[kobiguru]

In case you are serious about understanding why it was pulled out and really care about the details for such an action, I highly recommend you check the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection report [1] the Press Release section where they released the 534 pages report on it.

Gist of it is - the committee recommended major changes across the board in all sections of the act so the IT Ministry would rework the bill and present it for discussion again in the parliament.

I know India looks like a lawless place because of the chaotic news coverage in the NYtimes but it is a democracy and most if not all government action have rational policy choices that presented in the Indian parliament. The loksabha proceedings (especially the question hour) is the best way to understand what goes on in India.

Edit: For those without a lot of time should check the point by point explanation and rebuttal for the recommendations here [2]

1. http://loksabhaph.nic.in/Committee/CommitteeInformation.aspx...

2. https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/JPC-P...

[anuraj]

While that is true on rhetoric - on practice it is not. While 60% of bills went through parliamentary scrutiny prior to 2014 - the number today is just above 10%. Also Modi has the distinction of passing maximum bills without debate and bypassing the state senate altogether.

[dustypotato]

Wow. Do you have the source for the numbers? It's very surprising

[portpecos]

I also need clarification on what he means by Modi bypassing parliament to pass his own bills. That’s not how a parliamentary system works. Imagine Tony Blair bypassing the House of Lords and the House of Commons to pass his own bill. Or Obama bypassing the Senate and House of Representatives to pass his own bill. It’s a very strange claim to me.

[valarauko]

Not GGP, but I assume they mean that bills were passed through parliament without any real debate or amendments, since the governing party holds a super majority.

[portpecos]

The UK has done the same when having a party majority in the House of Lords and House of Commons.

In the US things are different. Even if there is a party majority in the Senate and House, the Filibuster is powerful enough to table the party majority’s bills.

[valarauko]

Unfortunately, the way things proceed in India tend to be more crass - where the opposition often tries to physically prevent the tabling of controversial bills. We've had occasions where members grabbed papers off the Speaker's desk, and members routinely try to block proceedings by entering the well of the House and sloganeering. This leads to the Speaker adjourning the session and/or the opposition staging a walkout during the actual vote. It's not uncommon to see parliamentary sessions with only the treasury benches full for the vote.

[HaloZero]

I thought Modi's party only had a super majority in the lower house though, don't they need both houses?

[valarauko]

The party holds a simple majority (~ 55%) in the Lower House, while the alliance holds a near super majority (~ 63%) - the Indian system holds a super majority at 2/3rds of each house present and voting, not the total membership of the house.

The alliance does not hold the upper house, though they have a near simple majority.

[webmobdev]

The three routes Mr. Modi government has chosen to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and oversight on the law it creates are by bypassing parliamentary committee or passing them through ordinances or as money bill:

- Explainer: How the government makes new laws less robust by bypassing parliamentary panels: https://scroll.in/article/932186/explainer-how-the-governmen...

- How India’s Govt Is Setting In Place A New Structure For A Dysfunctional Parliament: https://article-14.com/post/how-india-s-govt-is-setting-in-p...

- Explained Ideas: How the Modi govt has been bypassing Parliament: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/how-modi-governm...

- Manmohan Singh raps Modi govt for misuse of 'money bill' provisions - https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ma...

- Aadhaar Act as Money Bill: Why the Lok Sabha isn't Immune from Judicial Review - https://thewire.in/law/identity-of-the-aadhaar-act-supreme-c...

- Jairam Ramesh moves Supreme Court against treating Aadhaar bill as money bill - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/jairam-ramesh-moves-s...

- A 7-judge bench will decide whether amendments to the PMLA could have been made through the Money Bill route - https://www.indiatoday.in/law/story/supreme-court-pmla-verdi...

[stereoradonc]

Source for your assertions?

1. What were the number of bills passed in the "zero hour"

2. Which bills didn't meet the quorum and were passed off as ordinance and allowed to lapse?

3. Which bills were passed bypassing the time honoured state versus federal relations?

You make hollow assertions without backing up your claims.

[TheArcane]

A sad consequence of one political party having a majority in the parliament. Modi supporters tout it as a harbinger of efficiency bill passing when in reality it's just eroded democracy.

