The Centre is considering introducing pre-installed government software in all new mobile phones, said news reports on October 3. This change would allow the government to monitor its citizens.

According to Economic Times, this proposal is part of a larger plan to establish an Indian app store independent of Apple and Google. The plan would involve adding government apps to Android phones which account for 96 percent of the country’s market.

However, this suggestion by the government also raises privacy concerns like data harvesting. India has few data protection laws as it is and the Centre has already been accused of mass surveillance via the Aarogya Setu coronavirus contact-tracing app.

The app collects a user’s location data along with their name, phone number, age, sex, profession and countries visited in the last 30 days and cross references it with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s COVID-19 database. Aarogya Setu sends this information to a government server to keep a record of all places visited by a person every 15 minutes and update their health status. Organisations like the International Freedom Foundation warned against such mass surveillance apps especially considering India’s poor privacy laws.

Related:

Where does the law stand on your “objectionable” posts on social media?
Indian government bans 59 Chinese mobile apps amid border standoff
Home quarantine patients to be tracked using mobile data?
Meghalaya law student’s plea in HC against mandatory imposition of contact tracing apps

The post Centre considers pre-installed government software in all Android phones appeared first on SabrangIndia.

What can be called a moment of cheer for Adivasis in Madhya Pradesh, the government is in an active process of re-examining cancelled forest land claims.

The Madhya Pradesh government has put to use a software called the MP Vanmitra Software which is currently re-examining claims under the Forest Rights Act that were initially cancelled. So far, 20,517 claims have been accepted after re-examination.

The Gram Forest Rights Committees are re-examining about 2.6 lakh claims cancelled earlier. After examining the claims, the subdivision level committees have redressed 82,663 claims and sent them to district level committees with recommendation. District level committees have resolved 28,710 claims and 20,517 claims have been accepted, as reported by The Pioneer.

In the state, after the implementation of Forest rights Act, 2006, about 2.2 lakh individual forest rights and about 27 thousand community rights have been bestowed upon tribal individuals and communities through documents called Van Adhikar Patras.

The communities and individuals are also further entitled to benefits of government schemes and accordingly, as many as 54,965 Kapildhara wells, 57,721 land restoration cases, 24,366 diesel-electric irrigation pumps and about 61,000 houses have been sanctioned to forest dwellers who have been granted the Adhikar Patras.

Related:

MP: Adivasi activists illegally detained and tortured by forest officials
Adivasi academic and activist targeted for stand on exams during Covid-19
Molestation charges against Dudhwa National Park Deputy Director

The post 20,000 and counting; cancelled FRA claims re-examined and approved in MP appeared first on SabrangIndia.