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<br /><ul><li>The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched its election manifesto today. </li><li>During the launch of the manifesto the attending politicians made little mention of the digital initiatives that they have planned. </li><li>The manifesto itself makes little mention of the debate around data privacy and the right of privacy of citizens.</li></ul><br />The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just unveiled their election manifesto in New Delhi. Narendra Modi, the current prime minister, and the president of the BJP, Amit Shah, made little mention of the ‘digital aspects’ of the manifesto and debate around digital privacy. <br /><br /><div type="image" title="5cab0bf195ce3825702373" msid="68776327" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Highlights of digital promises by BJP in its election manifesto for the Indian general election 2019&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>

<br />The only notable additions are the addition of new science missions for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. As well as the Language Translation Mission that aims to make all educational literature available in Indian languages.<br /><br />Congress and the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M), have both made <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cpi-m-promises-digital-privacy-in-election-manifesto/articleshow/68628066.cms">commitments</a> to address the issue of digital rights. While the former promises to pass a law to protect the personal data of all persons and uphold the right to privacy, the latter takes on Section 69 — the issue of mass surveillance. <br /><br />Since people have begun to realise the importance of data, both through the Aadhaar program and the many fumbles of tech giants, they’re all the more vary of its protection and privacy. Even businesses in India have been monetising it, even though they’re not as good as protecting it. <br /><br />Aadhaar has its own set of controversies ranging from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/latest-aadhaar-data-leak-via-indane-gas-may-be-the-biggest-so-far-according-to-elliot-alderson/articleshow/68058787.cms">data leaks</a> through third party portals, the vulnerability of its data servers, and how the data can be potentially misused. In the nine-years since its inception, 80% of Indians still <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/nine-years-later-80-of-indians-are-still-not-convinced-the-worlds-largest-biometric-id-system-is-secure/articleshow/64406235.cms">don’t feel</a> that the system is secure.<br /><br />This year’s manifesto bears a little thin on technological aspects aside from what’s already in play. It promises to connect all the Gram Panchayats — a type of self-governing village council — in the country using high speed optical fibre network by 2022. But, The BharatNet program has already <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/1-10-lakh-gram-panchayats-given-optical-fibre-connectivity-government/articleshow/62833908.cms">connected</a> 110,000 Gram Panchayats in the country and is already geared towards bringing all the villages under its umbrella.<br /><br />The BJP also reiterated their commitment to push for digital payments and extend banking services to within 5 km for every individual. That doesn’t necessarily mean opening bank branches at every 5km but then again, digital interfaces for customers to interact with banking correspondents are already in place.<br /><br />The manifesto also restated the government’s take on Operation Digital Board which already launched in February and promises to bring e-resources and digital board to secondary schools as well as higher education institutions. <br /><br />They also promise to continue with the current incentives to expand the use of digital transactions in the country and build on the already stocked ‘National Digital Library of India’ which provides e-books and journal papers to students for free.<br /><br />The party also promises to build on the ongoing process of digitising governance process end-to-end including the digital delivery of government services. <br /><br />While the BJP has been very keen on making the country more digitally connected it’s stance on data privacy and protection has been discomforting for many. This government now has a process in place that skims through people’s vacation photos on social media and matches that with the respective tax data to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india-tax-tracker-uses-big-data-to-track-tax-evasion/articleshow/68578501.cms">check for evasion</a>. <br /><br />This manifesto does little to ease the fear of an overarching big brother who may be looking over your shoulder all the time.<br /><br /><strong>See also:</strong><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cpi-m-promises-digital-privacy-in-election-manifesto/articleshow/68628066.cms">Only one Indian party promises digital privacy in its election manifesto so far</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/bjp-manifesto-released-for-2019-lok-sabha-elections/articleshow/68774925.cms">Narendra Modi's election manifesto packs larger doles and a rosy narrative</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/general-election-2019-facebook-war-room-in-india/articleshow/68371097.cms">The Indian election might be Facebook's last chance to prove that it can fight fake news and political bias</a><br />

Narendra Modi’s manifesto keeps the fear over data privacy and protection alive

<br /><ul><li>WhatsApp will play a crucial role in the Indian general <keyword id="3383007" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Election-2019">election 2019</keyword>.</li><li>Aside from misinformation, the primary concern is that WhatsApp groups will be used to exploit personal for political gain.</li><li>Users in rural India, in particular, have increased since the last general election in 2014. </li></ul>As the world’s largest democratic exercise kicks off in India, the influence of social media on general election in 2019 may be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/general-elections-2019-election-commission-to-closely-monitor-social-media-regulate-all-political-ads/articleshow/68351473.cms">even bigger</a> than it was in 2014. <br /><br />WhatsApp, in particular, is a concern considering that India is its largest market with over 200 million monthly active users and 52% of smartphone users reported using it as a news source in one week. <br /><br />
  