[woweoe]

Having a majority in parliament is the normal way of doing things

[rajup]

Unless you support the minority party in which case democracy is definitely not working and/or the voters for the majority party are deluded ;)

[ngcc_hk]

Majority rule and minority rights are democracy. Otherwise once vote in everyone is save … might as well no democracy.

[didibus]

Thank you. The minority rights and individual rights are cornerstone, democracy does not mean majority act as Emperors. There has to be strong guaranteed equal rights to all individual and minorities that allows them equal opportunity and recourse.

Its foundation is that all agree what we should all have as rights were we to ever find ourselves the minority, and those become the principles we cannot break and we owe to each individual to uphold. Beyond that, majority can decide, hopefully not stupidly and still considering minority's input, as any good leader should do, consider all data points relevant to best decision making.

[blueblisters]

A majority in a parliamentary system still allows some room for debate and dissent since MPs are, in principle, representatives of their constituency and not of the party. However, in India, it is illegal for an MP to vote against the party line - that is grounds for their disqualification - due to the anti-defection law. Any debate is pure theatrics at this point and the party leadership is free to pass any law they want.

[darth_avocado]

> in India, it is illegal for an MP to vote against the party line

That is not true at all. Anti-defection law is applied when elected officials run on a party and once elected decide to change their party affiliation. Not for individual bills.

[valarauko]

The Anti-Defection Law can very much be applied if a legislator votes against a party whip, even for a bill. There are calls to limit its applicability only to votes on the government, but that is currently not the case.

Quoting from PRSIndia [1]:

Does the anti-defection law affect the ability of legislators to make decisions?

The anti-defection law seeks to provide a stable government by ensuring the legislators do not switch sides. However, this law also restricts a legislator from voting in line with his conscience, judgement and interests of his electorate. Such a situation impedes the oversight function of the legislature over the government, by ensuring that members vote based on the decisions taken by the party leadership, and not what their constituents would like them to vote for.

Political parties issue a direction to MPs on how to vote on most issues, irrespective of the nature of the issue. Several experts have suggested that the law should be valid only for those votes that determine the stability of the government (passage of the annual budget or no-confidence motions).

[1]: [The Anti-Defection Law Explained](https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/the-anti-defection-law-expla...)

[ridiculous_leke]

It's not illegal. But that ensures their eviction from the party and can potentially destroy their political career.

[happyopossum]

> in India, it is illegal for an MP to vote against the party line

Inn what way is this a functioning parliamentary system then?

[valarauko]

It's not a perfect system, but the provisions of the Anti-Defection Law tried to address what was a bigger issue in Indian politics - legislators changing sides for what turned out to be enormous sums of (undisclosed) money. In this climate, the incumbent party could bribe opposition members to prop up the government, and attempts to poach new legislators right after the elections reached ridiculous levels.

For what it's worth, while this does hinder a legislator from voting as per the will of their constituents even where they are at odds with the party line, within the Indian political system there are so many special interest parties that differ from each other in minor details of policy. In theory, the will of constituents could have been made manifest by voting for the policy adjacent party instead.

Again, it's not a perfect system, but it's attempting to fix the obvious issues that arose in India.

[portpecos]

> In what way is this a functioning parliamentary system then?

You can ask other parliamentary systems the same questions. For example, the Australian Labor Party requires its members to pledge their support for the collective ui decisions of the caucus, which prohibits them from "crossing the floor" as well.

Just as importantly, the Anti-“Crossing the Floor” law was passed in 1985 by the Congress Party under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi (Son of Indira Gandhi, Husband of Sonia Gandhi, and Father of Rahul Gandhi). India’s been functioning under that system for almost 40 years, and I doubt Rahul Gandhi and Congress Party will repeal that law when they come back into party. That’s because it’s their law. They wrote it.

[webmobdev]

It's a feature of a multi-party parliamentary democracy - when a candidate is a representative of a party standing for any elections, and wins it, it is assumed that people voted for the candidate partly because of the electoral promises and visions of the party. Thus, if a party has made a promise to the electorate to enact some major law, and issues a whip in Parliament that all its representatives should support its passage, then they are legally bound to do so. They can still choose to abstain or even vote against it. But then the party can take action against them. (Note that this is only applicable when a party issues a whip, which democratic ones do only for laws it considers important.)

