The TLDR: On Monday, the government moved swiftly to block their critics, both on Twitter and at protest sites. The obvious result: An astonishing show of unilateral power. But Twitter reversed its decision by the evening, leaving us with the big question: What exactly is this supposed to achieve?

Tell me about Twitter first

The platform blocked over 100 accounts and 150 tweets in India yesterday. The most prominent of the lot: Caravan magazine, journalist Sanjukta Basu, farm protest handles Kisan Ekta Morcha and Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) , politicians such as Aam Aadmi Party MLA Jarnail Singh, CPI(M) leader Md Salim, actor Sushant Singh—and most surprisingly, Prasar Bharati CEO Sashi Shekhar Vempati. 

Point to note: They fell under ‘Country Withheld Content'—i.e. they were blocked to users whose location setting was India. You could just change your region to view them. 

And why did Twitter block them?

The message when you clicked through to the blocked accounts said it “had been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.” Translation: The government—or specifically, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology—filed a “valid legal request” to do so. 

The government’s reason: The government claimed they all used the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide and posted “fake, intimidatory and provocative” material on its site. Also, this: Government sources said it was intended to “prevent any escalation of law and order in view of the ongoing farmer agitation.”

Two key points to note: 

One: Twitter’s own policies make clear that it removes content from its platform only if it violates its Terms of Service or Rules. But Twitter does not suspend or delete these accounts if they are only deemed illegal in a certain jurisdiction—i.e by the local government. Then it just blocks the content in that location.

Two: Twitter’s own rules say that when it receives such a request, “Twitter will attempt to notify you that we have received a legal request claiming the content of your account is potentially illegal. We will include a copy of the legal request unless prohibited.” The platform did not do either in the case of the blocked accounts.

Isn’t that a clear violation?

Yes, but Twitter has a good excuse for not informing those blocked. According to the Internet Freedom Foundation: 

“Section 69A and the IT Blocking Rules prevent intermediaries like Twitter from disclosing any information about blocking of an account or tweet. The confidentiality requirement present under Rule 16 of the IT Blocking Rules creates a bizarre situation where citizens have the right to challenge blocking of online content but they are unable to do so because they don't have access to these legal orders.”

The result: No one had any information on why they had been blocked. And it was all the more confusing since many of them did not use the offending hashtag. For example: Hansraj Meena, Sanjukta Bose, Caravan magazine, as per our own research. Also: The hapless Prasar Bharati CEO was blocked for raising objections to the hashtag:

Twitter does this only in India? 

No, the ‘country withheld’ policy was rolled out in 2012. At the time, Twitter cited requests by French and German governments to block Nazi hate speech. But at the time, it was widely criticised as a self-serving dodge:

“That's the example [hate speech] Twitter offered, and it's a pretty convenient one. Who's going to side with the Nazis? But there are plenty of other, less-palatable laws Twitter is now in a position to enforce, like Thailand's ban on anything deemed insulting to the king, or Turkey's similar prohibition on defaming its national founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Speaking of Turkey, it outlaws any discussion of the Armenian genocide, while France just passed a bill making it a crime to deny the genocide happened. So now Twitter can, in theory, be asked to observe both laws.”

And over the years, Twitter has been doing exactly that, as this Buzzfeed News investigation into withheld accounts shows. 

Still a double standard: But many foreign commentators pointed out that Twitter would have been less hasty in other parts of the world: 

“Can you imagine Twitter or any other platform company doing something like this in the US, France, or Germany, withholding e.g. Atlantic, Nouvel Obs, or Spiegel, with no real transparency about legal demands received? Troubling to see profound inequality in platform governance.”

But they’re back now… why?

Maybe it was the instant firestorm of global criticism. Maybe Twitter decided it didn’t want to be viewed as worse than Facebook—which would be a new low. The company met with government officials and reversed itself. According to a company source:

“Pending our discussions with the regulatory authorities, we temporarily withheld these accounts in India under our Country Withheld Content policy in response to a valid legal request from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. During our subsequent meetings with the officials, Twitter conveyed that the accounts and tweets in question constitute free speech and are newsworthy. Therefore, these tweets and accounts have now been unwithheld. Protecting public conversation and transparency is fundamental to the work we do at Twitter.”

But government sources are singing a different tune: “Yes, Twitter tried to push back against the order, but we have not changed anything… Twitter needs to implement this. People can’t go on insulting the Prime Minister of the land like this.” All of which indicates that this may just be the first of many such incidents.

Ok, tell me about the farmers now

There isn’t much to tell, and far easier to just show. This is what the Ghazipur border looks like:

This is what the Singhu border looks like:

These are the spikes being laid on the ground:

And this is what the Delhi police looks like now:

The bottomline: Again, we ask the same question: What exactly is the government trying to achieve?

Reading List

There isn’t much more to read on this one.

A big-spending budget

The TLDR: For months, experts have been urging the government to throw fiscal caution to the winds and spend big to revive the economy. The 2021 union budget delivered on that advice. But a number of key sectors were left to fend for themselves. The good news for the tax-payer: no tax hikes to finance the maha spend. 