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<br />Not only does that usage outrank <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/snapchat-partners-with-tinder-to-avoid-facebook-like-catastrophe/articleshow/68735964.cms">Snapchat</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/facebook-is-reportedly-bringing-in-local-it-firms-to-moderate-fake-news-in-india/articleshow/67344852.cms">Facebook</a> Messenger, but it’s also much higher <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-03/India_DNR_FINAL.pdf">compared</a> to other countries around the world as per the India Digital News Report by Reuters. Officials from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/bjps-5-year-challenge-follows-facebooks-10-year-challenge/articleshow/67586112.cms">Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)</a> have even <a href="https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/book-extract/india-whatsapp-election">dubbed</a> the upcoming elections as the ‘WhatsApp Elections’.<br /><br /><strong>The issue with ‘<keyword id="2479020" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Fake-news">fake news</keyword>’ on WhatsApp<br /></strong><br />In a country where people generally <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india-has-more-fake-news-than-any-other-country-in-the-world-survey/articleshow/67868418.cms">don’t trust</a> the news anyway, the increase in the circulation of fake news has 57% of Indians are concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet.<br /><br />Even their reasons for being concerned range from facts being manipulated to suit a particular agenda to unwittingly being duped by satire content.<br /><br />
  
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<br />Not only is the spread of misinformation a concern, there’s also the burgeoning issue of personal data being exploited for political ends — an issue that has only gotten more grave after the Cambridge Analytica data breach <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/facebook-was-warned-about-cambridge-analytica-issues-months-earlier-than-previously-disclosed/articleshow/68529933.cms">scandal</a> took place in 2018 where data was used to influence the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.<br /><br />Last year, BBC Research found that nationalism was the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/nationalism-main-causes-of-fake-news-in-india/articleshow/66591404.cms">driving force</a> behind a lot of the fake news in India. Rather than verify facts, content sharers assert that they’re only bringing the ‘right version’ of the story into the light. <br /><br />BJP <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bjp-plans-a-whatsapp-campaign-for-2019-lok-sabha-election/story-lHQBYbxwXHaChc7Akk6hcI.html">reportedly</a> assigned some 900,000 people to the specific task of localised WhatsApp campaigning. Amit Shah, the party president, apparently asked state units to compile a list of voters who have smartphones for every polling station. <br /><br />Congress, the opposing party, is focusing on Facebook to uploading their campaign content but even for them, distribution is <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/advertising/battling-bjps-mainbhichowkidar-congress-to-enter-social-media-campaign-arena-next-week/articleshow/68506320.cms?from=mdr">dependant</a> on WhatsApp.<br /><br /><strong>Rural India<br /></strong><br />More than half of the Indian population resides in rural India, And, since 2014, the usage of WhatsApp by rural India has boomed in particular alongside more and more people coming online. The Digital Empowerment Foundation <a href="http://defindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WhatsApp-Rural-Study_V3.pdf">found</a> that nearly half of the respondents report that almost everyone in their village is a WhatsApp user. <br /><br />
  
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<br />The issue is not that more people are online but that increased usage of WhatsApp has made it a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/India-threatens-WhatsApp-with-legal-action-after-hoaxes-on-the-app-led-to-lynchings/articleshow/65062390.cms">tempting 
  
platform</a> to disseminate misinformation, even though most rural users believe that other platforms are more trustworthy as a news source.<br /><br />
  
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<br />That being said not many question the sender of forwarded messages and one fourth of users even pass along forwards after reading them.<br /><br />
  
