By Categories: Polity

The concept of sovereignty is widely believed to have originated at the end of Europe’s Thirty Years War, with the Treaty of Westphalia, in which, for the first time, the absolute authority of a nation-state over its territory was recognized. [wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]

Until then, rulers could only claim dominion over the territory they controlled—meaning that sovereign power diminished the further you were from its centre. According to Westphalian notions of sovereignty, on the other hand, citizens owed allegiance to the territory—regardless of how far away they were from its capital—and through the territory, to the sovereign authority.

Even though the treaty was signed in 1648, it wasn’t till a couple of centuries later, with the Industrial Revolution, that the territorial underpinnings of sovereignty began to bear fruit. 
 
Technologies like the steam engine, railways and telegraph compressed distances within countries, allowing rulers to access far-flung territories with greater ease and efficiency.
 
This territorial rescaling (as Charles Maier puts it) significantly enhanced national prosperity, letting greater value be extracted from the land and its people than was previously possible.
 
Nation-states now had every incentive to preserve the sanctity of their territory. They hastened to articulate a universal public law under which sovereign states would have exclusive jurisdiction over all property and persons who happened to be located within their territory—but, at the same time, would not be allowed to exercise jurisdiction over property and persons outside that territory.
 
This symmetrical doctrine is the fundamental basis for modern international relations. It supports the sovereign right of nations to establish their own laws, and acknowledges that anyone who chooses to enter the jurisdiction of a foreign state must abide by its rules, no matter how different they are from the place they came from.
 
This is the reason why anyone who commits a criminal act within the territory of one state can escape prosecution by simply crossing a border to another state—and, quixotically, why that other state cannot prosecute the fugitive for a crime committed beyond its borders.
 
The internet, the world’s most recent space-compression technology, has shrunk distances like nothing that came before it. Not only has it compressed distances within countries, it has shrunk distances between them and created the deeply interconnected world that we inhabit today.
 
However, unlike in the past, when space compression respected territorial sovereignty, the internet pays no heed to national boundaries or the different laws that each sovereign nation enforces within its borders.
 
It is, to that extent, completely unmoored from the notion of Westphalian sovereignty, and it allows the actions of individuals and corporations situated in one country to affect those in another without ever crossing physical borders.
 
This fundamental feature of the internet has, since its very inception, forced us to engage with issues of jurisdiction differently when it comes to the digital realm. In the early days of the internet, we tried to look the other way, sweeping jurisdictional challenges under the carpet of web exceptionalism.
 
That approach is increasingly falling out of favour. Now that the internet is essential infrastructure, governments around the world are less and less inclined to allow private corporations to control what transpires on it or have exclusive access to the data that traverses through it.
 
In 2018, when the Justice Srikrishna Committee released a draft data protection law for India, it included, for the first time in a data protection law, explicit localization provisions that required certain kinds of personal data to be processed only in India.
 
There are many benefits that we enjoy and have come to take for granted precisely because there are no restrictions on data flows. We need look no further than the speed of our pandemic response to appreciate the important role the internet has played in getting genomic data on the novel coronavirus to scientists around the world in a short time, giving them a head start in vaccine development.
 
Had scientific information not been able to flow from one corner of the world to the other, we would simply not have been able to develop not one, but five major covid vaccines in such record time.
 
Regardless, governments around the world have grown increasingly interested in asserting greater sovereign authority over the data of their citizens, with a view to curbing the power of private corporations that operate as gateways to our internet access as well as ensuring that the manner in which this data gets used conforms to national law.
 
Notably, despite the initial opposition globally to India’s data localization policy, digital borders have hardened everywhere since then.
 
Last week, Microsoft announced the launch of its new European Union Data Boundary service, which makes a hard commitment to all the companies that sign up for this service that their data will never move out of the EU.
 
It seems that at least one big technology company is willing to regionalize its cloud offerings, choosing to capitulate to the European demand for regional sovereignty instead of placing all its eggs in the ‘safe harbour’ basket. One wonders if other tech companies will follow suit.

 

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    In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).


    States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.

    In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.

    The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.

    At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.

    This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance

    The Equity Principle

    The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.

    This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.

    Growth and its Discontents

    Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.

    The Pursuit Of Sustainability

    The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.

     

    The Curious Case Of The Delta

    The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.

    Key Findings:-

    1. In the Large States category (overall), Chhattisgarh ranks 1st, followed by Odisha and Telangana, whereas, towards the bottom are Maharashtra at 16th, Assam at 17th and Gujarat at 18th. Gujarat is one State that has seen startling performance ranking 5th in the PAI 2021 Index outperforming traditionally good performing States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but ranks last in terms of Delta
    2. In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
    3. In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
    4. Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.

    In the Scheme of Things

    The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.

    The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).

    National Health Mission (NHM)

    • In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
    • In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.

     

    INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)

    • Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
    • Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh

     

    MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)

    • Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
    • Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers

     

    SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)

    • West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
    • In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three

     

    MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)

    • Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
    • In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam

     

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