Your personal tax bill

• The tax slabs have stayed exactly the same. 
• But if your Ulip has an annual premium higher than Rs 2.5 lakh, expect to pay more. 
• And there were no changes to the capital gains tax. Nor—as feared—did the government introduce a wealth tax. 
• All of which made the stock market very happy (Mint explains). 
• The Sensex rallied by 2,315 points or 5% at the end of the day. 
• Also: Those above the age of 75 do not have to file taxes if they do not claim deductions. 
• And for the rest of us, filing those taxes has become much easier. Business Standard explains how.

Your wallet 

Gold, silver, leather goods, nylon clothes will be cheaper this year, but you will pay more for things that are imported or have imported parts—since the government has raised the duty. The list includes: mobile phones and chargers, imported precious stones and air-conditioners and cars. All this is in line with the Atmanirbhar India mantra.

The big spends 

The projected fiscal deficit has jumped from 3.5% to 9.5% as the government announced massive allocations in three areas. Note: It will have to borrow Rs 12 trillion (12 lakh crore) to pay its bills: 

One: ‘Health’ spending jumped by 137% to hit Rs 2.2 trillion (2.24 lakh crore). But the definition of what constitutes health is a bit broad. The number includes money set aside for the Covid vaccination campaign, investments in healthcare (hospitals, hospital blocks, public health labs, etc). But also nutrition programmes, clean water, sanitization and environmental plans like the voluntary vehicle scrapping policy. The Hindu has more details.

Two: Infrastructure received a huge infusion: a capital expenditure of Rs 5.54 trillion (5.54 lakh crore), a 34% increase from fiscal 2021. A lot of this money will be spent in four states that will go to the polls in the coming year: West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam. Irrespective, the investment is expected to offer a big boost to job creation—which is the need of the hour. An added bonus: the soon-to-be-created Development Financial Institution that will lend Rs 5 trillion (Rs 5 lakh crore) in 3 years to fund infrastructure projects. Hindustan Times has more.

Three: Private banks can now park their bad loans in a ‘bad bank’—which will help clean up their books. This is good news for our banks which have doled out gargantuan loans to fat cats. This frees them up to lend more money—which experts warn isn’t such a good thing if they’ve been left off the hook for past sins. 

Bringing money in: Big disinvestment plans. The government plans to sell two public sector banks and an insurance company—which will hopefully make them more profitable and earn the government some much-needed moolah. 

What’s missing/disappointing

Cuts in agriculture: In the midst of an escalating confrontation with farmers, the government actually chose to decrease its spending on agriculture by Rs 60 billion (6,000 crore). And agriculture’s share of the entire budget has been reduced from 5.1% to 4.3% compared to last year. Farm leaders have immediately called for a three-hour ‘chakka jam’ on Saturday to protest the lowered allocation.

What about jobs? The budget includes a 34.5% cut in allocations for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)—which offers guaranteed rural employment for a certain number of days in a year. The program has been a lifesaver during the pandemic for migrant workers who were forced to return home. 

With urban employment still struggling to recover, the jobs scheme will be critical in the coming year. More so, since there is no spending allocated toward creating urban jobs either. And the budget also doesn’t include any money for the social security fund promised to migrant workers under the new labour laws. The Telegraph has more on this.

What about schools? The numbers are shocking: The total education budget was slashed by 6%  from Rs 993.11 billion (Rs 99,311 crore) last year to Rs 932.24 billion (Rs 93,224 crore)—the lowest in three years. School education suffered the biggest cut of almost Rs 50 billion (Rs 5,000 crore). (A big thanks to splainer subscriber Aishwarya Hariharan for this heads up)

Also left out: The industries worst hit by the pandemic received zero support. For example: Travel, tourism and hospitality. Telecommunications industry was disappointed to not get any relief from various fees—right as they ramp up for 5G. In general, the government did very little to ease the pain for smaller and medium sized businesses. 

Most glaring omission: Feeding the hungry. A recent survey shows that 2/3rds of Indians are still not eating at pre-pandemic levels. And child malnutrition is on the rise—even more so due to the absence of the midday meal. Yet, the government’s spend on direct nutrition programmes has actually gone down from Rs 245.574 billion (24,557.4 crore) to Rs 201.05 billion (20,105 crore). The Hindu has more details.

The bottomline: is well summed up by Abheek Barua, Chief Economist, HDFC Bank, who says the budget may revive the economy in the long run, but it will do little to mitigate the growing and glaring inequality: 

“While the government did not increase any direct taxes, as some sections of the market feared, there has also not been any cushion provided for households— especially in the informal sector that has been hit the most by the pandemic. Therefore, while the budget focuses towards pushing the long term growth potential it does little to prevent a K-shaped growth recovery.”

Reading List

• Bloomberg via ThePrint breaks down the winners and losers of Budget 2021. 
• Mint’s guide on what the budget means for the aam aadmi. Also in Mint: the ten big takeaways.
• Vivek Kaul explains the one truly big reform in Budget 2021. 
• A K Bhattacharya  in Business Standard (paywall) lays out why the Finance Minister has showed greater ambition than her predecessors. 
• The Telegraph explains why the budget numbers are inaccurate—which makes it a piece of fiction.
• IndiaSpend decodes the allocation for healthcare—and is not impressed.