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<br />Even so, the majority of the rural population doesn’t trust information received via WhatsApp too easily.<br /><br /><div type="javascript" title="Custom" contenttype=""><cdata><![CDATA[
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<br />Despite WhatsApp putting in a 5 message <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/whatsapp-restricts-message-forwarding-in-an-attempt-to-reduce-fake-news-lynchings/articleshow/65073335.cms">restriction</a> on forwards and running a number of awareness <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/whatsapp-has-a-new-radio-campaign-to-counter-fake-news-in-india/articleshow/65606213.cms">campaigns</a> around fake news, the issue remains that due their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indian-government-wants-to-tap-into-your-whatsapp-messages-other-social-media/articleshow/64979461.cms">end-to-end encryption</a> of messages it’s difficult to find out where a message may have originated. <br /><br />A lot of the time, the information isn’t even shard by official political party accounts, but unofficial groups that have an indirect political affiliation.<br /><br />They also recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/whatsapp-facebook-put-up-more-defensive-measures-in-the-face-of-increasing-fake-news/articleshow/68704503.cms">introduced</a> their own tipline called Checkpoint that can let users know if a particular piece of news is true, false, misleading or disputed. Technically, it’s a research project to ‘study the phenomenon of misinformation’ so not everyone will get a response.<br /><br />All in all, despite all the new rules, experts believe that they will have a <a href="http://time.com/5512032/whatsapp-india-election-2019/">negligible effect</a> on the group chats that already exist on the platform where propaganda of all colours flourish, often, at the expense of facts.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/facebook-twitter-instagram-whatsapp-2019-elections-india/articleshow/68264695.cms">Social networking sites may have more to answer for ahead of the elections in India</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/whatsapp-group-new-feature-asks-for-user-consent/articleshow/68708123.cms">Finally, WhatsApp will demand ‘consent’ before adding people to random groups</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/heres-whats-up-with-kimbho-the-indian-messaging-app-that-wants-to-take-on-whatsapp/articleshow/64506716.cms">Here’s what’s up with Kimbho, the Indian messaging app that wants to take on WhatsApp</a><br />

One messaging app is affecting voter opinions in India more than other media put together

<br /><ul><li>Mumbai, India’s financial capital, will be going to the polls today during the fourth phase of the Indian Parliamentary election.</li><li>Out of Maharashtra’s 48 constituencies, 12 fall under the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and 6 are directly in Mumbai.</li><li>The city is infamous for its low voter turnout even though it did witness a 10% increase during the last Indian general election in 2014.</li></ul>India’s financial capital Mumbai is a lucrative constituency and therefore the Bharatiya Janata Party coalition (BJP), which the regional outfit Shiv Sena is part of, is keen to retain its hold on.<br /><br />For a little over a year now, nearly all of the city is covered in a cloud of dust. Aside from the regular pollution, a spate of infrastructure projects like metro rail construction have been initiated by the incumbent coalition led by the BJP. <br /><br />There is a lot of buzz around elections in Mumbai, which accounts for 1% of India’s population <a href="https://www.census2011.co.in/census/city/365-mumbai.html">according </a>to Census 2011. The city’s two landmarks, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), will remain shut as the city goes to the polls during the fourth phase of the Indian <keyword id="3393746" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="General-Election-2019">general election 2019</keyword>. <br /><br />However, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which includes 12 of Maharashtra’s 48 constituencies, is <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/in-the-news/can-mumbai-break-the-low-voter-turnout-jinx-in-2019">infamous</a> for low voter turnout — although, it did witness a 10% increase in 2014 to 52.66% from 41.40% in 2009.<br /><br />It is generally believed that the average Mumbaikar, as the citizens call themselves, would rather drive out of the city for the long weekend than stay back for voting. The city’s searing summer sun makes the idea of standing in queues much less compelling.<br /><br />
  
  
  
  
  <div type="ExtQuote" text="Low percentage has always been a matter of concern. It has been observed that there is poor voting in urban areas compared to rural areas. However, this needs to change this time. Mumbai is the commercial capital of India. We have created an environment, so voters can vote without fear." auname="Ashwini Kumar, Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer"></div>











