08 December 2022

MAINS QUESTIONS

Q1. Discuss how social media affects women’s lives in India. What issues do female users of social media encounter? (250 words)

 Paper & Topic: GS I – Geography

Introduction:

What are shallow earthquakes?

• We now live in a social media world where feminist ideas have quickly and widely spread. Social media has supported and promoted women’s emancipation in a number of ways as a force for social change, such as by bringing attention to women’s rights in the local community and by battling prejudice and stereotypes on a global scale. Through blogs, chats, online campaigns, discussion forums, and online communities, social media has created a space for discussing issues and problems that women face that are frequently not shared or supported by mainstream media.

Body:

 Social media’s importance in women’s lives:

• Social media serves as a hub and is easily accessible to today’s tech-savvy population.
• Social media and women’s rights are unquestionably intertwined.
• Social media has eliminated all gates and gatekeeping of any kind by opening doors and making everything available to everyone, everywhere.
• Movements for women’s rights and against violations of those rights have benefited quickly from social media’s unmatched capacity to raise awareness.
• Women can now use social media as a tool to combat problems like gender inequality and stereotypes.
• The internet and social media not only assist activists and others in dispelling myths and misconceptions, but they also open up new doors for the resurgence of violence against women.
• Social media has made it possible for women, including lawmakers, legislators, and business owners, to communicate with one another and support one another in the struggle for gender equality.
• With Twitter’s hashtag feature in particular, women can follow topics that are important to them and form alliances based on shared interests. These causes can range from calls for fundamental social change to urgent personal needs. Take the #SelfieWithDaughter and #MeToo movements, for instance.
• Due to their ability to interact and have direct conversations with customers and consumers, social media is increasingly emerging as one of the most effective channels for women trying to launch new businesses.
• Social media marketing is a very easy and affordable tool for female business owners.
• Thanks to social media and new technologies, millions of people are now able to launch businesses that serve a global market or locate online employment.
• For instance, Shradha Sharma is the founder and editor-in-chief of the online media portal Yourstory.com for start-ups. It is the top online media platform in India and has published over 20,000 entrepreneurial stories in 12 Indian languages, reaching over 10 million people each month.
• It is less expensive to contribute to a cause or take part in a demonstration thanks to digital channels. Greater participation is encouraged as a result, and governments are forced to pay attention.
• Social media levels the playing field by allowing diverse viewpoints from people with and without traditional power to be heard. The underrepresentation of women is still a problem, and it probably will get worse.
• It fills in the gaps as women only receive 38% of bylines in traditional media.
• Female-based communities are emerging in such a way that they circumvent specialised enterprises and physical limitations to join female players across sectors and locales.
• Previously isolated women may now interact with influential people in their profession and, conversely, develop an accessible, highly visible platform for self-promotion since the internet removes so many of the barriers that keep us apart.
• The conventional wisdom that women find it more difficult to profit from ideas and proposals is being challenged by the combination of social media and crowdfunding.
• Women, for instance, shared self-portraits in black and white on Instagram in July 2020 along with the caption “#challengeaccepted.” In order to participate in the challenge, women had to submit a black-and-white selfie of themselves along with the nomination of another woman. They also had to tag the other woman in their selfie.
• Social media use enables a more accurate portrayal of women globally, particularly those from countries with oppressive political regimes. Social media also dismantles barriers of the governmental, cultural, and other varieties.
• Despite the lockdown and social exclusion, it has been essential in enabling activism to go on during the pandemic.

The challenges that women face on social media:

• Cyberbullying, including online harassment, is particularly harmful to women.
• Due to the increasing attention women receive on social media, they are usually the target of repressive operations. Women face gendered obstacles as a result of this in public places and online.
• Online offences are commonly normalised as a result of the difficulties in discovering criminals, as well as the complexity and accessibility of the justice delivery systems.
• This leads to a rise in public mistrust of the legal system and increased marginalisation of women.
• Due to this, rapists are now utilising social media as a tool of intimidation to persuade their victims to keep the crime a secret.
• Such venues are used by harassers to silence women who challenge patriarchal societal norms.
• A research found that one-third of the women ceased posting their opinions online due to worries about internet predators.
• Bullying on the internet now affects actual events like suicides.
• 20% of women who suffer harassment offline believe that the assaults are related to the abuse they endure online, according to a global poll of women.
• Some people are even more at risk of being stalked because of their online presence. This is particularly common in places with weak law enforcement, persistent sexism, and profusion of internet trolling.
• False profiles are usually created with the intention of harming their victims’ reputations.
• The internet has recently been employed as a tool for discriminating against women as a result of the widespread usage of hate campaigns. like vengeance porn.
• Because of the pandemic’s global restrictions, which have pushed more people online, cases of gender harassment have surged online.

