✅ Top UPSC Current Affairs – 21 May 2025| Tackling Online Abuse, Suez Canal, Olivia, Suggi Migration

 

🛡️ Tackling Online Abuse in India – Simplified for UPSC

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SOURCE:-TH

📌 Why in News?

1. After the Pahalgam terror attack, a victim gave a peace message. But sadly, she was badly trolled online.

2. Also, India’s Foreign Secretary was abused online after saying peace about India-Pakistan.

3. These events show that cyber harassment is growing fast in India. Also, our laws and rules are not strong enough.

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💻 What is Online Abuse?

1. Online abuse means any bad or harmful behavior on internet. It can be verbal, threatening, or insulting.

2. It can happen to anyone – man, woman, child, or group – using mobile, laptop or any digital platform.

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🧩 Types of Online Abuse

1. Cyberbullying – is when someone is repeatedly threatened or insulted online in an attempt to make them feel depressed or afraid.

2. Cyberstalking – Following someone online, tracking them, sending unwanted messages again and again.

3. Trolling – Posting comments just to hurt someone or start a fight on internet.

4. Doxxing – Sharing someone’s private info (like phone number or address) without permission.

5. Revenge Porn – Sharing someone’s private photos/videos online without their consent. Mostly for blackmail.

6. Catfishing – Creating a false online persona in order to deceive or defraud someone is known as catfishing.

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📊 India’s Cyberbullying Situation

1. The world's highest rate of cyberbullying is found in India.

2. Approximately 85% of kids report having experienced cyberbullying.

3. Around 46% bullied strangers, and 48% bullied someone they knew.

4. Top forms of bullying:

   • Spreading fake rumors (39%)

   • Removing someone from group chats (35%)

   • Name-calling and insults (34%)

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⚖️ Legal Provisions to Fight Online Abuse

1. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023

New criminal law which replaces IPC. It talks about punishments for online crimes too.

2. Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000

• Section 66C – Punish for identity theft

• Section 66D – Impersonation fraud (pretending to be someone else online)

• Section 67 – Sending obscene material online

3. Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023

• Helps protect personal data from misuse.

• Punishes people who leak or misuse data leading to harassment.

4. IT Rules, 2021

• Platforms like WhatsApp must tell who sent the first message if it contains rape threats, violent content etc.

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⚖️ Important Court Judgments

1. Shaviya Sharma vs Squint Neon & Ors (2024)

   • Delhi High Court told to remove tweets that showed a woman’s private details. Said doxxing is dangerous.

2. Shreya Singhal vs Union of India (2015)

   • SC removed Section 66A of IT Act as it was misused to arrest people for online speech.

   • Said free speech is important but some restrictions should be very clear.

3. KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017)

   • SC said privacy is a fundamental right.

   • So leaking personal data without consent is wrong and punishable.

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😟 Challenges in Tackling Online Abuse in India

1. No Separate Law

   • India don’t have any one clear law for cyber abuse.

   • Most current laws only work if content is very obscene or threatening.

2. Gender Bias in Laws

   • Some stalking laws only apply when man stalks woman, not the other way or in group cases.

3. Weak Moderation by Social Media

   • Platforms like Facebook and Telegram don’t remove hate speech quickly in India.

   • They are more strict in US and Europe.

4. DPDP Act Confusion

   • It says public data can be used, but it doesn’t define clearly what “public” means.

   • So someone can collect info from internet and harass people using it.

5. Poor Implementation

   • Even existing laws are not used properly.

   • Police don’t take cases seriously. Victims are blamed.

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🛠️ Solutions & Remedial Steps

A. Legal Reforms

1. Make a new law for cyber harassment clearly talking about doxxing, deepfakes, and online mobs.

2. To explicitly define hate speech and abuse, the BNS and IT Act should be improved.

B. Better Enforcement

3. Make special cyber police teams in every state.

4. Train police to trace IP addresses and identify fake accounts.

5. Example: Kerala Cyberdome – Police + hackers + tech companies work together to stop online crime.

C. Platform-Level Solutions

6. Use AI and machine learning to auto-detect hate speech, deepfakes, and block them.

7. Verify users and punish fake accounts or bots.

D. Public Awareness

8. Teach digital safety in schools – how to behave online and how to spot fake news.

9. Run anti-trolling campaigns with actors, YouTubers to change mindset.

E. Corporate Responsibility

10. Social media companies should stop promoting hate for money.

11. They should do strict monitoring, like they do in Europe.

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✅ Conclusion (As if a person is talking)

You see, online abuse is not just a tech problem, it's a people problem also. We need strong laws, but also good heart and good behavior online. Like, you can't just say anything online and think it's freedom. Freedom comes with responsibility. And if someone is being harassed, they must feel safe to report it without being laughed at.

We all – government, police, tech companies and we users – must work together. Let’s make internet a safer place for all.

Suez Canal and the Security Crisis 🚢🌍

Source:-IE

1. The Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea are connected by Egypt's man-made Suez Canal.. It is a very important route for ships.

2. The canal separates Africa from the Sinai Peninsula and runs from Port Said in the north to the Gulf of Suez in the south.

3. This canal used to handle between 12–15% of world trade and 30% of container traffic..

4. Recently, attacks by Houthi militants disrupted shipping, so Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority gave discounts on transit fees to encourage ships to come back.

5. For India, the canal is very important because nearly 80% of India’s exports to Europe pass through it.

6. The canal also carries 8-9% of the world’s energy supplies, like oil and gas, making it very important for global energy security.

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Suggi Migration in Rayalaseema, Andhra Pradesh 🌾🚶‍♂️

Source:-TH

1. Suggi migration means seasonal migration, where thousands of families from Rayalaseema leave their villages every summer to find work.

2. Southern Andhra Pradesh's Rayalaseema region, which includes the districts of Anantapur, Chittoor, Kadapa, and Kurnool, is arid..

3. Farming here depends completely on monsoon rains (June to September). If rains fail, there is no second crop season.

4. In summer, ponds and tanks dry up, causing water shortage for drinking and farming. Borewells also fail.

5. There are very few non-farming jobs in villages, so people migrate to other places for work.

6. Government job schemes like MGNREGA pay about Rs 307 per day, but delays in payment make them unreliable.

7. Migrant work, like chilli harvesting, pays around Rs 1,000 per day, so many people prefer it.

8. Suggi migration shows a cycle of drought, poverty, and lack of jobs in Rayalaseema.

9. Experts suggest building irrigation projects, like a small dam (weir) to divert Krishna river water and help farming in Rayalaseema.

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 Operation Olivia and Olive Ridley Turtle Protection 🐢🌊

Source:-PIB

1. Operation Olivia is an annual operation by the Indian Coast Guard started in the 1980s.

2. Its aim is to protect Olive Ridley turtles during their breeding and nesting season along the Odisha coast, especially at Rushikulya and Gahirmatha.

3. Olive Ridley turtles are the smallest sea turtles, with olive or grey-green shells.

4. They are famous for mass nesting called arribada, where thousands of turtles come together to lay eggs.

5. Over 9,000 kilometers, these turtles travel across oceans.

6. Main nesting sites in India are Odisha coast and the Andaman Islands.

7. Threats include accidental catching in fishing nets (bycatch), poaching, habitat loss, plastic pollution, and climate change.

8. The IUCN Red List (Vulnerable), CITES (Appendix I), and the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) all provide protection for them.

9. Operation Olivia stops illegal fishing during nesting season to keep turtles safe. It has helped protect over 6.98 lakh (698,000) turtles at Rushikulya.