[simiones]

To be fair, in many parliamentary systems it is very unusual for any one party to have an absolute majority. In most such systems, the winning party of an election often only wins a plurality of votes, and has to woo other parties to govern - either through a coalition or just a minority government.

[woweoe]

India does not have a single party majority either but an alliance majority

[valarauko]

The BJP by itself has a simple majority in the Lok Sabha, and makes up over 87% of the NDA's members in the Lok Sabha.

[tw600040]

So, when majority of the people support one political party that's called eroding democracy?

[jitix]

Many countries operate like this. It's the downside of having a parliamentary system (which IMO is better than a presidential one). Greece and Japan are good examples. Canada to a certain extent too in the past (with the LPC).

Also for a good chunk of its history, India has been run on super majorities as pointed out in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32346371

[ridiculous_leke]

How did it erode democracy?

[givemeethekeys]

In a parliamentary democracy, if the elected party in power has a majority, they can do what you're describing.

[portpecos]

In a presidential democracy, if the Senate and House of Representatives is majority Democrats, then yes, the Democrats can do the same. Obama once had majority in House of Reps and Senate as well.

There is one thing that is different. The Filibuster is very powerful in the US. I’m not so sure the filibuster is a powerful tool in UK’s parliament and India’s Parliament.

[valarauko]

> There is one thing that is different. The Filibuster is very powerful in the US. I’m not so sure the filibuster is a powerful tool in UK’s parliament and India’s Parliament.

The filibuster isn't a thing in the Indian system, but even in the US it can be broken by a super majority - which the governing alliance in India does have. Besides, the filibuster has rarely been used in recent times - more often than not, it's simply the threat of one.

[dumty37]

Might well have the distinction of withdrawing bills without debate a la Farm bill.

[potamic]

> the committee recommended major changes across the board in all sections of the act

This bill was under discussion for 3 years. Every year the JCP keeps proposing new and different changes. After all this if you have 81/99 amendments, you have to question if it is nitpicking and stalling, especially when you have things like the Finance Bill and Farm Bill that get passed in record time.

This seems like a political decision more than anything. There is also the fact that the industry does not like this bill at all, there are some powerful corporations who entered the digital consumer space recently and would be seriously inconvenienced by this move.

[kobiguru]

Not everything is political. I can tell you this because I work with many of indian government departments very closely. The reservations JPC highlighted will be studied and after consultation with stakeholders it will tabled again.

FYI - The committee chairman and the IT Minister are from the same political party yet they disagreed and bill got pulled.

Here is a good premier on the JPC Recommendation [1]

https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/JPC-P...

[MichaelZuo]

Are these new concerns or concerns that arose during the preceding 3 years of discussions that remained unaddressed?

[zepearl]

I glanced over [2] ( https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/JPC-P... ) => right at the start it mentions this:

The Committee observes that it is impossible to distinguish personal and non-personal data. Therefore...

That sounds to me like a crazy statement for a new law that was in the process of being created since years?

[haltingproblem]

India had universal suffrage in 1950 and has deep parliamentary traditions. India was a democracy before the US, France, UK, Spain and numerous other Western cradles of democracy.

US got universal suffrage in 1965 (Voting Rights act). France was killing a million Algerians whom it ruled and were demanding self-determination in 1954-1962 and finally became colony free in 1977. UK was running concentration camps in Kenya in the 1960s and free of its last colony in the 1980 approaching something like Universal Suffrage. Spain was a dictatorship till 1979.

[eatonphil]

Are there any reputable Indian law/policy news sites or individuals who you (or anyone) might recommend following?

To be fair I can't think of any specific sites like that I follow for US law/policy news, just a variety of people on Twitter.

[mynameismon]

> Are there any reputable Indian law/policy news sites or individuals who you (or anyone) might recommend following?

https://www.livelaw.in is a pretty good one, it is usually very upto date and accurate.

[kobiguru]

live Law is a legal news website and not really a policy site so is the others mentioned in the thread.

Vidhi is a legal policy think tank based.

They did a point by point break down of recommendations of JPC and explanation you can check it here [1]

https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/research/referencer-on-the-jpcs-...

[alephnerd]

India is a diverse country with diversity within both the federal level and the state level. I have listed a subset of sources I and friends of mine from Indian policy backgrounds (IAS, IPS, MHA, etc) tended to trust. This is not a complete list, and shows my own regional biases.

Feel free to AMA me or discuss additional recommendations in this thread. I don't get much of an opportunity to discuss Social Sciences since I switched careers to the Tech world.

edit:

I will not dignify any flame-bait conversations. I will chat with people from any political camp, but only if they chat in a non-combative manner.

======================

General Journalism:

Most newspapers and news media channels in India are owned by Oligarchs supporting one party or the other.

The only Indian newspaper I've personally trusted is The Tribune (https://www.tribuneindia.com/) due to it's being owned by a non-profit foundation with a perpetual endowment created by a banking magnate back in the late 19th century.

======================

Long Form Journalism:

The Caravan - https://caravanmagazine.in/

Has a bit of a center-left and progressive leaning, but pretty well investigated and written articles.

The Print - https://theprint.in/

Has a bit of a center-right leaning, but strong informed articles on Indian Defence Policy and Developmental News (I think they have some ex-MoD and IAS beats).

The Wire - https://thewire.in/

Has a center-left leaning, but a good source for articles on the negative ground realities that exist in various different regions of South Asia. Also surprisingly strong at Indian Foreign Policy (I think they have some ex-MEA beats)

Himal Magazine - https://www.himalmag.com/

Has a center-left and progressive leaning, but a strong source on the anthropological and sociological aspects of South Asian studies.

Swarajya - https://swarajyamag.com/

Has a center-right to far right leaning, but a strong source to understand BJP and Hinduvta politics from their perspective.

Outlook India - https://www.outlookindia.com/

Good long form journalism and analysis. Haven't noticed much bias one way or the other as they tend to publish ideologues from all spectrums of Indian politics.

======================

Public Policy Think Tanks and Journals:

Observer Research Foundation - https://www.orfonline.org/

Amazing articles and papers on South Asian Foreign Policy and Developmental Economics. Centrist/Institutionalist bias as it is staffed by ex-IAS and policymaker types

Carnegie India Foundation - https://carnegieindia.org/

Similar as ORF, but with a stronger bias towards IR.

Economic and Political Weekly - https://www.epw.in/

One of the premier Indian Social Sciences journals. Very strong articles on South Asian social sciences in general.

Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy - https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/

Amazing organization working on legal policy analysis in India. Very easy to read for those who are not from a legal background

Centre de Sciences Humaines Delhi - https://www.csh-delhi.com/

Strong research on developmental economics and regional socio-political dynamics in South Asia.

The Diplomat - https://thediplomat.com/

Probably the best foreign policy magazine in the APAC region. Well researched and a diverse amount of voices from all sides of the political spectrum

Lowy Institute - https://www.lowyinstitute.org/

Probably the best APAC foreign policy think tank. It's essentially Brookings Level

[screye]

Caveats:

The Indian center is very different from the American center. Economically, the Indian center is closer to Bernie-Sanders than it is to Biden. The Indian left (academic and on the ground) is actually communist and the Indian right still tends to be fairly center-left (as far as the US goes) The social left-right dimension is its own thing, and does not map neatly onto similar intuitions in the west.

The last caveat is that Indian secularism is very different from western secularism.

_________

That being said, This is a good list.

> The Print

I am personally biased towards favoring 'The Print' more so than the other organizations. Shekhar Gupta leads an ideologically clear (socially liberal, economically liberal) media house, always quotes their sources and does well to separate reporting from opinion. I would not call it right leaning by any means.

> Caravan

I have mixed opinions on Caravan. At their best, they are great. But, they can vary between excellent left-leaning journalism to outright left-wing fear mongering. I'm sure you'll see some strong opinions thrown around about them, and both the positive and negative tend to be well deserved.

> Wire and OutlookIndia

I have a low opinion of both. I wouldn't go as far as to call them a rag, but I wouldn't defend them against those accusations either.

> Swarajya - but a strong source to understand BJP and Hinduvta politics from their perspective

Agreed. Won't go there for news, but serves a purpose.

[alephnerd]

Glad you added that caveat to this thread!

A lot of Western commentators don't tend to realize that aspect of Indian politics, instead applying a federal American lens (though American politics is actually equally diverse as well).

To any Americans reading this thread, Indian politics is HEAVILY local party driven. BJP MPs from states like HP would have entirely different opinions or backgrounds from BJP MPs from a region like Purvanchal (Eastern UP). In additional, most elected officials in Indian politics don't really have party loyalty. They'll change parties at the drop of the hat (or start their own) if they feel their opportunity to climb up the political rungs are best served elsewhere. That is a MASSIVE reason the BJP/NDA+ won like a steamroller in 2019 - a number of up and coming INC politicians changed party affiliations because their upward potential was blocked by regional INC machines.

In addition, it is very common for regional political barons to split off from the national party and make their own regional party - this happened with the INC in West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee and the TMC), Uttar Pradesh (Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party), Maharashtra (Bal Thackeray and the Shiv Sena - which itself split into 2 parties this week - and Tariq Anwar and the NCP) , and Andhra Pradesh (YSR Raja Reddy and the YSR Congress) to name a few states. Captain Amarinder Singh - the former Chief Minister (Indian equivalent of Governor) of Punjab - himself is rumored to be making a regional party in Punjab now as well after internal politicking in the INC forced him out of CMship.

That said, similar stuff will eventually happen to the BJP as well. I've heard rumblings at the grassroots level in Haryana, HP, and Jammu about discontent with local BJP acolytes and there is probably going to be a major shift in Indian politics over the next 10 years as a new generation of local parties form.

==========================

> The Print

Agree with you that they are not right leaning in any way. I labelled them as slightly center right due to their occasional support for certain pro-market reforms (ones that I do support by the way). Honestly, I probably could have called them centrist but the edit timer has run down on that comment.

> Wire and Outlook

I'm curious about your reasons for having a low opinion of them? I've had reservations about some opinions the Wire reports, but at least in the region my family is from they've been pretty even handed reporting on abuses of power that have occurred. W/ regards to Outlook I was debating whether to add them to this list, but I have read some quality articles from them on occasion.

[screye]

This is golden. It's nice to see people add context to Indian politics on HN. All too often, even the most well-read American has a naïve understanding of Indian politics. You're doing God's work giving folks glimpses into the sheer difference, complexity and nuance of Indian politics.

> but the edit timer has run down on that comment

such is life.

> I'm curious about your reasons for having a low opinion of them?

I think part of it is because I only ever read them when someone tells me about how they mis-reported on something. So, it might be personal bias where I overtly hone-in on the mistakes they make. I don't read either OutlookIndia or TheWire enough to make strong claims about their caliber as journalism houses. But when I get linked to them, I make sure to get a 2nd opinion.

[alephnerd]

Haha thanks! To be fair, as someone who is Desi American, a lot of the incomplete reporting about India that happens in the Western newspapers is due to bad pay. The NYT pays reporters $12k a year/8.4lpa in Delhi NCR, while cable news channels like NDTV, Aaj Tak, etc would pay a similar level reporter around $14-17k/10-12 lpa while giving much more political power (and the opportunity to take cash for unbalanced reporting if they want). Ergo, all the good reporters either start their own new wave media orgs like The Print or The Wire, or they become acolytes for a party (all parties do this of course - ain't no saints in Indian politics, not even the Sadhus, Peers, Yogis, Maulvis, or Sants).

[pvsukale3]

https://prsindia.org/

[felixg3]

Economic Political & Weekly, caravanmagazine.in, restofworld.org

[eatonphil]

Thanks!

I've followed restofworld.org for a year now and it's a really fantastic site, great mission.

However their scope is extremely broad: "Everything in developing economies for Americans", basically.

[woweoe]

I think caravan might be extremely left wing though.

[felixg3]

Not really, I would consider them a broader opposition to the current regime

[LightG]

You've got to be joking ...

[venkat223]

They plan to bring very stringent bill to takeaway alldemocracy and freedom from the net.

[krageon]

"It is a democracy" doesn't mean that it isn't also a frequently irrational cesspit. That doesn't necessarily mean it's any worse than at least two other superpowers, but it does mean it's not good. It's not due to the NYTimes coverage that the country seems the way it does, it's the exported culture (i.e. it is the face of IT-related international crime) and the types of incidents that can be found there (closing off an entire province full of normal people just because some of them do things you don't like is strictly barbaric, for example).