Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Legislative Procedures

Artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention from all over the world, and it is being used to improve legislative processes in many advanced democracies. In India, lawmakers can utilise AI to help them with a variety of tasks, including creating responses for legislators, improving the quality of their research, and learning more about any Bill, the writing of legislation, amendments, interventions, and other topics. However, codifying India’s laws is necessary before AI can be used there. These laws are opaque, complex, and there is a significant language barrier between the organisations that create, implement, and interpret the laws.

How can artificial intelligence be defined?

AI is a collection of technologies that give machines the ability to think more intelligently and mimic human sensing, comprehension, and action.

The natural language processing and inference engines can enable AI systems to analyze and understand the information collected.

An AI system can also take action through technologies such as expert systems and inference engines or undertake actions in the physical world.

These human-like capabilities are augmented by the ability to learn from experience and keep adapting over time.

AI systems are finding ever-wider application to supplement these capabilities across various sectors

Need to Codify Laws

Current laws are complex and opaque: Current laws in India pose many challenges, such as their complexity, opaqueness, and lack of a single source of truth.

The India Code portal does not provide complete information: The India Code portal is not enough to provide complete information about parent Acts, subordinate legislation, and amendment notifications.

AI can be used to provide comprehensive information: There is a need to make laws machine-consumable with a central law engine, which can be a single source of truth for all acts, subordinate pieces of legislation, gazettes, compliances, and regulations. AI can use this engine to provide information on applicable acts and compliances for entrepreneurs or recommend eligible welfare schemes for citizens.

Assisting Legislators

Potential of AI for legislators: AI can help Indian parliamentarians manage constituencies with a huge population by analysing citizens’ grievances and social media responses, flagging issues that need immediate attention and assisting in seeking citizen inputs for public consultation of laws and preparing a manifesto.

AI-powered assistance: Many Parliaments worldwide are now experimenting with AI-powered assistants.

For instance:

Netherlands’s Speech2Write system: The Speech2Write system in the Netherlands House of Representatives, which converts voice to text and translates voice into written reports.

AI tools Japan: Japan’s AI tool assists in preparing responses for its legislature and helps in selecting relevant highlights in parliamentary debates.

Brazil: Brazil has developed an AI system called Ulysses, which supports transparency and citizen participation.

NeVA portal India: India is also innovating and working towards making parliamentary activities digital through the ‘One Nation, One Application’ and the National e-Vidhan (NeVA) portal.

Simulating Potential Effects of Laws

Dataset modelling: AI can simulate the potential effects of laws by modelling various datasets such as the Census, data on household consumption, taxpayers, beneficiaries from various schemes, and public infrastructure.

Flag outdated laws: In that case, AI can uncover potential outcomes of a policy and flag outdated laws that require amendment.

For example: During the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897’ failed to address the situation when the virus overwhelmed the country. Several provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) are controversial and redundant, such as Article 309 (attempted suicide) of the IPC continues to be a criminal offense. Many criminal legislation pieces enacted more than 100 years ago are of hardly any use today.

India’s Space Industry: Enormous Potential

India requires supportive legislative and policy frameworks in order to fully benefit from the Second Space Age and its burgeoning space economy.

What does the Second Space Age mean?

Commercialization: The current period of greater commercialization and private sector involvement in space exploration, which started in the early 2000s, is referred to as the “Second Space Age.”

Private space enterprises have begun to appear, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. These firms are making significant investments in space infrastructure and technology.

Today’s space domain has many more actors once dominated by US and USSR: Compared to the First Space Age dominated by the US and the USSR, today’s space domain has many more actors, with a majority being private companies. Private companies account for 90% of global space launches since 2020, and India is no exception

Increasing involvement of non-spacefaring nations: The Second Space Age is also characterized by the increasing involvement of non-spacefaring nations in space exploration and the development of technologies that enable greater access to space for both commercial and scientific purposes.

Exploration: The hope is that this new era will lead to breakthroughs in areas like space tourism, asteroid mining, and Mars colonization, among others.

India’s Space Journey

India’s journey in space began modestly in the 1960s.

Societal objectives: Over the decades, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) prioritized societal objectives and benefits, such as developing satellite technology for mass communication, remote sensing for weather forecasting, resource mapping of forests, agricultural yields, groundwater and watersheds, fisheries and urban management, and satellite-aided navigation.

Enhanced launch capabilities: ISRO also developed satellite launch capabilities, beginning with the SLV-1 in the 1980s, followed by the PSLV series, which has become its workhorse with over 50 successful launches.

India’s Space Potential

Economy and employment: India’s space economy, estimated at $9.6 billion in 2020, is expected to be $13 billion by 2025. However, with an enabling policy and regulatory environment, the Indian space industry could exceed $60 billion by 2030, directly creating more than two lakh jobs.

Downstream activities: Downstream activities such as satellite services and associated ground segment are dominant, accounting for over 70% of India’s space economy.

Media and entertainment segment: Media and entertainment account for 26% of India’s space economy, with consumer and retail services accounting for another 21%.

The Growing Role of the Private Sector

Increasing space start ups: The Indian private sector is responding to the demands of the Second Space Age, with over 100 space start-ups today. From less than $3 million in 2018, investment in the sector has doubled in 2019 and crossed $65 million in 2021.

