28 June 2024

MAINS DAILY QUESTIONS & MODEL ANSWERS

Q1. Deepfakes is a significant issue in the age of artificial intelligence. Talk about the legal options open to Indian victims of deepfakes and the steps that may be taken to solve these issues.

GS II – Government Policies and Interventions

Introduction:

• Deepfakes are artificial intelligence (AI)-manipulated films or audio recordings that purport to show someone saying or doing something they never did. It has become apparent that it poses a serious technological risk with wide-ranging effects.

Issues Raised by Deepfakes:

• Erosion of Trust and Reputation: Deepfakes have the potential to cause social instability, propagate false information, and harm people’s reputations. When a deepfake video becomes viral, it can be hard to stop the harm from happening since viewers might not be able to tell the difference between real and fake content.
• Dangers to People and Society: Deepfakes can be used for election tampering, blackmail, and cyberbullying. There is a great deal of potential for misuse to negatively impact both individuals and society.
• Difficulty in Detection and Attribution: Deepfakes are becoming harder to identify and attribute since their sophistication is always changing. Social media companies and law enforcement face difficulties as a result.
• Legal and Ethical Considerations: The development of deepfakes has brought up difficult issues pertaining to freedom of speech, privacy, and the limits of artificial intelligence.

Legal Options for Indian Deepfake Victims:

• Reporting to Social Media Platforms: Within 36 hours, social media platforms are required by law to handle complaints about cybercrime and take down deepfake content.
• Cybercrime Complaint: In addition to contacting a cyber lawyer for assistance, victims can file a complaint with the National Cybercrime Helpline (1930).
• Information Technology Act, 2000: The Information Technology Act addresses cybercrime offences, such as disseminating false information and forging documents, in Section 66.
• Copyright Act, 1957: If deepfakes entail the unauthorised use of intellectual property, they may violate copyright regulations.
• Indian Penal Code: Depending on the details of the deepfake, provisions like criminal intimidation (Section 506) and defamation (Section 499) may be applicable.

Actions that can be performed to combat deepfakes:

• Technical Solutions: To identify and verify deepfakes, researchers are creating instruments driven by AI. These instruments examine the minute flaws in deepfaked material, like irregularities in eye or facial expressions.
• Legal and Regulatory Frameworks: In order to combat deepfakes, governments and international organisations are investigating legal and regulatory frameworks. This entails classifying deepfakes as a type of cybercrime, setting up channels for reporting, and enforcing responsibility on manufacturers and sellers.
• Public Awareness and Education: To lessen the influence of deepfakes, it is imperative to educate the public about them. This entails educating individuals about deepfakes, acknowledging the possibility of manipulation, and exercising caution while disseminating anything online.
• Industry Cooperation and Self-Regulation: It is the duty of tech businesses and social media platforms to stop deepfakes. This entails collaborating with law enforcement, putting money into detection systems, and putting explicit procedures into place.

AI-Powered Countermeasures Against Deepfakes:

• Deepfake Detection: By utilising minute variations in facial expressions, skin tones, and speech patterns, artificial intelligence models can be trained to recognise deepfakes.
• Source Code Watermarking: Deepfakes can be tracked down and their creators identified by inserting distinct watermarks into the digital content’s source code.
• Fact-Checking Tools: Social media sites can receive help from AI-powered fact-checking tools in confirming the legitimacy of user-generated material.
• Media Authentication Standards: Digital content can be authenticated with the aid of open technological standards such as the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA).

Way Forward:

• Although deepfakes are a serious threat to our digital civilization, they also provide a chance for creativity and teamwork. Together, regulatory frameworks, public awareness campaigns, and technology developments can help us move towards a time when deepfakes are held more accountable and cause less harm. Creating a thorough strategy that tackles the technical, legal, and moral aspects of this new danger is crucial.

Q2. Discuss about how Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) can help India tackle its two biggest problems: food security and climate change.

GS III – Environmental Conservation related issues

Introduction:

• Two of the most important worldwide issues of the twenty-first century are climate change and food insecurity. Given its sizable and expanding population, India would require a 60% increase in agricultural output by 2050 to meet its food needs. However, between 2010 and 2039, cereal yield declines due to climate change might reach 9%. To bridge this gap, climate smart agriculture, or CSA, offers a comprehensive framework.
• CSA is an integrated management strategy for agricultural landscapes, including croplands, cattle, forests, and fisheries, with the goal of concurrently achieving three goals:
• Increase agricultural incomes and production in a sustainable manner: CSA encourages agricultural intensification in a way that maximises output without endangering the environment. This covers methods such as water-efficient irrigation, integrated pest management, and precision agriculture.
• CSA places a strong emphasis on adapting to and increasing resilience against climate change. Examples of such practises include heat-tolerant cultivators, drought-resistant crops, and risk management techniques that take climate change into account.
• Reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions whenever feasible. The California Coastal Alliance (CSA) supports techniques including less tillage, better fertiliser management, and livestock waste management that help to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture.

The Potential of CSA in India:

India presents enormous potential for CSA adoption due to its varied agroclimatic conditions. In order to address India’s food security issues and climate-related challenges, CSA can play a major role in the following ways:

• Increasing Agricultural Productivity: CSA methods can raise crop yields by 20–50%, which would greatly boost food production and lessen the demand for new agricultural acreage.
• Creating Climate Resilience: CSA can assist farmers in adjusting to shifting climatic patterns, minimising the detrimental effects of climate extremes and unpredictability on agricultural output and means of subsistence.
• Mitigating GHG Emissions: CSA practises can help India meet its climate change mitigation obligations under the Paris Agreement by lowering its GHG emissions from agriculture, which accounted for 17% of all GHG emissions in 2018.
• Reducing post-harvest losses can be achieved, for instance, by storing grain in hermetic bags to keep pests and moisture out of it and by transporting perishables in refrigerated vehicles to keep them from spoiling.
• Decreased Fertiliser Use: Organic agricultural methods and more effective fertiliser application techniques can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
• Climate-Informed Advisories: Farmers may make educated decisions about crop selection, planting dates, and harvesting techniques by receiving timely, location-specific weather predictions and evaluations of climate risk. More crops would be produced as a result.

The CSA Initiatives in India:

• The goal of the National Innovation on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) programme is to create and apply agricultural practises and technology that are resilient to climate change.
• The National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC) provides funding for projects that address climate change adaptation, such as CSA programmes.
• The goal of the soil health mission is to advance management of the soil, which is an essential part of CSA.
• The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) aims to improve irrigation efficiency, which is a critical component of community-supported agriculture.
• Organic farming is encouraged under the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), which is in line with CSA ideals.
• Enhancing farmers’ access to biotechnology-based solutions for sustainable agriculture is the goal of Biotech-KISAN.
• Climate Smart Village: An experimental project that showcases CSA methods at the village level is called Climate Smart Village.
• The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a collection of techniques that can reduce water use by up to 30% while increasing rice yields by as much as 50%.

Way Forward:

• A viable solution to India’s linked problems of food security and climate change is provided by CSA. CSA can help India achieve its goals of being more sustainable (SDG 01: No Poverty, SDG 02: No Hunger, and SDG 13: climatic Action) and food-secure by increasing agricultural output, fostering climatic resilience, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.