The Evening Wrap: Cabinet approves ₹ 14,903-crore extension of Digital India project

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a five-year extension and expansion of the Digital India programme, including an expansion of the Computer Emergency Response Team, India (CERT-in). The expansion of the programme, established in 2015, will have an outlay of ₹14,903 crore, Minister of Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said. “This is a five-year outlay starting from 2021-22 to 2025-26,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. Officials indicated that this outlay would be over the budget which has already been spent on the programme over the last two years. “We need to build cybersecurity tools for small businesses, schools, hospitals, who have to focus on their work. Cybersecurity should be easily accessible, low cost and affordable,” he said. Under the programme, 6.25 lakh IT professionals will receive upskilling and re-skilling training, and 2.65 lakh employees will receive information security training. These funds will also be used to improve and modernise the National Knowledge Network (NKN), a high-speed broadband network that was established in 2010 to improve connectivity among educational and research institutions. The Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) platform, which offers access to about 1,700 government services, will have 540 more services added to it, Mr. Vaishnaw announced. DigiLocker, the online repository operated by the government for official documents, will be expanded to serve Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises, or MSMEs. This will make it easier for them to get verified documents for business loans, Mr. Vaishnaw said, adding that this would become a separate application, as business and individual verification processes are different. The National Supercomputing Mission, which has deployed 18 supercomputers, will add nine more such machines. “These supercomputers will have so many applications in weather forecasting, geology, agriculture, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) modeling,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. Bhashini, the AI-enabled translation tool created with the support of Microsoft and OpenAI, will be rolled out in all of the 22 languages included in Schedule 8 of the Constitution. Ashoka University row: Another faculty member resigns, professors threatens exodus if Sabyasachi Das not reinstated Days after Sabyasachi Das, an assistant professor at Ashoka University, resigned following a controversy over his research paper, Pulapre Balakrishnan, another professor in the economics department, has put in his papers. Das’ colleagues have written to the Governing Body threatening a faculty exodus if he is not offered reinstatement. The English and Creative Writing departments have also extended their support to the demand. The university had earlier distanced itself from the paper, ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’, in which Das argued that the BJP won a disproportionate share of closely contested parliamentary seats in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, especially in States where it was the ruling party at the time. The research was published on the Social Science Research Network on July 25. There was no reaction available from the university on the faculty members’ demand and Balakrishnan’s resignation. Swaraj India founder and political activist Yogendra Yadav lauded the step taken by the faculty members, saying, “Good to see some academics standing up in this climate of fear. Salute Prof Pulapre Balakrishnan”. The faculty members of the Economic Department have written an open letter, warning that the Governing Body’s “interference” in the process to “investigate the merits” of his study was likely to “precipitate an exodus of faculty”. The departments of English and Creative Writing, in a joint statement, too demanded that Das be reinstated. They also stated that they would not be able to carry out their teaching obligations “unless questions regarding basic academic freedoms are resolved before the Monsoon 2023 semester”. “The offer of resignation by our colleague Prof Sabyasachi Das and its hasty acceptance by the University has deeply ruptured the faith that we in the faculty of the department of Economics, our colleagues, our students, and well-wishers of Ashoka University everywhere, had reposed in the university’s leadership,” the letter said. “We urge the governing body to address this immediately, but no later than August 23, 2023. Failure to do so will systematically wreck the largest academic department at Ashoka and the very viability of the Ashoka vision,” it added. Demanding that the governing body unconditionally reoffer Das his position and also affirm that it will play no role in evaluating faculty research, the letter said, “Unless these questions regarding basic academic freedoms are resolved before the start of the Monsoon 2023 semester, faculty members of the department will find themselves unable to carry forward their teaching obligations in the spirit of critical enquiry and the fearless pursuit of truth that characterise our classrooms”. After Das’ research paper came under criticism, the University distanced itself and had stated that social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their “individual capacity” does not reflect its stand. Das later resigned and the university had accepted his resignation. According to Das’ paper, the “disproportionate” wins were never observed in past elections by BJP or Congress, and also that they were mainly seen in States ruled by BJP at that time. His paper cites that the reasons for this could be that either the BJP committed electoral fraud or it was able to accurately predict closely contested seats and mobilise party workers to campaign more intensively. The open letter by professors said, “[Mr.] Das did not violate any accepted norm of academic practice. Academic research is professionally evaluated through a process of peer review. The Governing Body’s interference in this process to investigate the merits of his recent study constitutes institutional harassment, curtails academic freedom, and forces scholars to operate in an environment of fear. “We condemn this in the strongest terms and refuse as a collective to cooperate in any future attempt to evaluate the research of individual economics faculty members by the Governing Body.” The letter alleged that the actions of the Governing Body pose an existential threat to the department and is likely to precipitate an exodus of faculty and prevent the university from attracting new faculty. The Governing Body comprises Ashoka University Chancellor Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Vice Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury, Madhu Chandak, Puneet Dalmia, Ashish Dhawan, Pramath Raj Sinha, Siddharth Yog, Deep Kalra and Ziaa Lalka. ED challenges anticipatory bail to Robert Vadra, claims non-compliance with bail conditions The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday (August 16) challenged the anticipatory bail granted to Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in a money laundering case, claiming non-compliance with bail conditions. The ED’s counsel said he will file an additional affidavit showing breach of bail conditions by Vadra and sought some time to place it before the court. Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain granted the ED two weeks to file the additional affidavit and listed the matter for further hearing in September. The ED had earlier told the High Court it wanted to interrogate Vadra in custody, alleging the “money chain” in the case was directly linked to him. It had also claimed he was not cooperating in the investigation. Vadra is facing allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a property in London at 12, Bryanston Square, estimated at 1.9 million pounds (over ₹17 crore). The case is being probed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Vadra’s lawyer had rejected the ED’s allegations and said his client cooperated in the investigation and appeared before the probe agency whenever summoned. The High Court was hearing the ED’s plea challenging the anticipatory bail granted to Vadra by a trial court on April 1, 2019. Vadra had opposed the plea, saying there was not even a single instance of his non-cooperation. He said there was no risk of him tampering with evidence as the agency has already seized from him every document pertaining to the case. The ED was conducting a “fishing and roving enquiry” and has no material to support the allegations made against him, he had claimed. To push green mobility, Cabinet approves PM e-bus sewa Seeking to enhance green mobility, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved ‘PM-eBus Sewa’ for augmenting city bus operations under which priority will be given to cities having no organised bus service, Union minister Anurag Thakur said. Ten thousand e-buses will be deployed on public-private partnership (PPP) model in 169 cities. Infrastructure will be upgraded in 181 cities under the Green Urban Mobility Initiatives, he told reporters. The total estimated cost of the scheme has been pegged at ₹57,613 crore, out of which support of ₹20,000 crore will be provided by the central government. The Scheme will support bus operations for 10 years. Modi has put P for ‘pettiness’: Congress slams Nehru memorial name change Objecting to the renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) as the Prime Ministers’ Memorial and Museum Library (PMML), the Congress on Wednesday said the move displayed the Narendra Modi government’s “pettiness” in trying to remove Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy. In a statement, posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Congress general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh alleged that the Modi government had the “single point agenda of denying, distorting, defaming and destroying Nehru and the Nehruvian legacy”. “From today, an iconic institution gets a new name. The world renowned Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) becomes PMML—Prime Ministers’ Memorial Museum and Library. Mr. Modi possesses a huge bundle of fears, complexes and insecurities, especially when it comes to our first and longest serving Prime Minister,” Ramesh said. “He has erased N and put P instead. That P is really for pettiness and peeve,” he noted. The Congress leader added that Nehru’s “gigantic contributions in the freedom movement and his towering achievements in building the democratic, secular, scientific and liberal foundations of the Indian nation-state are now under assault by Mr. Modi and his drumbeaters”. Nehru would continue to inspire generations to come and his legacy would go on despite the “relentless assault,” Ramesh said. Lok Sabha member and Congress member Manickam Tagore, remembering former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his death anniversary, posted an old clip of Vajpayee recounting a story how, as an External Affairs Minister, he had questioned the removal of Pandit Nehru’s photo from South Block that houses the External Affairs Ministry. In Brief: 2 youths held for posting video of Pakistan’s Independence Day Two teenagers were arrested on Wednesday by the Mumbai police for posting a video clip of Pakistan’s Independence Day celebration as their status on a social networking platform, an official said. The two 19-years-old college students from Colaba were placed under prohibitory arrest for posting a video of Pakistan’s flag on its Independence day on August 14 as their status on Instagram. This was brought to the notice of the Colaba police station by a 26-year-old businessman who saw the status of the duo and filed a complaint. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) was informed and the team tracked down the students. United Nations envoy says ICC should prosecute Taliban for crimes against humanity denying girls education The International Criminal Court (ICC) should prosecute Taliban leaders for a crime against humanity for denying education and employment to Afghan girls and women, the United Nations (UN) special envoy for global education said. Gordon Brown told a virtual UN press conference on the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on August 15 that its rulers are responsible for “the most egregious, vicious and indefensible violation of women’s rights and girls’ rights in the world today.” The former British Prime Minister said he has sent a legal opinion to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan that shows the denial of education and employment is “gender discrimination, which should count as a crime against humanity. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 16 August 2023 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Digital India expansion gets ₹14,903 crore outlay The [Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a five-year extension and expansion of the Digital India programme]( including an expansion of the Computer Emergency Response Team, India (CERT-in). The expansion of the programme, established in 2015, will have an outlay of ₹14,903 crore, Minister of Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said. “This is a five-year outlay starting from 2021-22 to 2025-26,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. Officials indicated that this outlay would be over the budget which has already been spent on the programme over the last two years. “We need to build cybersecurity tools for small businesses, schools, hospitals, who have to focus on their work. Cybersecurity should be easily accessible, low cost and affordable,” he said. Under the programme, 6.25 lakh IT professionals will receive upskilling and re-skilling training, and 2.65 lakh employees will receive information security training. These funds will also be used to improve and modernise the National Knowledge Network (NKN), a high-speed broadband network that was established in 2010 to improve connectivity among educational and research institutions. The Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) platform, which offers access to about 1,700 government services, will have 540 more services added to it, Mr. Vaishnaw announced. DigiLocker, the online repository operated by the government for official documents, will be expanded to serve Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises, or MSMEs. This will make it easier for them to get verified documents for business loans, Mr. Vaishnaw said, adding that this would become a separate application, as business and individual verification processes are different. The National Supercomputing Mission, which has deployed 18 supercomputers, will add nine more such machines. “These supercomputers will have so many applications in weather forecasting, geology, agriculture, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) modeling,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. Bhashini, the AI-enabled translation tool created with the support of Microsoft and OpenAI, will be rolled out in all of the 22 languages included in Schedule 8 of the Constitution. Ashoka University row: Another faculty member resigns, professors threatens exodus if Sabyasachi Das not reinstated [Days after Sabyasachi Das, an assistant professor at Ashoka University, resigned following a controversy over his research paper, Pulapre Balakrishnan, another professor in the economics department, has put in his papers](. Das’ colleagues have written to the Governing Body threatening a faculty exodus if he is not offered reinstatement. The English and Creative Writing departments have also extended their support to the demand. The university had earlier distanced itself from the paper, ‘Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy’, in which Das argued that the BJP won a disproportionate share of closely contested parliamentary seats in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, especially in States where it was the ruling party at the time. The research was published on the Social Science Research Network on July 25. There was no reaction available from the university on the faculty members’ demand and Balakrishnan’s resignation. Swaraj India founder and political activist Yogendra Yadav lauded the step taken by the faculty members, saying, “Good to see some academics standing up in this climate of fear. Salute Prof Pulapre Balakrishnan”. The faculty members of the Economic Department have written an open letter, warning that the Governing Body’s “interference” in the process to “investigate the merits” of his study was likely to “precipitate an exodus of faculty”. The departments of English and Creative Writing, in a joint statement, too demanded that Das be reinstated. They also stated that they would not be able to carry out their teaching obligations “unless questions regarding basic academic freedoms are resolved before the Monsoon 2023 semester”. “The offer of resignation by our colleague Prof Sabyasachi Das and its hasty acceptance by the University has deeply ruptured the faith that we in the faculty of the department of Economics, our colleagues, our students, and well-wishers of Ashoka University everywhere, had reposed in the university’s leadership,” the letter said. “We urge the governing body to address this immediately, but no later than August 23, 2023. Failure to do so will systematically wreck the largest academic department at Ashoka and the very viability of the Ashoka vision,” it added. Demanding that the governing body unconditionally reoffer Das his position and also affirm that it will play no role in evaluating faculty research, the letter said, “Unless these questions regarding basic academic freedoms are resolved before the start of the Monsoon 2023 semester, faculty members of the department will find themselves unable to carry forward their teaching obligations in the spirit of critical enquiry and the fearless pursuit of truth that characterise our classrooms”. After Das’ research paper came under criticism, the University distanced itself and had stated that social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their “individual capacity” does not reflect its stand. Das later resigned and the university had accepted his resignation. According to Das’ paper, the “disproportionate” wins were never observed in past elections by BJP or Congress, and also that they were mainly seen in States ruled by BJP at that time. His paper cites that the reasons for this could be that either the BJP committed electoral fraud or it was able to accurately predict closely contested seats and mobilise party workers to campaign more intensively. The open letter by professors said, “[Mr.] Das did not violate any accepted norm of academic practice. Academic research is professionally evaluated through a process of peer review. The Governing Body’s interference in this process to investigate the merits of his recent study constitutes institutional harassment, curtails academic freedom, and forces scholars to operate in an environment of fear. “We condemn this in the strongest terms and refuse as a collective to cooperate in any future attempt to evaluate the research of individual economics faculty members by the Governing Body.” The letter alleged that the