

India must prioritize citizens’ rights over unchecked technological advancement to strike the right balance.

Conclusion

India’s unregulated AI surveillance presents a complex challenge. While technologies like the DPDP Act attempt to address data privacy, broad exemptions and lack of oversight leave citizens exposed to risks. A proactive regulatory framework—one that emphasizes transparency, accountability, and proportionality—is the need of the hour.

By learning from global practices and embedding privacy safeguards into AI deployment, India can leverage AI for governance while protecting civil liberties.

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Analysis of The Hindu Editorial 2 : Stuck in the classroom — students, teachers, NEP 2020

Context

Indian higher education under NEP 2020 envisions student-centric learning, yet excessive classroom hours hinder this goal. With longer schedules than their Western counterparts, students and faculty face fatigue, reduced creativity, and limited assessment diversity. Aligning policies with global standards is essential to foster reflective learning and prepare students for future challenges.

Introduction

Indian higher education students are spending significantly more time in classrooms compared to their counterparts in the European Union (EU) and North America. Ironically, this increased classroom time doesn’t equate to better learning outcomes. The primary culprits? A higher proportion of teaching hours in course credits and a greater number of courses mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

This article explores the academic impacts of India’s heavy classroom schedules, the assessment challenges it creates, and how it compares globally. It also highlights the implications for teachers and offers actionable suggestions to align with NEP 2020’s vision of dynamic, student-centric learning.

A Contrast in Academic Structures

Time in Classrooms: India vs. the West

• EU and North America: Universities typically offer four courses per semester, with each course requiring up to three hours of weekly lectures. This setup caps classroom hours at 12 hours per week.
• India: Indian students take five courses per semester, each demanding four hours of weekly lectures. This totals around 20 hours per week in classrooms—nearly double the time spent by their Western peers.

Impact on Academic Activities

The extra eight hours in Indian classrooms come at the expense of critical academic activities like self-study, reading, and working on assignments. Overburdened students often feel fatigued, leaving little room for meaningful exploration or reflective learning. This exhaustion diminishes the learning experience and undermines the broader goals of higher education.

Assessment Challenges in NEP 2020

Reduced Scope for Assessments

• Under the earlier three-year undergraduate system, four courses per semester allowed for diverse and continuous assessments.
• In contrast, the new four-year undergraduate structure under NEP 2020 limits students to completing no more than two assessments per course due to time constraints.

Impact on Assessment Diversity

• Increased reliance on multiple-choice questions (MCQs): Time-efficient but less effective in fostering critical thinking.
• Neglect of reflective assessments: Essays, term papers, and group projects, which encourage deeper learning, are becoming rare.

The Rote Learning Trap

An overburdened schedule incentivizes rote memorization, where students passively absorb information rather than actively engaging with it. At the university level, this approach undermines the very essence of education—critical thinking, creativity, and intellectual ownership.

Empowering Students to Own Learning

Effective learning requires:

• Time to reflect, plan, and implement learning strategies.
• Opportunities to collaborate with peers and explore cross-disciplinary solutions.
  Assignments like reflective essays and collaborative projects can foster this environment, but only if students have sufficient time beyond the classroom.

Continuous Assessment: A Missed Opportunity

The NEP 2020 Vision

NEP 2020 advocates for continuous assessment, where students are evaluated through three or four smaller components throughout the semester instead of a few high-stakes exams.

Why Continuous Assessment Matters

• Encourages consistent effort: Prevents last-minute cramming and fosters steady progress.
• Faculty flexibility: Allows instructors to adapt assessments to course objectives.
• Feedback loop: Students and teachers can adjust learning and teaching strategies mid-semester based on performance.

Challenges for Teachers

The extra eight hours of weekly classroom teaching for Indian faculty reduce the time they can allocate to:

• Designing diverse and meaningful assessments.
• Revising courses to keep them current.
• Conducting research and engaging in cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Without addressing these challenges, the potential of NEP 2020’s vision for holistic learning remains largely unrealized.

Comparison of Teaching Loads: India vs. Global Standards

Aspect	India	EU/North America
Weekly classroom hours	14-16 hours	9 hours
Courses per semester	5	2-3
Flexibility in teaching	Limited, centralized guidelines	High, faculty-driven

Key Observations

• Indian faculty spend significantly more time in classrooms than their global counterparts, leaving little bandwidth for professional development or innovative teaching practices.
• The rigid schedules in Indian universities contrast sharply with the flexibility enjoyed by teachers in Western institutions, where they can focus more on personalized learning and course quality.

Role of Teachers: Then vs. Now

Expanded Responsibilities under NEP 2020

Teachers are no longer just lecturers; they are now expected to:

1. Design courses.
2. Select and curate reading materials.
3. Develop assessments and administer them.
4. Grade students individually.

Challenges in Public Universities

Unlike elite institutions such as IITs or IIMs, public universities—where the bulk of India’s students study—lack the resources to meet NEP 2020’s expectations. Faculty in these institutions often juggle heavy classroom schedules with limited support, impacting the quality of education delivered.

Aligning NEP 2020 with Practical Realities

Time for Reflection

To truly empower students, India’s education system must provide them with:

• Fewer classroom hours to focus on self-learning.
• Opportunities to engage in projects, internships, and cross-disciplinary studies.

Support for Faculty

Teachers need:

• More time to engage in research and curriculum development.
• Administrative support to reduce the burden of grading and scheduling.

Policy Changes Needed

• Reconsider classroom hours: Align with international norms to reduce fatigue for both students and faculty.
• Introduce flexible credit systems: Limit mandatory courses and allow students to explore electives.

Conclusion

The NEP 2020 aims to revolutionize Indian higher education, but its potential remains constrained by excessive classroom hours and rigid teaching loads. Reducing classroom time and providing flexibility in assessments can free students and teachers to focus on meaningful, self-driven learning.

By adopting global best practices and tailoring them to India’s unique context, the NEP 2020 can help create an education system that prepares students for the challenges of the future—without compromising on quality or creativity.

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