The WTO reform has been the global agenda for a while including that of G20 and recently the G20 working group concluded a meeting on trade and investment focused on the important issue of WTO reform. However, any WTO reform should not lose sight of the larger global context.

Need for WTO Reform -

The Pursuit of Unilateralism by Developed Nations —

Ø  Contrary to WTO founding principles, today"s world is dominated by geo-economic considerations and heightened securitisation of international economic relations.

Ø  The pursuit of unilateralism in international economic relations, especially by developed countries like the US, which goes against established WTO laws.

Ø  Economic policies such as industrial subsidies and local content requirements have made a comeback.

Ø  Deliberate Effort to Weaken Trade Multilateralism — There is a deliberate effort to weaken trade multilateralism in favour of external plurilateral alignments keeping the big power confrontation in mind.

G20"s Role in WTO Reform -

Ø  The G20 must become the platform to facilitate a consensus on reforming the WTO to better achieve global developmental objectives.

Ø  With the major economies (with extensive geographic, economic, and social diversity) as its members, the G20 needs to be at the forefront of debates on trade and development.

Ø  Consequently, the member countries can also influence their respective negotiating coalitions at the WTO.

Ø  However, some economists believe that it is naïve to believe that the developed G20 countries are interested in reforming the WTO for the better. For example, a weak WTO perfectly suits the US as part of its foreign policy aimed at strategic rivalry with China.

Ø  Against this background the push for WTO reforms must come from G20"s middle powers” such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa.

How can India lead developing nations in reforming WTO under its G20 Presidency?

Technical Assistance —

Ø  Under India"s G20 presidency the G20 working groups could help provide technical assistance to WTO members, allowing them to engage more effectively in the WTO committees, including on trade and development.

Ø  This could cover inputs for negotiation, institutional reform, and dispute settlement, with development as the cross-cutting agenda.

Increase Awareness and Engagement with Stakeholders —

Ø  India"s G20 presidency could increase awareness and engagement with diverse stakeholders which is important for enhancing support and legitimacy for WTO reforms, especially among domestic constituencies that may be sceptical of trade liberalisation.

Ø  Capacity Building — The G20 engagement groups (such as Think20, Business20, and Civil20) under India"s presidency could devise programmes for capacity building in the private sector, civil society organisations, and other non-governmental stakeholders.

What should be the focus of developing nations during deliberation on WTO reforms?

Presence of Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) Principle —

Ø  This is one of the cardinal pillars of the international trading regime.

Ø  Given the varying levels of development of different WTO member countries, SDT provisions give special rights to developing countries and obligate developed countries to treat the developing nations more favourably.

Ø  However, only 21 per cent of the SDT provisions in various WTO agreements oblige developed countries to actually provide differential treatment to developing countries.

Ø  SDT provisions need to be given more teeth and efforts to weaken this treaty-embedded right in the name of WTO reform should be opposed vehemently.

The appellate body —

Ø  It is the second tier of the WTO"s two-tiered dispute settlement body which remains paralysed since 2019 because of the US"s continued indifference.

Ø  This is part of Washington"s overall game plan to dilute the policing part of the WTO, which, in turn, allows it to pursue trade unilateralism without many checks.

Ø  However, the remaining G20 countries need to either persuade the US to change its position or resurrect the appellate body without the US.

The consensus-based decision-making —

Ø  From 2017 onward, there has been a shift toward plurilateral discussions on select issues such as investment facilitation.

Ø  While the plurilateral approach is a welcome development for rule-making, there is a need to develop a multilateral governance framework for plurilateral agreements.

Ø  This governance framework should include key principles of non-discrimination, transparency, and inclusivity in incorporating the results of plurilateral negotiations in the WTO rulebook.

Ø  Forcing plurilateral agreements on non-willing members will increase the trust deficit between developed and developing countries.

Address the transparency gap —

Ø  It is imperative to address the transparency gap in the WTO, especially in terms of notification requirements.

Ø  Although WTO member countries are obliged to notify all their laws and regulations that affect trade, compliance with this obligation is poor.

Ø  This increases the cost of trade, especially for developing countries.

Conclusion -

Trade multilateralism might be out of fashion, but remains a critical component for developing countries like India. India"s G20 presidency offers an opportunity to drive reformatory interventions for a development-friendly WTO and enable further substantial benefits for developing nations.

According to reports, a bot on the messaging app Telegram is reportedly returning personal information of Indian citizens who enrolled with the COVID-19 vaccine intelligence network (CoWIN) portal for vaccination purposes. The bot revealed personal details like name, Aadhaar and passport numbers upon entry of phone numbers.

The CoWIN Portal -

Ø  CoWIN is a government-owned web portal set up in 2021 to administer and manage India’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Ø  The platform tracks vaccines and beneficiaries at the national, State, and district levels on a real-time basis.

Ø  It monitors vaccine utilisation and wastage and maintains an inventory of the vials.

Ø  For citizens, CoWIN verifies identity, helps schedule vaccine appointments, and issues a vaccine certificate.

