Read the following passage carefully and choose the most appropriate answer to the question out of the five alternatives.
Facebook’s data policy has come under fire after it emerged that more than 50 million users’ information was open to political exploitation. Facebook announced on Wednesday (March 28) that it is reviewing its data policy. Security and legal experts say there is a major flaw in the current policy. Even the highest privacy settings do not prevent Facebook from collecting information about you. These settings affect the way you share content with people on the social network. Facebook collects information about your posts, pictures, the location of pictures, the types of content you view on the social network and how long you dwell on such content. It also collects information about how you use the services, such as the types of content you view or engage with or the frequency and duration of your activities. This results in complete loss of privacy to an unknown source. Facebook collects information about your friends and the groups you are connected to, to build your profile. What they upload about you and the information they tag you with contribute to the detailed profile of you. If you use their services for purchases or financial transactions (like when you buy something on Facebook, make a purchase in a game, or make a donation), they collect information about the purchase or transaction. This includes your payment information, such as your credit or debit card number and other card information, and other account and authentication information, as well as billing, shipping and contact details. All these information have allegedly been used to understand a person's personal choices and rights. Leakage of such data is a major security threat and can change the course of action of this century.
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On the day the rupee breached the 74-mark against the US dollar for the first time, RBI governor Urjit Patel on Friday reiterated that the domestic currency is still better than its emerging market peers and that the apex bank does not have a target for it.
After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its fourth bi-monthly policy, this fiscal left the policy rates unchanged and ruled out a rate cut in the rest of the fiscal, the rupee plummeted to 74.13 against the dollar, after opening higher than its previous close at 73.52. Admitting that the country has not been immune to global spillovers from external factors, Patel said, “The rupee fall, in some respect, is moderate in comparison to several other emerging market peers.”
Ruling out a target for the currency, he said, “Our response to these unsettled conditions has been to ensure that the foreign exchange market remains liquid with no undue volatility. There is no target or band around any particular level of exchange rate, which is determined by market forces demand and supply.” Addressing the media after the customary post-policy presser, Mr Patel said the rupee has experienced bouts of volatility since the monetary policy committee meeting in August.
By the end of September, the rupee has depreciated in nominal effective terms by 5.6 per cent since the end of March. In real effective term, the rupee fall has been at 5 per cent, the governor said, adding the foreign exchange reserves of $400.5 billion as of end September, are sufficient to finance 10 months of imports.
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Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan said that consumers are benefiting in a big way from the business of scale with several services in the new technology age coming for free or very cheap, but it needs to be seen whether this can continue going ahead. Speaking in Davos at a session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, Mr. Rajan said we benefit tremendously from business of scale, there are benefits of efficiency at large corporations and consumers are gaining in a big way from low prices. For example, Google provides a big amount of free services, said Mr. Rajan, who teaches at the Chicago University and is regarded as a global voice on economy.
Mr. Rajan said that we all know nothing is free, so it needs to be known who is paying for it when consumers get it for free. He also wondered whether the business of scale is creating “super star firms” and who has the real power — is it large corporations or the governments? “Obviously they are making money somewhere and we need to know whether the two revenue sides of consumers and advertisers are comparable when it comes to data and technology platforms,” he added. Mr. Rajan said we need to think whether competition would continue in the future.
“The concern is not so much about today, but about tomorrow. We need to think whether these benefits from scale would continue for the consumers,” he said and added that “more than being about too big to manage, it is about too big to control. Our corporations are becoming too big to control for our political systems”. The panelists at the session also discussed big ticket mergers, digital platforms and market uncertainty that are transforming industries across the world. They also discussed how businesses are responding to this new strategic context.
Bank of America chief Brian T. Moynihan, Google senior vice-president Ruth Porat and Blackstone group CEO Stephen Schwarzman were among the participants. Mr. Moynihan said the banking industry in U.S. is still very unconsolidated, though there are big firms like Bank of America. He also defended strong regulatory framework for the banking industry, saying one cannot take money from people without having a strong set of regulations. Asked whether data is the new oil, Mr. Porat said data is much better as it’s not limited and data keeps getting generated by all of us.
Mr. Rajan said the U.S. has always been very uncomfortable with any entity being very big, starting with banks in 1930s. He said Facebook and Google are being talked about a lot today, but the U.S. has a history of proceeding against firms that became very big and they were broken down. However, things are changing now because of China coming into the picture.