<br />Those well-off, residing in growing clusters of high rises in South Mumbai, or SoBo as it is sometimes called, have little to complain about beyond bureaucracy, bad roads, and incessant traffic. <br /><br />There are barely any power cuts in the city. Most people even in the relatively less privileged middle class enjoy running water.<br /><br />However, for every one of those in Mumbai’s towering glory, there are thousands of people strewn, along the long banks of three sprawling highways heading north, in descending order of privilege — in some cases the loss of privilege is just perceived — based on their distance from SoBo. <br /><br />From the suburban buildings signifying various social ranks, down to the seemingly-endless shadowy slums, issues span from unemployment and insufficient salaries, to unaffordable rents and leaky roofs, to water scarcity and a crumbling state infrastructure that has been, at times, <a href="https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india-foot-overbridge-collapses-in-navi-mumbai-latets-updates-injured-killed-authorities-513954">fatal</a>. <br /><br />Yet, most Mumbaikars don’t vote. Ajit Ranade, one of the cofounders of Association of Democratic Reforms, told the Hindu, “Low voter awareness, voters’ apathy, agnosticism — when the candidate on the ballot does not excite or motivate the voter— and lack of registration in the young category and first-time voters are the reasons for low voter turnout.”<br /><br />This time, some voters in South Mumbai may go to the poll booths but rather than vote between Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant or Congress’ Milind Murli Deora, their ballot will read NOTA (none of the above). The citizens in the area <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/why-some-south-mumbai-voters-choosing-nota-1510675-2019-04-26">claim</a> that there hasn’t been any development in their region over the past 24 years. These voters are people who live in the shadows of some of the country’s richest, including the family of Mukesh Ambani.<br /><br /><strong>Chaos and colour<br /></strong><br />Of the six constituencies in Mumbai, the most <a href="https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/poonam-priya-dutt-battle-it-out-in-vip-constituency/764783.html">coveted</a> seat is the one in Mumbai North Central where 27 candidates are going to be battling for the crown. Running through the middle of this constituency is the western express highway, one of the country’s widest roads that is choked by traffic day in and day out. <br /><br />To the left of the highway is Bandra, home to many a celebrity. To the right of the same highway are areas like Kurla — once labeled the ‘dirtiest ward in the city’ — and Chandivali which are home to large communities living in slums.<br /><br />The political heavyweights in the fight for Mumbai North Central are Priya Dutt, the Congress candidate and, the incumbent, BJP’s Poonam Mahajan — both from political legacies. The former is the daughter of the late actor turned politician, Sunil Dutt, and the latter is BJP politician Pramod Mahajan’s daughter. Both Sunil Dutt and Pramod Mahan were iconic leaders in their own right who have left behind a legacy that has fueled their families’ political ambitions.<br /><br />One of the highlights of this election in Bandra is the recognition of sexual minorities as a politically important segment. Priya Dutt and Congress member, Harrish Iyer — who is also India’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indias-first-openly-gay-politician-joins-the-oldest-party-in-the-country/articleshow/68799862.cms">first openly gay politician</a> — met with members of the LGBT community to discuss bringing their issues into mainstream politics. <br /><br />The country’s biggest financial hub is also home to Bollywood.As film careers fade, some of the actors jump into politics. The star-turned-politician creating the most buzz is Congress’ candidate for the Mumbai North Seat is Urmila Matondkar — a former actress — who will be going up against Gopal Shetty, representing the Bharatiya Janata Party, who won by a landslide 540,000 votes against his opponent in 2014.<br /><br />Much like the rest of India, Mumbai has seen a spike in communal rhetoric in recent years. Shetty, for instance, has been under the gun for his controversial comments around <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/farmer-suicide-gopal-shetty-bjp-maharashtra/">farmer suicides</a> and <a href="https://indianexpress.com/elections/mumbai-north-christians-move-on-from-gopal-shettys-foreigners-remark-seek-development-5693223/">Christianity</a> — and he has criminal charges against him including <a href="http://citizenmatters.in/mp-candidate-gopal-shetty-mumbai-north-lok-sabha-constituency-10891">corruption</a> — this is will be Matondar’s first foray into politics who has promised to push slum redevelopment projects to improve the quality of housing. <br /><br /><br />In Mumbai North Central, which is prone to debilitating floods, the Mithi river that is now made up 100% of <a href="https://www.thequint.com/explainers/mumbai-mithi-river-pollution-problem-explained">sewage</a> remains an election issue one more time. <br /><br />Then again, floods, unemployment, creaky infrastructure, choked roads and lungs have been among the constant concerns in India’s city of dreams. Not enough people vote, and not enough politicians care to fix the issues.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/voter-turnout-declines-in-third-phase-of-indias-lok-sabha-election/articleshow/69012785.cms">Voter turnout declines in the third and largest phase of the Indian election</a><br /><br /><a href="http://v">Here’s what the second phase of the Indian general election has in store for the 11 states polling today</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/lok-sabha-election-2019-violence-bombs-and-explosions/articleshow/68837699.cms">The first phase of India's Parliamentary elections had its share of explosions, firearms, and bombs</a></strong><br />

This one city voting today has more people and money at stake than most others in India

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Narendra Modi’s manifesto keeps the fear over data privacy and protection alive

Prabhjote Gill

One messaging app is affecting voter opinions in India more than other media put together

Prabhjote Gill

This one city voting today has more people and money at stake than most others in India

Prabhjote Gill

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