Ø  The platform is a microservices-based, cloud-native architecture developed from the ground up on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Ø  A microservice architecture is a pattern that arranges an application as a collection of loosely linked, fine-grained services. These services interact with each other through certain set protocols.

Significance of the Portal -

Ø  The health register-style platform leverages existing public digital infrastructure like the —

Ø  Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN), an app that provides data on vaccine cold chains in the country;

Ø  Digital Infrastructure for Verifiable Open Credentialing (DIVOC), a vaccine certificate issuer; and

Ø  Surveillance and Action for Events Following Vaccination (SAFE-VAC), a vaccine adverse event tracker.

Ø  The database captures information flowing from four separate input streams —

Ø  Citizen registration;

Ø  Health centres;

Ø  Vaccine inventory; and

Ø  Vaccine certificates.

Ø  Each stream functions independently, and at the same time exchanges data to minimise redundancies.

CoWIN Data Breach -

Ø  This is not the first-time reports about data leaks have emerged.

Ø  In January 2022, the personal data of thousands of people in India were reportedly leaked from a government server. The information included COVID-19 test results, phone numbers, names and addresses of citizens.

Ø  In December 2022, in a separate security breach, an Iranian hacker claimed to be in possession of data from the CoWIN database.

How did these data breach?

Ø  Cloud providers like AWS typically provide security only for the underlying infrastructure and not for securing the applications and databases.

Ø  Legacy systems deployed in virtual servers are the weak links in the chain, providing a perfect route for hackers to gain entry into a database.

Ø  In past data breaches, cybersecurity experts have attributed data leaks to human error or negligence in setting up databases in the cloud.

Ø  Misconfiguring a system, or involvement of third-party apps with limited privacy features, could have also exposed user data to unauthorised people.

Government response on the recent data breach -

Ø  The Health Ministry denied recent reports of a data breach and said the allegations were mischievous in nature.

Ø  It added that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was reviewing the existing security infrastructure of the portal.

Ø  The Ministry of Electronics and IT said the nodal cyber security agency had reviewed the alleged breach and found that the CoWIN platform was not directly breached.

Way forward -

Ø  In 2017, the Supreme Court of India (in KS Puttaswamy case) recognised privacy as a fundamental right, highlighting the need to protect personal information.

Ø  However, such leaks reveal that sensitive personal data of millions of Indian citizens who signed up for the COVID-19 vaccination is in the hands of cybercriminals.

Ø  Therefore, a data protection law could be a useful tool in fixing accountability and building safeguards around the use and processing of personal data.

The area around Malcha Mahal is all set to get a facelift, as the lieutenant governor recently asked the authorities to carry out a five-layered plantation of various flowering trees in it.

 About Malcha Mahal -

Ø  It is a Tughlaq-era hunting lodge, built by Feroz Shah Tughlaq in the 14th century.

Ø  Location — Chanakyapuri area of New Delhi.

Ø  It came to be known as Wilayat Mahal after Begum Wilayat Mahal of Awadh, who was reportedly given the place by the government of India in May 1985.

Ø  For over three decades, it served as home to the family of Begum Wilayat Mahal, claiming to be descendants of the Nawab of Awadh, whose last member, ‘Prince’ Ali Raza, died in 2017.

About Feroz Shah Tughlaq -

Ø  Born in 1309, Firoz Shah Tughlaq was the third ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty that ruled over Delhi from 1320 to 1412 AD.

Ø  He was in power from 1351 to 1388 AD.

Ø  He ascended the throne after the death of his cousin Muhammad-bin Tughlaq (ruled from 1324 to 1351 AD).

Rule of Firoz Shah Tughlaq —

Ø  His succession was faced with many rebellions, and due to widespread unrest, his realm was much smaller than Muhammad’s.

Ø  During his rule, Firoz Shah worked to improve the infrastructure of the empire. He did this by building canals, rest- houses and hospitals, creating and refurbishing reservoirs and digging wells.

Ø  He also founded several cities around Delhi, including Jaunpur, Firozpur, Hissar, Firozabad and Fatehabad.

Ø  He also repaired the Qutub Minar, which had been damaged by an earthquake.

Ø  He wrote his own autobiography called the ‘Futuhat-e-Firozshahi’.

Ø  Firoz Shah was indiscriminately benevolent and lenient as a ruler. He refused to re-conquer provinces that had broken away from Muhammad’s annexation.

Ø  He stopped all kinds of harsh punishments, such as cutting off hands, and lowered the land taxes that Muhammad had raised.

Ø  He sought advice from the Ulemas and ruled as per the Shariat. He imposed a number of taxes like the Kharaj, Zakat, Kham and Jaziya, which were levied on the non-Muslim subjects.

Ø  He also imposed an irrigation tax after getting it sanctioned from the Ulema.

Ø  He provided the principle of inheritance to the armed forces, where the officers were permitted to rest and send their children into the army in their place.

Ø  He established the Diwan-i-Khairat — office for charity.

Ø  He established the Diwan-i-Bundagan — department of slaves.

Ø  He established Sarais (rest house) for the benefits of merchants and other travelers.

