Daily Mains Newsletter for UPSC 03 Jan 2022

Daily Mains Newsletter For
UPSC | RaghukulCS

03 Jan 2022 - Monday

Index

Table of Contents

Online Gaming and Regulation

Introduction

  • Online gaming has flourished during the pandemic due to lockdowns. The average time spent on online gaming has gone up almost 65% from pre-Covid levels.
  • More than 43 crore people have spent time on virtual gaming.
  • The online gaming industry in India is home to over 275 gaming companies, more than 15,000 game developers, and around 300 million gamers.
  • Recently, a Member of Parliament urged the government to come up with a comprehensive framework to regulate online gaming.

About online games in India

  • According to the All-India Gaming Federation, India’s online gaming industry is expected to be worth ₹15,500 crores by 2023.
  • A 2019 survey by the U.S.-based Limelight Networks found that India had the second-largest number of gamers after South Korea.

What are the types of online gaming?

  • The types of online games include:
  • E-sports
  • Fantasy sports
  • Skill-based(mental skill)
  • Chance based(like the roll of a dice)

What is the present legal framework with respect to online gaming in India?

  • Presently, online gaming falls in a regulatory grey area and there is no comprehensive legislation with respect to its legality.
  • Games based on skills are allowed in most parts of the country, while games of chance are categorized under gambling, treated as immoral, and prohibited in most parts of the country.
  • As betting and gambling is a state subject, different states have their own legislation.
    • Every state except Goa, Sikkim, and the UT of Daman prohibits any sort of gambling, betting, or wagering on games of chance.

Debate on the game of skill versus chance in Online gaming

  • Various High courts have legitimized gaming formats like fantasy sports etc as online games of skill.
  • In the Junglee Games case, the Madras High Court ruled that games like Poker and Rummy are games of skill.

Why did India need to regulate online gaming?

Various health issues associated with online gaming
  • Gaming addiction:
    • Numerous people are developing an addiction to online gaming. This is destroying lives and devastating families.
    • Compulsive gaming by children is affecting their performance in schools and impacting their social lives& relationships with family members.
    • The Union Government has issued an advisory to parents and teachers on the threats posed by online gaming.
  • Impact on health:
  • Gaming addictions cause physical, social, and emotional damage, impairing sleep, appetites, careers, and social lives.
  • The addiction can also cause insomnia, cause near-sightedness, withdrawal from social contacts, academic failure, and extreme anger and irritability.
  • For instance, Online games like PUBG and the Blue Whale Challenge were banned after incidents of violence and suicide.
  • For these reasons only, the World Health Organization categorized gaming disorder as a mental health condition in 2018.

Other reasons to regulate online gaming

  • Economic benefits:
  1. The online gaming industry is expected to generate revenues in excess of Rs 29,000 crore in 2025 with over 65.7 crore users.
  2. It is estimated that more than 15,000 direct and indirect jobs will be created,
  3. The GST and Income Tax generated from this industry will add to the Government’s revenue,
  4. Potential to attract significant global investments.
  • Offshore gambling websites:
  • Most of the betting in India is done on cricket matches, through websites like Betaway, Bet365, and Dafabet. 
  • These websites are headquartered in tax havens like Malta, Cyprus, and Gibraltar but are accessible to Indian users.
  • Third-party wallets:
  • In India, third-party wallets like Skrill and Neteller are used to funnel money into gambling sites, which can be used to make payments anonymously.
  • Threat to Data privacy:
  • Inadvertent sharing of personal information can lead to cases of cheating, privacy violations, abuse, and bullying.
  • Betting and gambling.

What can be done by the government to regulate online gaming?

  • The center can take steps to block sites under Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Stringent measures are also required to prevent illegal services from being advertised or promoted through direct or surrogate means online. 
  • A Gaming Authority at the central level should be created.
  • Since the blocking of illegal websites lies in the Centre’s jurisdiction, states may follow the Maharashtra Police’s model to deal with digital piracy.
  • Centre should formulate an overarching regulatory framework for online games of skill. India must move beyond skill-versus-chance debates to keep up with the global gaming industry.
  • India can follow a hands-off approach like advanced jurisdictions like UK exempt skill games from licensing requirements that apply to games of chance.
  • The government can regulate the online gaming hours for Children like China limited gamers under 18 years to just three hours of online games per week.

What can be done by gaming platforms to regulate online gaming?

The online gaming platforms can

  • Strengthen the KYC norms, 
  • Implement an age-rating mechanism
  • No in-game purchases to be allowed without adult consent.
  • Gaming companies should proactively educate users about potential risks.
  • Anonymity of participants should be removed.
  • Encourage self-regulation.

Way Forward:

More and more youngsters are getting hooked on online games. In light of this, the Online gaming industry needs to be regulated in India. Moreover, regulation of online gaming will not only open up economic opportunities but also address its social costs.

Indianisation of the Legal System

Why in news?

  • Supreme Court judges have in the past few months openly expressed the need to Indianise the legal system.

What does ‘Indianisation’ of the justice system mean?

  • Different meanings have been attributed to the term “Indianisation of the justice system”.In the post-independence decades, Indianisation has coincided with the democratization of public spaces, or increased access, or more transparency.
  • At other times, it has meant the crystallization of the idea of a strong nation-state with fewer deliberations and debates.
  • Indianisation has also meant as merging of the country with particularist religious-cultural representations.

How did the Indian legal system evolve?

  • Article 141 of the Constitution of India stipulates that the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India.

What were the reiterations of the judges for favoring Indianisation of the justice system?

  • In the M.C. Mehta case, 1986, Justice P.N. Bhagwati has said that judicial thinking cannot be allowed to be constricted by reference to the law as it prevails in England. He stressed the need to build up our own jurisprudence.
  • According to the Chief Justice of India, ‘Indianisation’ means the need to adapt to the practical realities of our society and localize our justice delivery systems. He cited that the current proceedings are lengthy, expensive, and in English and are technical to manage.
  • Rules and procedures of justice delivery should be made simple for the inclusion of the common man into the judiciary.

What statements indicate an unfortunate ideological shift in our judiciary?

  • The Constituent Assembly debates- 
  • The plea for Indianness was very prominent in the debates of the Assembly.
  • Hanumanthaiah, a member from Mysore said “We wanted the music of Veena or Sitar, but here we have the music of an English band”.
  • LokanathMisra and H.V. Kamath also supported their own version of the Indianess of the legal system.
  • Justice S. Abdul Nazeer speaks about the decolonization of the Indian legal system and underscored the need to embrace the great legal traditions as per Manu, Kautilya, Katyayana, Brihaspati, Narada, Parashara, Yajnavalkya, and other legal giants of ancient India.
  • The judge underlined Kautilya’s theory about the duties of the king which, according to him, is based on the great tradition established in the age of Ramayana.
  • Justice Nazeer has found glory in the Arthashastra which provided for punishment for an official for personally talking with a woman employee during work hours.
  • After quoting Brihaspati, he said that a corrupt judge, a false witness, and the murderer of a Brahmin were considered as criminals on a par with one another.
  • On selection of judges, he recalled the Vedic priest, Katyayana, who insisted that the king had to appoint only a Brahmin to act as a judge.

What are the concerns with Justice Nazeer’s interpretations?

  • The interpretations did not indicate a concrete and comprehensive legal system that is desirable or adaptable for the nation, after Independence.
  • It ignores the Constituent Assembly debates on designing the nation’s legal landscape.
  • When religious revivalism is used as a political tool by the ruling party, the legal revivalism proposed by the judge in generic terms can only promote the regime’s political and populist agenda.
  • The speech of Justice Nazeer is in line with the right wing’s political rhetoric which relies on the unsubstantiated glories of the past.
  • When the Constitution becomes the most effective tool against electoral autocracy, the speech by Justice Nazeer has had only an adverse impact on the movements thriving to restore the values of the Constitution.
  • It is significant that even while attacking the colonised legal system, Justice Nazeer did not find fault with the sedition law or such other draconian penal provisions.
  • At a time when legislations are being used as a means to shatter constitutional tenets such as secularism and federalism, the remarks of the Supreme Court Judge against the alleged colonial nature of the legal system, which includes the nation’s Constitution, are deeply disturbing.

Has the court has differed from the views of these ancient texts?

  • In Joseph Shine’s judgment decriminalizing adultery, the court refers to how the Manusmriti prescribes punishment for those who are addicted to intercourse with wives of other men by punishments that cause terror, followed by banishment.
  • In the Sabarimala case, the court points to the Manusmriti in which menstruating women have been considered as polluting the surroundings.
  • The notions of “purity and pollution”, limit the ability of menstruating women to attain the freedom of movement, the right to education, and the right of entry to places of worship and, their access to the public sphere.

What is the current status of India’s democracy?

  • The country’s democracy has gone down in the freedom index as well as hunger index.There were reports where laws against religious conversions in India have been accompanied by mob violence.
  • Hate speech has become a prominent mode of communication in the country which is assisted by selective invocation or non-invocation of the penal laws.
  • There needs to be a separation of relationships between the judicial ideology and the political ideology.

Ethics | Paper - IV

Rapprochement:

  • Establishing cordial relations with employees and other people who have direct relationships with the organization.
  • In international relations, a rapprochement, which comes from the French word rapprocher, is a re-establishment of cordial relations between two countries.
  • This may be done due to a mutual enemy, as was the case with Germany for France and the United Kingdom, and their signing of the Entente Cordiale

 

Gray Areas:

  • The areas (issues) in which we (organization) are deficient or lagging.
  • An area of a subject or situation that is not clear or does not fit into a particular group and is therefore difficult to define or deal with.
  • It may be due to misunderstanding, miscomprehension, overlook or overlap.
  • Guidelines are often provided in these areas for minimizing gray areas.
DOWNLOAD PDF
Read All Prelims Newsletter

Share With Your Friends

Buy Magazine For Free
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Share on whatsapp
WhatsApp
Share on print
Print
Join Our Telegram Channel For Latest Update
RaghukulCS

RaghukulCS

Leave a Reply