Which of the following topics were discussed at the panel in Davos session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting?
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A state of emergency can be directly imposed or it can creep up on you in unexpected ways. Following the Narendra Modi government’s decision to ban the Hindi news channel NDTV India for an entire day (now put on hold) as punishment for its coverage of the terror attack on the Pathankot military base, the question being asked is whether the cumulative actions of this government reflect the same mentality that led Indira Gandhi to impose a state of emergency in 1975—an inability to tolerate opposition or dissent.
The government justifies its action against NDTV India on the grounds that its coverage of the Pathankot anti-terror operation gave away vital information that could have been used by those directing the attack on the military base. It claims the channel contravened rule 6(1)(p) of the programme code under the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2015. But the rule itself is problematic as is the mechanism for enforcing it. The body tasked with deciding whether a channel has transgressed the rule is the Inter-Ministerial Committee. No one with a journalistic background or knowledge of how 24-hour news networks function is on the committee. Yet, the committee judges and pronounces punishment without any judicial oversight.
The provision under which NDTV India has been hauled up is the end result of a process that began after the 26 November 2008 terror attack on Mumbai. Leading television channels, including NDTV, were criticised by the government for helping the minders of the terrorists by giving away precise information even as the attack was on. No action was taken against these channels but discussions began about bringing in a provision prohibiting live coverage of such operations. A committee headed by former Chief Justice J S Verma formed by the News Broadcasters Association, a self-regulatory body, formulated guidelines on coverage of such attacks. However, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the time was not convinced that this would suffice and instead came up with amendments to the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 that would have given the police and government officials arbitrary powers to block live transmission and confiscate equipment if they concluded that the network was going against “national interest.” Fortunately, the government heeded the strong objections of the networks and backed down. In 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured heads of news channels that no changes would be made without consultations. Yet, within a year of the Modi government assuming power, rule 6(1)(p) was added to the program code under the Cable Television Networks Rules.
The Modi government appears to have temporarily backed down in the face of strong protests from many journalistic associations and bodies and possibly also because NDTV has moved the Supreme Court. Yet, the threat remains. By picking on NDTV India, known for its critical coverage of the ruling party and government compared to other channels, the government is clearly seeking to send out a message. It is starting from the media questioning of its recent actions such as the “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control in Kashmir. So, perhaps, it has decided that a dose of indirect censorship will have the “chilling effect on the freedom of speech and expression”. The arbitrary use of power against NDTV India ought to be a wake-up call for the Indian media.
What problems are cited with using of the rule 6 (1) (p)?
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With fresh reports that the Islamic State (IS) group has bombed Baghdad to produce the “bloodiest day in months,” it’s high time to take a hard look at the Obama administration’s military effort in the Middle East. Recall that in September of 2014, President Barack Obama announced his strategy “to degrade and ultimately destroy” IS. The White House later fleshed out a “comprehensive strategy featuring nine lines of effort to counter ISIL.” ISIL is another name for the Islamic State group.
In execution of its part of this strategy, the U.S. military has not deployed large numbers of troops but rather used what it calls a “combination of factors“ in order to “enable local ground forces to push back” IS “by providing precision airstrikes, intelligence and advise-and-assist support.”
The perspective from the Middle East is not encouraging. Though information is scanty, what does exist shows that people in the Middle East have a significantly unfavorable view of the U.S. In a recent Pew Global survey, 83 percent of people in Jordan had an “unfavorable” view of the U.S. In Lebanon, it was 60 percent. In Turkey, 58 percent.
Even among Israelis, 63 percent rank Obama as the “worst” president in the last 30 years in relation to their country, despite the fact that there are no Arab armies today that are able to pose a serious threat to Israel.
Perhaps most frustrating is a State Department poll that shows that about 40 percent of Iraqis believe the U.S. is “working to destabilize Iraq and control its natural resources and nearly a third believe that America supports terrorism in general or IS specifically.” Some Iraqis even believe that they were better off under Saddam Hussein.
Which of the following can be inferred to be the real aim of USA?
I. To degrade and destroy IS.
II. To destroy terrorism in the Middle east but at the cost of its loss of superiority in the region
III. To make things difficult for Iraq for controlling its resources.