What must be done:

• The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal shall be designated as the national portal under-reporting obligations for electronic material under the POCSO Act.
• The Union Government, through its designated authority, shall restrict and/or prohibit all websites and intermediaries that host child sex abuse content.
• Law enforcement agencies should be authorised to break end-to-end encryption in order to uncover child pornographers.
• In 2018, a cybercrime reporting tool was launched to enable people to report offensive information.
• Each state set up cyber police stations and cyber crime cells for reporting and looking into cases of cybercrime.
• Tools that can analyse the behaviour of every internet user are now being created. As a result, it can help to protect the user from participating in online harassment.
• developing several mobile applications that can alert parents when a child is in risk from cyberbullying.
• To stop malware attacks, collaborate with antivirus firms.
• a method to case management with several facets
• Instances of cyberbullying demand a diverse approach, including therapy with a psychiatrist, alerting the police, etc.

Conclusion:

• The moral obligation of social media firms is to safeguard their users.
• In order for individuals to use reporting mechanisms to reduce cyberbullying, they must work to make them transparent and efficient.
• The policy on women’s empowerment must include steps to combat online harassment.
• A unit for reporting crimes against women online must be established in order to more promptly address complaints regarding targeted harassment of female social media users.
• To address societal unfairness, prejudice, and sexism, women’s political engagement must increase.
• The primary legal framework utilised to address cybercrimes perpetrated on social media platforms is the IPC section that deals with classic offences including sexual harassment and privacy violations.
• They are largely ineffectual in dealing with technologically inspired crimes, which have a bigger effect on victims than those traditional offences, due to the lack of justice.
• The IPC must be modified, and the cybercrimes covered by the IT Act must be repealed, in order to include all cybercrimes, including those currently covered by that legislation.

Q2. The conflict between democratic standards and federal principles will be difficult to resolve when the Lok Sabha seats are redistributed in 2026. India must re examine its current federal system in order to address the issues with federalism. Comment. (250 words)

 Paper & Topic: GS II – Indian Polity

Introduction:

• Despite population increase, since 1976 the Lok Sabha’s seat allocation has been based on the findings of the 1971 census. The discrepancy in state population growth rates has been the key contributor to this.

Body:

 The crisis’s root causes are as follows:

• After 2026, the government’s power will drastically shift in favour of India’s most populous and impoverished States.
• States that lose this much of political and economic sway would be furious.
• This calls for a rebalancing of the democratic and federal components of the Indian Constitution.

 The federal and democratic concepts are at odds:

• The concepts of democracy and federalism are inherently at odds when federal states have different populations, economies, and other characteristics.
• Because everyone has the right to equality in a democratic society, all citizens have a right to equal representation in the government. But this would imply that larger States are more likely than smaller States to dominate the national discourse.
• Small States are concerned that they will have less influence over national politics, fewer say in national issues, and less economic clout.
• To preserve a balance between democratic and federal principles, the governing institutions of federal democracies have made a number of sacrifices.

What can India do to assuage the fears of its citizens regarding smaller states?

• Greater State Control: States must have more control over the Center thanks to the Lists and the regulations controlling modifying a State’s borders. Smaller States won’t have to be as concerned about being governed by larger ones as a result.
• Expansion of the Council of States: The composition and function of the Rajya Sabha must change. Consequently, smaller States would have some influence on national politics that favour or harm majorities.
• constitution-based safeguards Before any modifications to the constitution or how money is distributed among them may be approved, all or almost all of the States must agree. The story of what happened to the Goods and Services Tax, or GST, is instructive in this regard.
• State restructuring: Splitting up larger States into more manageable, smaller organisations should be carefully considered. This would prevent them from dictating the public discussion.

Taking Charge:

• The nation’s bonds of affection and loyalty won’t be severed when one region is given more authority than another, but they will be put under a lot of strain.
• We urgently require a new national agreement approach since another freeze will just postpone finding a solution to this challenging issue and uphold an undemocratic system.

Conclusion:

• Unification of India is, of course, the central tenet upon which this conversation is built, but this unity need not be enforced by a repressive Center.