Potential of multiplier effect on economy: The sector is poised for take-off, as a transformative growth multiplier like the IT industry did for the national economy in the 1990s.

Way ahead: Creating an Enabling Environment

ISRO needs to focus on research and collaborate with the Indian private sector, which has different needs and demands.

To create an enabling environment for the private sector, India needs a space activity act that provides legal grounding, sets up a regulatory authority, and enables venture capital funding into the Indian space start-up industry.

Although a series of policy papers have been circulated in recent years, legislation is needed to provide legal backing and create an enabling environment for private sector growth.

16th Finance Commission to be constituted in November

The Sixteenth Finance Commission will be established by the Union government in November of this year to make recommendations for the method for allocating income between the Centre and the States for the five-year term commencing in 2026–2027.

The Finance Commission: What is it?

According to Article 280 of the Indian Constitution, the President of India established the Finance Commission (FC) in 1951.

It was established to outline the financial ties between the Indian national government and the various state governments.

The title, eligibility, and powers of the Finance Commission are also defined in the Finance Commission (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1951, along with the requirements for qualification, appointment, and disqualification.

As per the Constitution, the FC is appointed every five years and consists of a chairman and four other members.

Since the institution of the First FC, stark changes in the macroeconomic situation of the Indian economy have led to major changes in the FC’s recommendations over the years.

Constitutional Provisions

Several provisions to bridge the fiscal gap between the Centre and the States were already enshrined in the Constitution of India, including Article 268, which facilitates levy of duties by the Centre but equips the States to collect and retain the same.

Article 280 of the Indian Constitution defines the scope of the commission:

Who will constitute: The President will constitute a finance commission within two years from the commencement of the Constitution and thereafter at the end of every fifth year or earlier, as the deemed necessary by him/her, which shall include a chairman and four other members.

Qualifications: Parliament may by law determine the requisite qualifications for appointment as members of the commission and the procedure of selection.

Terms of references: The commission is constituted to make recommendations to the president about the distribution of the net proceeds of taxes between the Union and States and also the allocation of the same among the States themselves. It is also under the ambit of the finance commission to define the financial relations between the Union and the States. They also deal with the devolution of unplanned revenue resources.

Important functions

Devolution of taxes: Distribution of net proceeds of taxes between Center and the States, to be divided as per their respective contributions to the taxes.

Grants-in-aid: Determine factors governing Grants-in-Aid to the states and the magnitude of the same.

Augment states fund: To make recommendations to the president as to the measures needed to augment the Fund of a State to supplement the resources of the panchayats and municipalities in the state on the basis of the recommendations made by the finance committee of the state.

Any financial function: Any other matter related to it by the president in the interest of sound finance.

Members of the Finance Commission

The Finance Commission (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1951 was passed to give a structured format to the finance commission and to bring it to par with world standards.

It laid down rules for the qualification and disqualification of members of the commission, and for their appointment, term, eligibility and powers.

The Chairman of a finance commission is selected from people with experience of public affairs. The other four members are selected from people who:

Are, or have been, or are qualified, as judges of a high court,

Have knowledge of government finances or accounts, or

Have had experience in administration and financial expertise; or

Have special knowledge of economics

Key challenges ahead for 16th FC

Overlap with GST Council: A key new challenge for the 16th FC would be the co-existence of another permanent constitutional body, the GST Council.

Conflict of interest: The GST Council’s decisions on tax rate changes could alter the revenue calculations made by the Commission for sharing fiscal resources.

Feasibility of recommendations: Centre usually takes the Commission’s recommendations on States’ share of tax devolution and the trajectory for fiscal targets into account, and ignores most other suggestions.

Major outstanding recommendations

Creating a Fiscal Council: The 15th FC has suggested creating a Fiscal Council where Centre and States collectively work out India’s macro-fiscal management challenges, but the government has signalled there is no need for it, he pointed out.

Creating a non-lapsable fund for internal security: The centre accepted to set up a non-lapsable fund for internal security and defense ‘in principle’, its implementation still has to be worked out.

CSIR scientists identify Rare-Earth deposits in AP

Researchers at the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) in Hyderabad have found rare-earth elements (REEs) in the Andhra Pradesh region’s Anantapur district.

Rare-Earth Elements: What are they?

Lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, yttrium, hafnium, tantalum, niobium, zirconium, and scandium are some of the 17 elements that make up the rare-earth elements (REEs) group.

Due to their distinct magnetic, optical, and catalytic capabilities, these materials are frequently employed in contemporary electronics, including smartphones, computers, jet planes, and other items.

These materials have industrial applications in fields including imaging, aerospace, and defence and are essential parts of many electronic gadgets.

SHORE Project and discovery of REEs

The discovery was part of a study funded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under a project called ‘Shallow subsurface imaging Of India for Resource Exploration’ (SHORE).

NGRI scientists found enriched quantities of REEs in “whole rock analyses”.

Drilling for at least a kilometer deep will help ascertain the consistency of the elements’ presence underground.

Significance of the discovery

The discovery of REEs in Anantapur district is significant as these elements are in high demand worldwide, and their supply is limited.

REEs have become a subject of geopolitical concern due to their increasing demand and limited supply.

China is currently the world’s largest producer and exporter of rare-earth elements (REEs), accounting for more than 80% of global production.

The country has significant reserves of REEs and has invested heavily in mining and processing infrastructure.