actions of the Governing Body pose an existential threat to the department and is likely to precipitate an exodus of faculty and prevent the university from attracting new faculty. The Governing Body comprises Ashoka University Chancellor Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Vice Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury, Madhu Chandak, Puneet Dalmia, Ashish Dhawan, Pramath Raj Sinha, Siddharth Yog, Deep Kalra and Ziaa Lalka. ED challenges anticipatory bail to Robert Vadra, claims non-compliance with bail conditions The [Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday (August 16) challenged the anticipatory bail granted to Robert Vadra]( the son-in-law of former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in a money laundering case, claiming non-compliance with bail conditions. The ED’s counsel said he will file an additional affidavit showing breach of bail conditions by Vadra and sought some time to place it before the court. Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain granted the ED two weeks to file the additional affidavit and listed the matter for further hearing in September. The ED had earlier told the High Court it wanted to interrogate Vadra in custody, alleging the “money chain” in the case was directly linked to him. It had also claimed he was not cooperating in the investigation. Vadra is facing allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a property in London at 12, Bryanston Square, estimated at 1.9 million pounds (over ₹17 crore). The case is being probed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Vadra’s lawyer had rejected the ED’s allegations and said his client cooperated in the investigation and appeared before the probe agency whenever summoned. The High Court was hearing the ED’s plea challenging the anticipatory bail granted to Vadra by a trial court on April 1, 2019. Vadra had opposed the plea, saying there was not even a single instance of his non-cooperation. He said there was no risk of him tampering with evidence as the agency has already seized from him every document pertaining to the case. The ED was conducting a “fishing and roving enquiry” and has no material to support the allegations made against him, he had claimed. To push green mobility, Cabinet approves PM e-bus sewa Seeking to enhance green mobility, the [Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved ‘PM-eBus Sewa’ for augmenting city bus operations]( under which priority will be given to cities having no organised bus service, Union minister Anurag Thakur said. Ten thousand e-buses will be deployed on public-private partnership (PPP) model in 169 cities. Infrastructure will be upgraded in 181 cities under the Green Urban Mobility Initiatives, he told reporters. The total estimated cost of the scheme has been pegged at ₹57,613 crore, out of which support of ₹20,000 crore will be provided by the central government. The Scheme will support bus operations for 10 years. Modi has put P for ‘pettiness’: Congress slams Nehru memorial name change Objecting to the renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) as the Prime Ministers’ Memorial and Museum Library (PMML), the [Congress on Wednesday said the move displayed the Narendra Modi government’s “pettiness”]( in trying to remove Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy. In a statement, posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Congress general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh alleged that the Modi government had the “single point agenda of denying, distorting, defaming and destroying Nehru and the Nehruvian legacy”. “From today, an iconic institution gets a new name. The world renowned Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) becomes PMML—Prime Ministers’ Memorial Museum and Library. Mr. Modi possesses a huge bundle of fears, complexes and insecurities, especially when it comes to our first and longest serving Prime Minister,” Ramesh said. “He has erased N and put P instead. That P is really for pettiness and peeve,” he noted. The Congress leader added that Nehru’s “gigantic contributions in the freedom movement and his towering achievements in building the democratic, secular, scientific and liberal foundations of the Indian nation-state are now under assault by Mr. Modi and his drumbeaters”. Nehru would continue to inspire generations to come and his legacy would go on despite the “relentless assault,” Ramesh said. Lok Sabha member and Congress member Manickam Tagore, remembering former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his death anniversary, posted an old clip of Vajpayee recounting a story how, as an External Affairs Minister, he had questioned the removal of Pandit Nehru’s photo from South Block that houses the External Affairs Ministry. In Brief: 2 youths held for posting video of Pakistan’s Independence Day [Two teenagers were arrested on Wednesday by the Mumbai police for posting a video clip of Pakistan’s Independence Day celebration as their status on a social networking platform]( an official said. The two 19-years-old college students from Colaba were placed under prohibitory arrest for posting a video of Pakistan’s flag on its Independence day on August 14 as their status on Instagram. This was brought to the notice of the Colaba police station by a 26-year-old businessman who saw the status of the duo and filed a complaint. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) was informed and the team tracked down the students. United Nations envoy says ICC should prosecute Taliban for crimes against humanity denying girls education [The International Criminal Court (ICC) should prosecute Taliban leaders for a crime against humanity for denying education and employment to Afghan girls and women]( the United Nations (UN) special envoy for global education said. Gordon Brown told a virtual UN press conference on the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on August 15 that its rulers are responsible for “the most egregious, vicious and indefensible violation of women’s rights and girls’ rights in the world today.” The former British Prime Minister said he has sent a legal opinion to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan that shows the denial of education and employment is “gender discrimination, which should count as a crime against humanity. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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