Ø  He adopted the Iqtadari framework.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has written to the leaders of the G-20 nations proposing that the African Union be given full membership of the grouping at its upcoming summit in India. India is hosting the G-20 summit in Delhi in September in its capacity as the current chair of the grouping.

 Details -

Ø  Prime Minister Modi has proposed inclusion of AU into the G-20 groping.

Ø  The G20 comprises 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UK and US) and the European Union.

Ø  The G20 members represent around 85% of the global GDP, over 75% of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.

Ø  The idea of including AU in G-20 originated after the ‘Voice of the Global South’ summit, in which most of the African continent’s 54 countries participated.

Ø  Voice of the Global South Summit was held in January 2023.

Ø  It should be noted that any expansion of membership of the G20 grouping is based on consensus, and all G20 leaders have to come to an agreement on the issue.

Analysis -

Ø  By proposing the African Union for G20 membership, India has pitched itself as a leader of the developing and under-developed countries.

Ø  This is also in sync with India’s aspiration for permanent membership of the UNSC, for which Delhi is keen to garner support from Africa that has 54 votes.

Ø  Also, analysts believe the inclusion of AU is a right step towards a just, fair, more inclusive and representative global architecture and governance.

Ø  There is only one country from the entire African continent in the grouping – South Africa.

Ø  On the other hand, Europe is represented by five countries as well as the European Union (EU).

About the ‘African Union’ -

Ø  The AU is an intergovernmental organisation consisting of the 55 member states that make up the countries of the African Continent.

Ø  Basically, it is a continental union with a wide range of goals aimed at strengthening its member states both individually and collectively.

Ø  It was officially launched in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, 1963-1999).

Ø  The AU’s headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Origins of African Union -

Ø  OAU was established on 25th May 1963, when 32 heads of independent African States signed the OUA Charter in Addis Ababa Ethiopia on May 1963 for the establishment of Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

Ø  This initiative was taken as a pan-Africa vision for a united and free Africa with a major focus on the freedom, justice, equality and dignity of the African people.

Ø  The main objective of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was to eradicate the African states from colonisation and to promote unity and solidarity.

Ø  On 9th September 1999, the Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) called for the establishment of an African Union through the Sirte Declaration to enable the role of Africa in the global economy. Therefore, the African Union (AU) was officially launched in July 2002 in Durban, South Africa.

Four summits that led to the formation African Union were:

Ø  The Sirte Extraordinary Session (1999) decided to establish an African Union.

Ø  The Lome Summit (2000) adopted the Constitutive Act of the Union.

Ø  The Lusaka Summit (2001) drew the road map for the implementation of the AU.

Ø  The Durban Summit (2002) launched the AU and convened the 1st Assembly of the Heads of States of the African Union.

The Union Culture Ministry announced that the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) would now be called the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library Society.

Ø  The name change came nearly a year after a Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya (Prime Ministers’ Museum) was inaugurated on the premises of the Teen Murti Bhavan, which also hosted the NMML.

Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML):

Ø  The NMML was established as a memorial to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.

Ø  It is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

Ø  The NMML is located in Teen Murti House, Nehru’s former official residence.

Ø  It consists of four main components: a Memorial Museum, a library on modern India, a Centre for Contemporary Studies, and the Nehru Planetarium.

Features of NMML:

Museum:

Ø  The museum showcases exhibits related to Nehru’s life, including personal artifacts, photographs, letters, and documents.

Ø  It highlights his role in India’s freedom struggle and his contributions as a statesman.

Library:

Ø  The library at NMML houses a vast collection of books, journals, documents, and manuscripts on modern Indian history and politics.

Ø  It is open to researchers, scholars, and the general public.

Archives:

Ø  NMML has archival facilities that preserve historical records, including official documents, private papers, and photographs.

Ø  It holds significant materials related to the Indian independence movement and Nehru’s political career.

Research Center:

Ø  The NMML serves as a research center, promoting scholarly studies on Indian history and Nehruvian thought.

Ø  It provides fellowships, research grants, and organizes seminars, conferences, and lectures.

Nehru Planetarium:

Ø  Adjacent to the NMML, the Nehru Planetarium offers shows and exhibitions on astronomy and space science.

Ø  It provides educational experiences for astronomy enthusiasts.

Publications:

Ø  The NMML publishes books, journals, and research papers on Indian history, politics, and culture.

Ø  These publications contribute to academic discourse and knowledge dissemination.

Teen Murti House

Built in 1929-30 as Flagstaff House, it was part of Edwin Lutyens’ imperial capital.

It served as the official residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the British armed forces in India.

In August 1948, it became the official residence of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya (Prime Ministers’ Museum)

The Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya, inaugurated by PM Modi in April 2022, is a tribute to every Prime Minister of India since Independence.

It showcases the contributions of each PM to the nation’s development over the past 75 years.

The museum recognizes the contributions of all 14 PMs, regardless of ideology or tenure, and leaves space for future leaders. 

What happened to the erstwhile Nehru Museum building?

The Nehru Museum building has been seamlessly integrated with the new museum building.

It is designated as Block I and features a completely updated and technologically advanced display on the life and contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister.